During World War II, artist Ivan Marchuk saved his father from the NKVD
World-renowned artist Ivan Marchuk, who is celebrating his 90th birthday today, shared painful memories of life under Soviet oppression.
He spoke about this in an interview with Glavkom.
The artist recalled how his family survived under constant terror in the Ternopil region and how, as a child, he saved his father from persecution by the security forces.
The People’s Artist was born on May 12, 1936, in the village of Moskalivka.
His family was constantly under suspicion by the Soviet authorities because his father’s brother fought in the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which automatically made the family “unreliable.”
“More than once, NKVD officers came to our village to catch so-called ‘bandits.’ They came to our house, too. My father was hiding on the stove, which he had built himself. We, the four children, covered him up to save him,” recalls Ivan Marchuk.
The artist’s father was an exceptionally gifted craftsman who built looms and made household items on his own.
Despite having no formal education, he possessed an exceptional mind that helped the family survive during the darkest days of totalitarianism.
In addition to his daily work, the artist’s father carried out dangerous missions for the Ukrainian underground.
He made birch crosses for the burial of fallen UPA soldiers, knowing that such activities could result in immediate exile or execution.
“There weren’t many birch trees in my village. But when such an order came in, Dad would plane a cross by hand at night and took his work very seriously, making sure not a single birch splinter was left behind. If someone had reported him, he would have been punished. In the morning, mournful songs echoed through the village…,” the artist recalls.
Every night shift required extreme caution: the craftsman carefully removed every shavings so that no evidence would reveal his connection to the rebels.
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