On October 30, 1882, Mykhailo Boychuk was born, the founder of a unique school of Ukrainian monumentalism – Boychukism. He suffered persecution from the ideological ancestors of the modern totalitarian Russian regime, was executed by the NKVD together with his students in 1937, and found his final resting place in the infamous Bykivnyanskyi Forest. His figure and legacy deserve much closer attention.
Mykhailo Boychuk
Treasures from everywhere
Mykhailo Boychuk was the firstborn in a large peasant family with nine children. Thanks to the support of his teachers, he mastered painting at the Lviv School of Arts. He continued his studies in Vienna, at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, and in Munich. All this time, the talented artist was financially supported by Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky and the Shevchenko Scientific Society. From 1908 to 1911, he improved his skills in Paris. There he founded his first school, the “workshop of neo-Byzantine art” Renovation Byzantine. At an exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, Boychukists presented 18 works, united under the title “Revival of Byzantine Art,” and received many favorable reviews. In 1911, Mykhailo Boychuk returned to Ukraine. Not alone, but with his wife, one of his most talented students, the artist Sophia Nalepinska. And with his own style, which was rooted in Byzantine art, the pictorial traditions of Kyivan Rus', and medieval Ukrainian painting.
Advertising. 
Mykhailo Boychuk at work
In Ukraine
Mykhailo Boychuk first restored historical monuments in Lviv and Chernihiv Oblast, and in 1917 moved to Kyiv, where he became a co-founder of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts and the head of the monumental workshop. The volume of work he was involved in over the next few years is impressive. He prepared theatrical scenery for Kurbas's performances at the Young Theater. He restored frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral and works from the collection of the Khanenko Museum. He painted the propaganda steamer “Bolshevik”, decorated the May Day holiday and the Kyiv Opera for the congress of representatives of the volost executive committees. In 1920, he created a famous poster with lines from “The Testament” for the Shevchenko holiday. In 1923, he designed the Ukrainian pavilion at the VDNH in Moscow. In 1924, Mykhailo Boychuk took up the position of professor at the Kyiv Art Institute, and a year later he became a co-founder and member of the ARMU (Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine), which shunned naturalistic Soviet realism. More precisely, the content of the works of Mykhailo Boychuk and his students was fully consistent with the historical era, but each of them was dominated by a recognizable national form.
Mykhailo Boychuk with students
“Sect”, artel, family
It is known that Mykhailo Boychuk encouraged collectivism in art, telling his students: “Don't be afraid to lose your individuality. Look closely at who works better. Individuality will manifest itself when the master matures.” He also refused to participate in exhibitions, because he believed that monumental art is always collective and is constantly exhibited – in public buildings and on squares. Joint work, as in the Renaissance, was one of the main principles of his school-workshop. Boychukists made their own paints – on yolks, as in ancient times, according to recipes found by the teacher. It was also about obeying him in everything, studying for at least seven years and, God forbid, getting married during this time – despite the despotic demands of the brilliant Boychuk, there were plenty of those captivated by the master's charisma and talent. Instead, he devoted almost all his time to his students, some of whom simply lived with him, they all went to museums together, studied and discussed examples of painting, and took on agitational side jobs collectively. Together with his students, Mykhailo Boychuk created over 20 monumental paintings, such as: Lutsk Barracks in Kyiv (1919), Selyansky Sanatorium near Odessa (1928), Chervonozavodsky Theater in Kharkiv (1933-35).
Mykhailo Boychuk. The Prophet Elijah. For the “Dyakivska Bursa” in Lviv.
The Shot Renaissance
From the very beginning, they said about Mykhailo Boychuk's monumental works: beautiful, like in a church. Rumor has it that later, in the 1920s, colleagues accused Boychuk of the same thing: he painted peasants and workers as saints on icons – and this was no longer a compliment, but a warning. In the 1930s, critics were quick to point out that he had “moved away from socialist realism”, “distorted Soviet reality”, and that Boychuk's “Byzantium is religious opium”. On November 25, 1936, Mykhailo Boychuk was arrested. After six months of interrogations, the brilliant artist was charged with being one of the “leaders of a national-fascist terrorist organization”, who “supported Hitler's ideas” and aimed to “separate Ukraine from the Soviet Union and create a Ukrainian national-fascist state”. On July 13, 1937, Mykhailo Boychuk, along with his students Ivan Lypkivsky (son of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky), Ivan Padalka, and Vasyl Sedlyar, were shot. On December 11, 1937, Boychuk's first wife, Sofia Nalepinska-Boychuk, was shot on similar charges. After the execution, almost all of the monumental works of the Boychukists were plastered over as “the consequences of their subversive work,” and most of the sketches were burned.
Mykhailo Boychuk
See the most famous works of the legendary artist Mykhailo Boychuk below:
