Alla Oleksandrivna Horska (; 18 September 1929 – 28 November 1970) was a Ukrainian artist and

Soviet dissident Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union (USSR) in the period from the mid-1960s ...

who was associated with the

Ukrainian underground Ukrainian underground was a movement in Ukraine, Ukraine's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet period within Soviet nonconformist art from the late 1950s through the early 1990s. This art form was banned by several totalitarian countries of ...

and Sixtier movements during the 1960s. She was murdered in 1970; the official investigation reported at the time that she had been killed by her father-in-law, though Soviet archives have since revealed evidence suggesting the possible involvement of the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

Early life and family

Alla Horska was born on 18 September 1929 in Yalta, a city in Crimea then part of the

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

of the Soviet Union. Her father, Oleksandr Horskyi, was a leading manager and organizer of Soviet film production. During the early years of Alla's life, Horskyi worked as an actor in the Yalta Ukrainian theater troupe directed by Pavlo Deliavskyi. In 1931, he became the director of the

Yalta Film Studio Yalta (: ) is a resort town, resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crime ...

. In 1932, he moved with his family to Moscow, where he took on the role of head of production at the "Vostokfilm" trust. Later, he was transferred to Leningrad (now

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

), where he first became the deputy director and then the director of the

Lenfilm Lenfilm (, acronym of Leningrad Films) is a Russian production and distribution company with its own film studio located in Saint Petersburg (the city was called Leningrad from 1924 to 1991, thus the name). It is a corporation with its stakes s ...

studio. Horska's mother, Olena Bezsmertna, worked as a caregiver in Yalta children's sanatoriums and later as a costume designer in Leningrad. From autumn 1939 to spring 1940, Oleksandr Horskyi was involved in the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

, and shortly before

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...

, he went to Mongolia as the leader of a group for filming the movie

His Name Is Sukhe-Bator His Name Is Sukhe-Bator, () is a 1942 Soviet historical drama film directed by Iosif Kheifits and Aleksandr Zarkhi. Plot The film tells about the founder of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Damdin Sükhbaatar, Damdin Sukhe-Bator. Ca ...

. During the war, Horskyi was in

Almaty Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...

, employed at a collaborative film studio. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Alla, along with her mother and her brother Arsen, who was 10 years older, met the war in Leningrad. Arsen was the son of Alla's mother from her first husband, who died in the war in Ukraine in 1918–1919. Alla and her mother survived two blockaded winters in Leningrad and were evacuated to Almaty in the summer of 1943. Arsen was killed during the war in 1943. At the end of 1943, Alla's father was offered to lead the Kyiv Film Studio of Feature Films. This made the family to move to the capital of Ukraine. They settled in the centre of

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

. Later, their apartment, along with Alla Horska's workshop, became a sort of headquarters for dissidents. Between 1946 and 1948, Horska studied at the Kyiv Art Secondary School named after T. Shevchenko, where she graduated with a gold medal. One of her art instructors was Volodymyr Bondarenko, a former student of

Fedir Krychevsky Fedir Hryhorovych Krychevsky (; – July 30, 1947) was a Ukrainian early modernist painter. He was the brother of graphic designer Vasyl Krychevsky. Biography Krychevsky was born in Lebedyn, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empir ...

. From 1948 to 1954 she studied at the Kyiv State Art Institute, particularly in the workshop of Serhiy Hryhoriev. It was during her studies that she met her future husband,

Viktor Zaretsky Viktor Zaretsky (8 February 1925 - 23 August 1990) was a Ukrainian painter and artist. Personal life and education Viktor Zaretsky was born on the 8th of February 1925 in Bilopillia, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. As a child, he and his family mov ...

Khrushchev Thaw and the Sixtiers

Two years after completing her education, Horska began her career in monumental painting. She often traveled to the

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

with her husband. In 1959, she was admitted to the Union of Artists for her series of paintings on the mining industry. During the

Khrushchev Thaw The Khrushchev Thaw (, or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when Political repression in the Soviet Union, repression and Censorship in ...

, Ukrainian culture began to revive, and Horska actively participated in the process of national revival, alongside a generation of young intellectuals known as the

Sixtiers The Sixtiers (, ; "people of the 60s") were а new generation of young intellectuals who reawakened literature and a sense of Ukrainian nationalism within the Soviet intelligentsia. The Sixtiers entered the cultural and political life in Ukraine d ...

. In that period, she transitioned to speaking the Ukrainian language under the guidance of

Nadiya Svitlychna Nadiya Oleksiyivna Svitlychna (, born 8 November 1936, the village of Polovynkyne, Starobilsk district, Luhansk region — 8 August 2006, Irvington, New Jersey, United States) was a Ukrainian dissident and human rights activist, and an active m ...

