The opening of “Broken circle” museum exhibition
November 22 at 14.00 at the building of the National Museum “Holodomor Victims Memorial” (3, Lavrska street), presentation of the exhibition “Broken Circle” will be held.
What is a holiday?
Is there a place for holidays in our lives?
Which holidays are the main ones for each of us?
What do Ukrainians celebrate today?
Which days are holidays in their lives?
Attempts to find answers to these questions led us to an analysis of the current state of calendar holidays in Ukraine. Asking these questions, we sadly realise that for a significant part of Ukrainians no “holy” holidays are left, calendar holidays have lost their sacredness. We celebrate everything: Soviet, church, European, and do not even try to understand why. Congratulations to women on the 8th of March with dull tulips – because it is so necessary to give something on this particular day. We do not know what to do on May 1 and 2 – not all people have gardens, so we go to barbecues. We cheer up on May 9 because “our ancestors were fighting”. For Easter we paint eggs and go to church – why we do so is also unclear. Madly we are looking for New Year’s gifts. And this is all year round, for decades. Only those who were born and raised in the part of Ukraine where there was no genocide will not recognize themselves in this list.
Today Ukraine is on a different path following the genuine independence. The first step on this way is to get rid of the Soviet past burden. Bodies of state authority began the process of decommunization, and if the Lenin fall was mostly supported by Ukrainians, the decommunization of the holidays caused just a flurry of emotions: “How can it be so, we are deprived of our holidays, which we celebrated all our life – March 8, May 1, May 9? Is it possible so? These are our holidays” and so on and so forth.
Step by step, we will show how the Soviet government got rid of Ukrainian traditional holidays by introducing their own ones. We want to talk about the main thing – what Ukrainians should have become and finally became in a result of the introduction of these holidays and also about the pursued purpose by the Soviet leaders behind it. We will try to urge you to reflect on who we are; to understand who are Ukrainians and what is ours.
Curator:
Hanna Sokyrina
Scientific consultants:
Valentyna Borysenko
Olesya Stasiuk
Hennadii Yefymenko
Co-organizers:
Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine
National Historical Library of Ukraine
Central State CinePhotoPhono Archives of Ukraine named after H. Pshenychnyi
(TsDKFFA of Ukraine)
Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology
The national center of folk culture “Ivan Honchar Museum”
The Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine
State Archives of Vinnytsia Region
Special thanks for:
Anatolii Haydamaka, Serhii Shevchuk, Iryna Litichevska