Pyotr Ilyich Bilan (russian: Петр Ильич Билан; 21 July 1921 – 22 September 1996) was an honored

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * Som ...

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, easels are traditionally used by painters to support a painting while they work on it, normally ...

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 ( uk, Запоріжжя) or Zaporozhye (russian: Запорожье) is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper River. It is the administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia has a popula ...

region,

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

. He was a soldier in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and was recruited in 1940. He became a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is 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 ...

when captured in the

Belarusian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

close to the Polish border in July 1941 by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. 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 ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

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 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 H ...

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 Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrat ...

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

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

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 Kyiv Art Institute (KHI) uk, Київський художній інститут, russian: Киевский художественный институт (1924-1930) was the Ukrainian state art and technical high school which is the historical inh ...

1949–1955. He was a member of the

USSR Academy of Arts The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the Thre ...

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 The Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum of Lviv ( uk, Національний музей у Львові імені Андрея Шептицького) is one of Ukraine's largest museums, dedicated to Ukrainian culture in all its manifestations. I ...

and other museums of the 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