The Wall of Memory: The Lost Ukrainian Monument
Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko working on The Wall of Memory. All images provided by the AVRM Foundation.
In 1982, the would-be largest bas-relief in Europe, Kyiv’s The Wall of Memory, was buried under concrete and erased from history. The bas-relief was the work of Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko. Amongst the Ukrainian art world, the loving couple are well-recognised with their AVRM-signed works, but their work has not seen mass-attention from the outside world and thus the ongoing restoration project of their magnum opus is yet to gain significant financial aid.
The two Kyiv-born artists fell in love during their studies at the Kyiv State Art Institute and their shared diploma work - Winter Shore of the White Sea, Kolguyev Island - sparked a decade-lasting shared passion: the two students travelled to the arctic Nenets region in the Russian Far North in 1954, a trip they repeated many times throughout their twenties and thirties, creating works of art inspired by this unexplored society and environment. Upon meeting the indigenous Nenets of northern Siberia, who engaged in traditional reindeer herding, shamanism and a nomadic lifestyle, the two created vivid collages, sculptures, tempera work and most famously monotype prints as testaments to their culture. The Nenets portraits became pivotal for the establishment of the Nenets Local Lore Museum. These artworks carried special weight given the forced collectivisation and relocation of the Nenets people under the Soviet regime. Their language, religion, and knowledge was greatly threatened by Stalin’s rule. Rybachuk and Melnychenko’s pictures act as mementos not just of their time in the North but the civilisation they encountered there.
After illustrating stories and teaching art to students on the island, the pair returned to Kyiv to begin construction on their magnum opus - The Wall of Memory. This project included a modernist crematorium as well as a surrounding wall with expressive sculptures that would pay homage to the tragedies of human history. The whole ensemble was to be reflected in a man-made lake. The sculptures spread over the 2,200 square metre expanse included Prometheus, Adam and Eve, and the beginning of war. It was supposed to be the largest bas-relief in Europe and a huge landmark for Ukraine. The 13 years of construction from 1968 to 1981 saw the bending of over 95 tons of rebar as a frame to the monument - but the construction crew would soon have to carry out the demolition of the piece on the order of the authorities of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The ideological watchdogs argued that it did not correspond to socialist realist principles and claimed that their models had “Jewish features” and especially “non-Slavic noses.” Thus, the piece was buried in 500 truckloads of cement due to the anti-Semitic and culturally-restrictive policies of the communist authorities.
The Wall of Memory.
The couple dreamed of restoring the work until their final days. Unfortunately, only Volodymyr lived to see sections of the work be unveiled in 2018 and 2021. With his death in April 2023, the two are now buried in the crematorium they built. The AVRM foundation is still working on negotiations to fully restore the piece. This could be a grand event in the cultural life of Kyiv and reveal an emblem of the city reflecting its struggle against Russian domination; but ultimately, the work would be a powerful embodiment of the piece’s secondary name: The Triumph of Life over Death. The couple fought to express the idea that life during times of tragedy should celebrate the invincible power of creativity, joy and love.
Volodymyr Melnychenko and a section of The Wall of Memory.