; she had previously been raised in a Russophone family. In the early 1960s, Horska, together with Zaretsky,

Vasyl Stus Vasyl Semenovych Stus (; January 6, 1938 – September 4, 1985) was a Ukrainian poet, translator, literary critic, journalist, and an active member of the Ukrainian dissident movement. For his political convictions, his works were banned by th ...

Vasyl Symonenko Vasyl Andriiovych Symonenko (; 8 January 1935 – 13 December 1963) was a Ukrainian poet, journalist, activist of dissident movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Ukrainian literature of the early 1960s. In the opinion ...

, and

Ivan Svitlychnyi Ivan Oleksiyovych Svitlychnyi (Svetlichny; ; 1929–1992) was a Ukrainian poet, literary critic, and Soviet dissident. Biography Ivan Svitlychnyi was born on 20 September 1929 in Polovynkyne, Luhansk Oblast to a family of farmers. In 1952 he ...

, organized the

Artistic Youths' Club The Artistic Youths' Club () was a club of Sixtier intellectuals active in the city of Kyiv, Ukraine active from 1960 to 1964. It was one of the early organisations of the Ukrainian Soviet dissident movement, and preceded the emergence of samvyd ...

"Suchasnyk" in Kyiv. In addition to them,

Ivan Drach Ivan Fedorovych Drach (; 17 October 1936 – 19 June 2018) was a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, literary critic, politician, and political activist. Drach played an important role in the founding of Rukh – the People's Movement of Ukraine – ...

Yevhen Sverstiuk Yevhen Oleksandrovych Sverstiuk (; 13 December 1927 - 1 December 2014) was a Ukrainian literary critic, essayist, poet, think tank, philosopher, participant of the Sixtiers, sixtiers movement, and political prisoner of the Soviet regime. Sverstiu ...

, Iryna Zhylenko,

Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska Mykhailyna Khomivna Kotsiubynska (18 December 1931 — 7 January 2011) was a Ukrainian literary critic, translator, and active participant of the Sixties movement. Laureate of many prestigious Ukrainian awards: Oles Biletsky Award (1993), Vasyl S ...

Mykola Vinhranovsky Mykola (, ) is a Slavic variant, more specifically a Ukrainian and Belarusian variant, of the masculine name "Nicholas", meaning "victory of the people". It may refer to: People *Mykola Arkas (1853–1909), Ukrainian composer, writer, historia ...

, Les Tanyuk, and

Ivan Dziuba Ivan Mykhailovych Dziuba (; 26 July 1931 – 22 February 2022) was a Ukrainian literary critic, social activist, and Soviet dissident. Honoured as a Hero of Ukraine in 2001, Dziuba was an academic of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the ...

were also involved. The young artists held discussions, artistic evenings, organized exhibitions, engaged in

samvydav Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual repr ...

, and provided each other with moral and material support. The activities of "Suchasnyk" extended beyond literary events. Along with Symonenko and Tanyuk, Horska discovered the burial sites of thousands of victims of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

(

Bykivnia The Bykivnia graves () are a National Historic Memorial next to the former village of Bykivnia (, ) within Kyiv woodland, Bykivnia Forest. During the Stalinist period in the Soviet Union, it was one of the unmarked mass grave sites where the NK ...

, Lukyanivske, and Vasilkivske cemeteries). They immediately reported their findings to the

Kyiv City Council Kyiv City Council (, ), also known as Kyivrada (), is the city council of Kyiv municipality, the highest representative body of the city community. The members of city council are directly elected by Kyivans and the council is chaired by the M ...

Repression

In 1964, Horska, together with Opanas Zalyvakha,

Liudmyla Semykina Liudmyla Nikolaevna Semykina () (23 August 1924 – 12 January 2021) was an artist and Painting, painter from Odesa, Ukraine, and an Merited Artist of Ukraine, Honored Artist of Ukraine (2009). She was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize, Taras ...

Halyna Sevruk Halyna Sylvestrivna Sevruk (, ; 18 May 1929 – 13 February 2022) was a Ukrainian artist who was particularly notable for her ceramics and mosaics. Her art often incorporated themes related to Ukrainian history and culture. She was a member of t ...

