Russian Nazis stole many valuable exhibits from the collection of the Kherson Art Museum.

 Among them are three paintings by the outstanding marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky.We are talking about the works “The storm subsides”, “View of the city of Odessa” and “The sea”.

As it was reported on the artist’s birthday in the Kherson museum, Aivazovsky’s canvases became an obsessive idea for the invaders – it was they who first of all stole them from the museums of the occupied cities and used them to measure the value of other exhibits.

“Calling Aivazovsky a “great Russian artist” (because he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts), the Russians “cross out” all the “non-canonical” facts of his life, which we decided to remember on the day of his birth. 

Love for Ukraine in the future artist was nurtured by his Armenian father, whose ancestors in the 18th century. moved from Western Armenia to Galicia, and in 1812 he moved his family to the Crimea. 

There, in Feodosia, on July 29, 1817, Hovhannes Aivazyan was born, whom the world will know as Ivan Aivazovsky. Nostalgic for his distant homeland, the father of the family loved to host traveling bandurists at home. 

When they sang Ukrainian songs together, little Hovhannes tried to accompany them on the violin. Many years later, at a solemn evening in St. Petersburg, Aivazovsky brilliantly performed these Ukrainian melodies heard in his childhood on the violin.

The artist also liked to travel in Ukraine, the museum noted: “All his life, Aivazovsky was drawn to the cultural Ukrainian community and often traveled to the cities of Ukraine, had close ties with the Kherson region, and was friends with the Falz-Fein family. 

Every summer, on his way back from St. Petersburg to the Crimea, Aivazovsky stayed there, had his own room set up as a workshop, and gave his works to his friends. 

By the way, Sofia Bohdanivna Falz-Fein contributed to the appearance of a number of his Ukrainian-themed paintings.”
DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS!

(C)DUMSKAYA.NET 2023