We invite you to the game the “Word” House”

1930 year. Welcome to Kharkiv, the capital of the USSR.

The city, which is being developed every minute, is filled with meanings, people and authorities’ grandiose plans.
The exorbitant prices for housing forced artists to seek shelter in utility rooms, other people’s kitchens, and basements. In the mid-1920s, creators of culture turned to the authorities with a request for a building that would become a cooperative housing for writers.

Built at the end of the 1920s and inhabited in 1930, the “Word” House is located in Kharkiv at the address of st. Chervonyh Pysmennykiv, 5, now — str. Kultury, 9. The place where virtually all the most famous literary figures — writers, critics, editors and illustrators of that time — lived.

What is the game the “Word” House”?

The game allows you to feel the atmosphere of life in the 1930s when creativity coexisted with censorship and the oppressive fear of arrest. Participants will be able to examine portraits and autographs of the residents of the house, covers and illustrations of their books, learn stories from their private and creative lives, and even try on the role of a secret agent or photojournalist.

The game “Word House” was developed by the Kharkiv Literary Museum.

Why are we holding this game at the Holodomor Museum?

Arrests of the house residents began almost immediately after it was occupied – in January 1931. By 1938, the majority of residents had already been repressed. In the “Word” House,” the realities of the 1930s are recreated through the game form: dekulakization, torgsins, and searches, used by the totalitarian regime against Ukrainians who knew how to analyze, think, criticize and protest.

Raphael Lemkin, the author of the term “genocide”, called the destruction of the intelligentsia, the “brain of the nation”, one of the components of the genocide of the Ukrainian nation implemented by the leadership of the USSR.

The author of the game is Maryna Kutsenko.

Participation is free. The number of participants is limited.

WHEN: October 23;
TIME: 12:00 (duration – about 1 hour);
PLACE: the Holodomor Museum, st. Lavrska, 3 (10 minutes from Arsenalna metro station);
Pre-registration is required.

You can register via the link https://forms.gle/DNEAtTTUcn6H8VL46

Additional information: 044 254 45 11, [email protected]