Serviceman Anton Tsymbal donated part of the archive of the author of the painting “Year 1933,” Viktor Tsymbal, to the Museum
On January 25, Anton Tsymbal, a Kyiv resident and currently a serviceman of the National Guard of Ukraine, donated artefacts to the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide from the archive of a couple, Viktor Tsymbal (1902–1968), a veteran of the UNR Army known as the “man of truth,” and Tetiana Mykhailivska-Tsymbal, a public figure and participant in the Ukrainian insurgent movement.
Viktor Tsymbal was born into a family of Ukrainian patriotic teachers. He studied in Kyiv and volunteered to join the ranks of the UNR defenders, was in internment camps in Poland, and received higher education in Art in both Czechoslovak and Ukrainian educational institutions in Czechoslovakia. From 1928 to 1960, Viktor lived in Argentina, where he was an activist and patron of the Ukrainian community. He raised money to help the starving in Ukraine, gained fame as one of the leading masters of advertising and industrial graphics in America, and created many outstanding works of art, including one of the most famous and earliest paintings on the theme of the Holodomor – “Year 1933”. The artist spent the last years of his life in the USA.
While handing over the artefacts, Anton Tsymbal said that the artist had lost connection with his family in the USSR for many decades. While handing over the artefacts, Anton Tsymbal said that the artist had lost connection with his family in the USSR for many decades. His sister, actress, public figure, and the Sixties member Tetiana Tsymbal (1908–1995), along with her daughter, public figure and museum worker Viktoria Tsymbal (1938–2024), piece by piece collected information about Viktor Tsymbal,”the remnants of his archive, some paintings that were left after his death.” Victoria Tsymbal worked on systematising the archive but did not complete the work. Anton Tsymbal inherited the archive, “organised it a little, photographed it, and examined it”. And when, in his opinion, “this huge event happened” – the return to Ukraine of the painting “Year 1933” to the Holodomor Museum through the efforts of the Tsymbal family, among others – Anton Tsymbal decided to hand over the exhibits to the museum’s funds “as a supplement to this painting.”
A representative of the Tsymbal family thanked the Holodomor Museum and its staff for their work in popularising and researching the figure and legacy of Viktor Tsymbal.
In turn, Deputy Director General of the Museum Sviatoslav Vovkun expressed gratitude to the donator on behalf of the Director General for preserving and handing the items from the archive of Viktor Tsymbal’s family to the museum’s funds. He assured that millions of people would see them and would realise and know more about this extraordinary figure.
Senior researcher of the Museum, Andriy Ivanets, spoke about the significance of artefacts from the Tsymbal’s archive for understanding the artist’s work and his iconic work – the painting “Year 1933”. Among the 11 artefacts, in particular, are the artist’s exhibition catalogues, at which, in 1956, a work about the Holodomor was exhibited in Buenos Aires and La Plata. The collection features a graphic portrait of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, who appealed to the United States for aid for starving Ukrainians in 1933. Additionally, there is a caricature depicting Joseph Stalin, the organizer of the genocide, and Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin, the creator of the Russian communist regime. Also included are rare stamps issued in the 1940s in Argentina, based on the artist’s sketches to aid Ukrainian refugees.
Reference. V. Tsymbal created the painting “Year 1933” in 1933–1936. In 1962, he donated it to the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in the USA, and in 2020, the latter transferred this work to the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide. The painting was showcased at an exhibition in the Museum’s Hall of Memory. It was restored in 2023 and, in December 2024, was included in the State Register of National Cultural Heritage.
