The historical significance of the ARMU during the NEP and Ukrainization

Abstract

The article examines the circumstances of the founding of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine (ARMU), its program principles and significance in the history of Ukrainian art in the second half of the 1920s — early 1930s. The cultural and political reasons and consequences of the introduction of the NEP, Ukrainization, collectivization and reform of art education in the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the changes that took place after the transfer of power in the USSR from V. Lenin to J. Stalin were analyzed. It was found that the ARMU was founded against the background of intensifying competition between left and right wings of art, as well as the emergence of branches of the Russian associations AHRR (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia) and LEF (Left Front of Art) in the Ukrainian SSR. It is shown how the connection of the ARMU with the Kyiv Art Institute (KKhI), its rector, teachers and students influenced the formation of a broad program of this association, which proclaimed the equality of all types of fine arts and design. It is analyzed how the resolutions of the Communist Party and the peculiarities of cultural policy in the field of fine arts in the Ukrainian SSR during the time of O. Shumsky and M. Skrypnyk influenced the activities of art associations and the ARMU in particular. The statements of the ideologists of the ARMU I. Vrona and V. Sedlyar about the realism and activity of the Russian association of the AKhRR in the Ukrainian SSR are analyzed. The consequences of the collapse of the NEP and Ukrainization, with the fight against formalism on the fate of the ARMU and its members were revealed.