, and Halyna Zubchenko, created the stained glass "Shevchenko. Mother" in the vestibule of the main building of

Kyiv University The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

. It depicted a poet with a woman leaning against him "symbolizing Mother Ukraine". However, shortly before the unveiling, at the direction of the party leadership, the university administration destroyed it. After this incident, a commission classified the stained glass as ideologically hostile and deeply incompatible with the principles of socialist realism. Horska and Semykina were expelled from the Artists' Union, but they were reinstated a year later. In 1965, many of Horska's friends were arrested. This period marked the beginning of her active involvement in the

movement, leading to her artistic activities being relegated to the underground. On 16 December 1965, Horska wrote a letter to the prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR regarding the arrests. Horska corresponded with those who were in camps or experienced other forms of punishment, particularly with Zalyvakha. After returning from the camps, human rights activists turned to her for support, sometimes even staying at her apartment in Kyiv. Between 1965 and 1968, Horska took part in protests against the repressions of Ukrainian human rights activists, including Bohdan and Mykhailo Horyn, Opanas Zalyvakha, Sviatoslav Karavansky,

Valentyn Moroz Valentyn Yakovych Moroz (Ukrainian: Валенти́н Я́кович Моро́з; 15 April 1936 – 16 April 2019) was a Ukrainian writer and political prisoner. His resistance to persecution by the communist authorities made him a popular hero, ...

Viacheslav Chornovil Viacheslav Maksymovych Chornovil (; 24 December 1937 – 25 March 1999) was a Ukrainian Soviet dissident, independence activist and politician who was the leader of the People's Movement of Ukraine from 1989 until his death in 1999. He spent fi ...

, and others. Because of this, she was persecuted by the Soviet security services. In 1968, Horska joined the signing of a public letter addressed to

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

Alexei Kosygin Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (–18 December 1980) was a Soviet people, Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980 and, alongside General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, was one of its most ...

, and

Nikolai Podgorny Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny ( – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977. Podgorny was born to a Ukrainian working-c ...

, known as "Letter of Protest 139". The letter demanded an end to the practice of illegal political processes and drew attention to the departure from the decisions of the

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union () was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's " Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictator ...

and violations of socialist legality. Administrative repression began against those who signed the letter. Horska was expelled from the Union of Artists for the second time. She would remain under constant

surveillance, and repeatedly received threatening phone calls. In 1970, Horska was summoned to

Ivano-Frankivsk Ivano-Frankivsk (, ), formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislav and Stanisławów, is a city in western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as well as Ivano-Frankivsk Raion within the oblast. Ivano-Frankivsk also host ...

for questioning regarding the arrest of

, but she refused to answer any questions. Several days before her murder, she wrote a protest to the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR regarding the illegality and cruelty of the verdict.

Death

Horska was murdered in 1970 while under surveillance by the KGB. Her funeral was on 7 December 1970. On 28 November 1970, Horska went to the town of Vasylkiv near Kyiv to pick up a sewing machine from her father-in-law and never returned. Several days later, her body was found in the house of her father-in-law, Ivan Zaretsky. The cause of death was stated as blunt force trauma from a hammer. Zaretsky was already deceased at that time; his mutilated body was found on the railway tracks on 29 November. The investigation was conducted within a month, reaching the conclusion that Zaretsky had killed Horska due to personal animosity before committing suicide by throwing himself under a train. The findings came under immediate suspicion, and rumours spread that Horska had been killed by the KGB. Her funeral turned into a political rally for dissidents. Several of those who spoke at her funeral, including Stus and Sverstiuk, would later be arrested. 38 years after Horska's murder, the State Archives of the

Security Service of Ukraine The Security Service of Ukraine ( ; abbreviated as SBU [] or SSU) is the main Internal security, internal security agency of the Government of Ukraine, Ukrainian government. Its main duties include counter-intelligence activity and combati ...

declassified "Fund 16", a group of documents including those relating to her death. These documents were processed and published in 2010 by Horska's son, Oleksii Zaretskyi. Public broadcaster

Suspilne Kultura Suspilne Kultura () is a Ukrainian public TV channel showcasing culture in Ukraine, operated by the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine. History The State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Culture" emerged in Ukraine in 2002 as ...

stated in 2024 that there was a "reasonable evidence base" that Horska had been murdered by the KGB.

Art

Horska created dozens of works: mosaics, murals, stained glass, etc. She left behind a significant artistic legacy, including a series of portraits of Ukrainian figures from the 1960s, including Svitlychnyi, Symonenko and Sverstiuk, paintings such as ''Alphabet'', ''Self-Portrait with Son'', as well as monumental compositions like ''Tree of Life'' in Mariupol (jointly with other authors), ''Bird-Woman'' and ''Prometheus'' in Donetsk (jointly with other authors), mosaic panel ''Flag of Victory'' in the ''Young Guard'' museum in Krasnodon (jointly with other authors), and others. After graduating from the university, she actively participated in the country's artistic life: she exhibited her works at exhibitions (in 1957, at three exhibitions, including the International Exhibition of Fine and Applied Arts as part of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow); she also fulfilled orders from the Ministry of Culture of the Ukrainian SSR (in 1957 - the painting ''My Donbas'', in 1959 - a group portrait of the communist labor brigade led by P. Polshchykov). During the period from 1960 to 1961, she worked in the village of

Hornostaipil Hornostaipil (, , Yiddish: ''Horensteipl, Hornosteipel'') is a Ukrainian village in northern Ukraine, which is part of Vyshhorod Raion within Kyiv Oblast. It belongs to Ivankiv settlement hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Geography The ...

