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Alla
Alexandrovna Gorskaya

Ukraine • 1929−1970

Biography and information

Alla Alexandrovna Gorskaya (09/18/1929, Yalta - 11/28/1970, Vasilkov) - Ukrainian artist, human rights activist, dissident. In Ukraine, mosaic panels remained, which Gorskaya created in collaboration with other creators.

Features of creativity. In monumental painting, Gorskaya was a successor of creative ideas. Mikhail Boychuk. In theater painting, she inherited early Anatoly Petritsky. At the same time, the artist’s manner remained vivid and distinctive.

Famous works. "ABC", "Cossack Mamai", "Dance", "A sketch of a stained-glass window in the lobby of Kiev National University. T. Shevchenko, "Sunflowers"sketching mosaic "The banner of victory", "Portrait of the poet Ivan Svetlychny".

How to leave the “golden youth” in dissidentism

Alla Gorskaya was the daughter of a major film production official. She moved to Kiev when her father was appointed to head the local studio. Her father drove her to the school driver on the departmental "Volga". Allochka had no need. She was released from studying the Ukrainian language according to a statement from her father: the parent considered that it was useless for her daughter to bother with something that would never come in handy. And just then, Ukraine became the force that pulled Gorskaya out of the “golden youth” and made it a dissident, actively resisting the then authorities. The artist independently learned mov, and in her works Ukrainian motives began to appear more and more persistently.

At the end of a short life (Alla Alexandrovna lived only 41 years), she was twice expelled from the Union of Artists for political views. One of her latest works, a stained glass window for Kiev National University, is rumored to have been personally destroyed by the rector as inappropriate to the high ideals of communism.

Alla Gorskaya defended the rights of political prisoners, signed petitions in defense of cultural figures popularizing the national idea. Together with like-minded people, Alla Gorskaya opened the burial place of the victims of the NKVB in Bykovna.

Family union

Alla Gorskaya met her future husband at the Kiev Art Institute. Viktor Zaretsky was almost five years older than her, but much more modest and quieter - did not claim to be the soul of the company, but for excellent study he received first Repinsky, then Stalin scholarships. Immediately after receiving diplomas in the Gorskaya-Zaretsky family, a child was born - the son Alex.

The couple lived in the center of Kiev, in an apartment obtained under the patronage of Father Gorsky. Worked in one workshop.

Monumental painting was the idea of Alla Alexandrovna. But headed by a team of artists working at the facility, her husband. At that time, floral ornament was the cheapest, animals were paid more, people were even more expensive, but the most pleasant amounts were paid for the party leaders. Gorskaya did not work for pay, but for the idea. Therefore, the leaders on her sketches did not work out. Colleagues said: “If you want to learn a lot, go work with Gorskaya-Zaretsky. But you definitely won’t make money there. ”

Murder

On November 28, 1970, Alla Gorskaya left Kiev for Vasilkov, to her father-in-law. Three days later, in the basement, police discovered her dead body. The investigator stated that death came from a blow to the head allegedly with an ax. The body of the father-in-law was found on the railroad with his head cut off. Son Alexei in the late 90s and in 2004 several times requested a criminal case on the death of his mother. Both times he was refused. Alexei Viktorovich insisted that KGB agents destroyed Alla Gorskaya.

There were other versions of what happened. In any case, the murder of the artist and human rights activist was never opened.

Read more about the tragedy in the material "Gorskaya and Zaretsky. Creativity and murder."