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Honchar’s work and expressed his indignation at how the KGB was treating the artist, by writing an open letter to KGB officials. This action was unprecedented, and as could have been expected, very shortly B. Kovhar was arrested and sent to a psychiatric hospital for many years. Many in the Ukrainian intelligentsia were intimidated by the KGB and published their repentence in the press. Ivan Makarovych endured even more than being expelled from the party and the Attists’ Association. He often complained that the Association is not really interested in folk art and his museum, and does not invite him to participate in exhibits and its meetings. I remember 1980. Ivan Makarovych was 70 years old that year and I wanted to inform people about him and his museum. I wrote an article, but three publications refused to print it, only "Pamiatky Ukrajiny” published a few lines without any signature. Then I sent my article to a Moscow publication ’’Dekoratyvnoje Yskustvo”, and there it was published (no. 5, 1982). Shortly after that the publication received a phone call from the Associa tion of Artists of Ukraine, characterizing I. Honchar as a person hostile to the Soviet government, not worthy of being published. Instead of helping him in his work, his fellow countrymen wanted to harm him — typical example of ’’class vigilance.” Nevertheless, Ivan Honchar proudly and without any compromise carried on his mission. The doors of his museum were always open to the public. He always greeted visitors in an embroidered shirt, asked where they came from, about their family tree, and talked about memorabilia of our ancient culture that were pre served. He often suggested to the visitors to be photo graphed in a Ukrainian costume. Ivan Makarovych constantly introduced visitors to the poetic nature of our people, with his high artistic taste and ability to create beauty. He illustrated this abil ity with folk costumes, samples of folk painting, Easter eggs, ceramics, etc. He also emphasized the importance of religious art, especially the Ukrainian icon. From him we learned about the local schools of folk painting, about the local folk artists who often painted icons using their parents and friends as models. To reinforce this he cited these words from a song: I will paint my mother on an icon in the house I will gaze upon the icon —reminding me of mother I will turn away, tears blinding my eyes. Back in the 1950’s Ivan Honchar collected quite a lot of icons from the various villages of Shevchenko’s “kraj.” He proudly told listeners that some of these icons were painted by the husband of Taras Shevchen ko’s sister, and some by Taras Shevchenko himself. Ivan Makarovych knew how to evaluate and differ entiate art from all regions of Ukraine. He knew the value of each art piece, and when he talked about tow els from the Poltava region, Hutsul Easter eggs or a painted trunk, which was supposedly owned by Dmytro Artist: Ivan Honchar. Javornycky, he caressed each item as a mother her child. He invited visitors to see portraits of Ukrainian hetmans, and at the same time a photograph of a com mon woman from a village. It was very crowded in Honchar’s house, many arti cles were buried underneath and could not be viewed. Nevertheless, Honchar decided to show me his com plete collection of towels. I don’t think any museum has a similar collection — here you can find towels from medieval times, towels from all different regions, embroi dered by all well-known experts, using all possible techniques. Only in this museum can you familiarize yourself with towels made by nuns of Chyhyryn, “sewn” towels from Obychiv (made by men), towels made with applique (southern Kyyivshchyna), “mourning” towels (used in funerals), etc. Before the tragedy of Chornobyl, Ivan Honchar showed me towels with black ’’cranes” from the Na- rodyckyj rayon, Zhytomyrska oblast (woven with a now forgotten technique ’’pereklad”.) When I think about this towel and those which I myself found in Zhytomyr, Polissia, as well as local ancient kylyms, with kozaks and kulaks woven on them, they symbolize to me a requiem to our suffering land. Only in Narodyckyj rayon 20 villages were evacuated, 12 more are to be evacu ated. And in those empty villages no one will ever make such towels or kylyms. With Honchar’s advice I found in Borodianshchyna black ’’namitky” (used to cover the feet of a deceased 18 ’’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ГРУДЕНЬ 1993 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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