Chernobyl Raion Chernobyl Raion () or Chornobyl Raion () was a raion in the Soviet Union located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was one of 26 administrative raions (districts) of Kyiv Oblast in northern Ukraine. After the Chernobyl disaster, the ...

, Kyiv Oblast. Horska's son, Oleksiy Zaretskyi, believes that it was during this time that she "fully found her artistic language—not only artistic, but also the emotional component of life." This idea is supported by works such as ''Collective Farm Woman Portrait'', ''Geese'', and ''Pripyat. Ferry'' (all 1961). Bold elongated compositions, monumental flat forms, vibrant color schemes (she may have used tempera technique for the first time, which later became her favorite), indicate the emergence of a new phenomenon in Ukrainian art that contradicts official socialist realist standards.

Selected works

* "Sancommission", diploma painting * "Self-Portrait", drawing, 1960s * "Self-Portrait with Son" * Portrait of miner Vasyl Kryvynets, late 1950s * "Song about Donbass", 1957 * Portrait of father, 1960 * Painting in memory of deceased mother "Children (Hania, Mykhailo, Petro)" * "Alphabet", 1962 * "Pripyat. Ferry", 1962–1963 * "Duma" (T. Shevchenko), 1963 * Portrait of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, graphic art, 1960s * Portrait of theater director Les Taniuk, drawing, early 1960s * Portrait of B. Antonenko-Davydovych, drawing, early 1960s * "Sunflower. Portrait of Son", drawing, early 1960s * "Mother by the stove", early 1960s * "Mother-Ukraine in chains", early 1960s * "Say, that the truth will revive", 1963 * Portrait of V. Symonenko, 1963 * Portrait of I. Svitlychny, 1963 * Portrait of Y. Sverstyuk, 1963 * "By the river", decorative composition, 1964 * Composition (male figure in profile), 1963–1964 * , mosaic, Donetsk, 1966 (preserved) * , mosaic, Kyiv, 1967-1968 (preserved in damaged state)

References

External links

Alla Horska on WikiArt

Алла Горська перейшла на українську мову у зрілому віці

Horska, Alla

ГОРСЬКА АЛЛА

Алла Горська – вбита за любов до України

* ttps://treasures.ui.org.ua/horska_ua Алла Горська (1929-1970 рр.) Лідерка шістдесятників
Алла Горська, художницяA Soviet Ukrainian Alla Horska , Beyond East and West

Sources

* Життєпис мовою листів. �лла Горська/ Упорядник Людмила ОГНЄВА. – Донецьк: Музей “Смолоскип”, 2013. – 518 с. * Зарецька Т.І. ГОРСЬКА Алла Олександрівна �лектронний ресурс// Енциклопедія історії України: Т. 2: Г-Д / Редкол.: В. А. Смолій (голова) та ін. НАН України. Інститут історії України. - К.: В-во "Наукова думка", 2004. - 688 с.: іл. * АЛЛА ГОРСЬКА. КВІТКА НА ВУЛКАНІ – Донецьк: Норд Комп’ютер. 2011. – 336 с. * Плеяда нескорених: Алла Горська. Опанас Заливаха. Віктор Зарецький. Галина Севрук. Людмила Семикіна: біобібліогр. нарис / авт. нарису Л. Б. Тарнашинська ; бібліограф-упоряд. М. А. Лук'яненко ; наук. ред. В. О. Кононенко ; М-во культури України, ДЗ «Нац. парлам. б-ка України». — К., 2011. — 200 с. — (Шістдесятництво: профілі на тлі покоління; вип. 13) * Алла Горська : Червона тінь калини : листи, спогади, статті / ред. та упоряд. О. Зарецький, М. Маричевський. – Київ: Спалах ЛТД, 1996. – 240 с. : кольор.іл. * Огнєва, Людмила. Перлини українського монументального мистецтва на Донеччині / Людмила Огнєва. – Івано-Франківськ: Лілея, 2008. – 51 c. : іл. {{DEFAULTSORT:Horska, Alla Ukrainian dissidents 20th-century Ukrainian painters 1929 births 1970 deaths People from Yalta National Academy of Arts of Ukraine National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture alumni Shevchenko State Art School alumni People killed in KGB operations Ukrainian anti-Soviet resistance movement