Pyotr Ilyich Bilan (; 21 July 1921 – 22 September 1996) was an honored

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

- Ukrainian painter working in the genre of

easel An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, painters traditionally use an easel to support a painting while they work on it, normally stan ...

painting. His works particularly include portraits, landscapes and thematic paintings.

Biography

Pyotr Ilyich Bilan was born on 7 July 1921, in the village of Novonikolaevka in the

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

region,

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. He was a soldier in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and was recruited in 1940. He became a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

when captured in the

Belarusian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and ...

close to the Polish border in July 1941 by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. He was deported to different unknown locations and escaped a prisoner camp in Badisch-Rheinfelden after having been condemned to death on Easter in 1942. He escaped the camp by breaking the barbed wire and swimming across the partly frozen

River Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Swiss-Austrian border. From Lake Const ...

to Switzerland by night. In Switzerland, he was sheltered by a farmer family and spent a few days in prison in Rheinfelden. He was the first Russian

who escaped to Switzerland from Germany in

. Thereafter, Germany requested from Switzerland that Pyotr Bilan be delivered and made him a Reichsverbrecher. He was then brought to

Aarau Aarau (, ) is a List of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital of the northern Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Aargau. The List of towns in Switzerland, town is also the capital of the d ...

and in 1943 he joined other refugees in

Mönthal Mönthal is a municipality in the district of Brugg in canton of Aargau in Switzerland. History Originally it was a fortified late Bronze Age hilltop settlement. Additionally, a Roman bronze figure was discovered in the village. During the Hi ...

as a translator where he had time to paint. Whilst in Switzerland, he visited the art school for interned Italians in Kirchberg. Pyotr Bilan then escaped to France and traveled via Southern Italy, Egypt, and the Black Sea to

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

, where he arrived in 1945. He visited Switzerland and Germany later in his life. He lived and worked in

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, ...

and died on 22 September 1996.

Art and career

Before World War II, Pyotr Bilan studied at the Odessa Art College from 1937 to 1948. After the war, he studied at the Leningrad Art College from 1946 to 1948 and the Kyiv Art Institute 1949–1955. He was a member of the

USSR Academy of Arts The Academy of Arts of the Soviet Union (Russian: Акаде́мия худо́жеств СССР) was the highest artistic institution in the field of visual arts in the Soviet Union. History After the Imperial Academy of Arts was liquidated, ...

and took part in art exhibitions within the UdSSR as well as abroad. His paintings reside in the Kyiv Historical Museum, the Lviv National Museum and other museums of Ukraine and in private collections throughout the world.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilan, Pyotr Ilyich 1921 births 1996 deaths 20th-century Russian painters Russian male painters Soviet painters Socialist realist artists Russian landscape painters Soviet military personnel of World War II Honored Artists of the Russian Federation 20th-century Russian male artists