It looks like a quiet scene from a Ukrainian battlefield: a group of armored soldiers gathered around a makeshift table strewn with food and playing cards. Some are laughing or smoking, and one is lying on the floor, smiling as he scrolls through his phone.
The photo is different from the others Ukrainian front During the war, there are no things that bring people together in Ukraine – cannon fire, soldiers coming out of trenches, wounded warriors with their faces bowed in pain.
Still, the image has been widely shared online by Ukrainians over the past year and praised by government officials, who recently displayed it at the capital’s leading exhibition center, as it strikes at the heart of Ukraine’s identity struggle, fueled by Russia’s full-scale protest. occupation.
The photograph, staged and taken in late 2023 by French photographer Emerick Lhuisset, reimagines the famous 19th-century painting. Cossacks living in central Ukrainewith modern Ukrainian soldiers standing in for the legendary mounted warriors. Although the swords have been replaced by machine guns, the poses and expressions of the soldiers are the same.
The subject is in the center culture war Tensions between Russia and Ukraine intensified after Moscow’s intervention its full-scale invasion about three years ago, with the Ukrainians trying to get it back and assert an identity that Russia says does not exist.
The painting has been claimed by both Ukraine and Russia as part of their heritage. It not only depicts the Cossacks, a people considered by both countries to be their own people, but was created by Ilya Repin, an artist who was born in what is now Ukraine but did most of his work in Moscow and the then-capital city of St. Petersburg. of the Russian Empire.
This is a cultural battle that has long been dominated by Russia. The most famous version of the painting is displayed in St. Petersburg, while a lesser-known version is displayed in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. Repin tagged in Russian international exhibitionshe disappoints Ukrainians who see him as one of their own.
But there is Russian intervention in Ukraine It forced institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art to reconsider this classification and described Repin as Ukrainian.
With his photographic commentary, Mr. Lhuisset seeks to further challenge the Russian narrative by drawing a direct line between the Cossacks who sometimes resisted the rule of Tsarist Russia and the current Ukrainian Army.
“If you don’t fully understand cultural appropriation, you can’t understand this war,” Mr. Lhuisset, 41, said in a recent interview in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. “This is a real culture war.”
Drawing – “Zaporozhian Cossacks’ response to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey” — is familiar to most Ukrainians with its reproductions decorating many family homes. It shows a group of Cossacks from an area located in today’s Zaporizhzhya region in southern Ukraine laughing heartily as they wrote a sarcastic response to an ultimatum from the sultan to surrender in 1676.
The Zaporizhzhya region is currently partially occupied by Russia. The rest were overturned Russia increases its airstrikes in recent months.
Although historians say the scene depicted probably never happened, the sense of defiance it conveyed resonated deeply in Ukraine.
“This painting was an element of identity formation for me,” said Tetyana Osipova, 49, a Ukrainian soldier pictured in the photo. He recalled that his grandmother kept a small reproduction “in a place of honor” in their home next to Christian Orthodox icons, which served as a reminder to “stand up for yourself.”
Mr Lhuisset said he first realized the significance of the painting when he was in Kyiv in 2014. He overthrew the pro-Kremlin president. He recalled seeing protesters holding placards with reproductions of artworks to symbolize their “willingness not to surrender, not to surrender.”
When he returned to France, the painting left his mind.
Until Russia invades Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Mr. Lhuisset was inspired by the news about the insubordination of the Ukrainian border guard. insulting radio message to the impending Russian naval attack. The insulting answer immediately reminded him of the painting.
“For me, it was the Cossacks’ answer to the sultan,” he said. “It seemed blindingly obvious.”
He decided to capture this spirit of defiance by reviving Repin’s painting in a modern setting. He spent months negotiating with the Ukrainian military to get armed soldiers to take pictures and find a safe place north of Kiev. Some soldiers came straight from the front line, their mustachioed faces reminiscent of unruly Cossacks.
“They looked like they were out of a picture!” Andriy Malyk, press secretary of the 112th Territorial Defense Brigade of Ukraine, which participated in the project, said this.
Mr. Lhuisset wanted the photograph to be as close to the painting as possible. He carefully lined up about 30 soldiers, placed their hands, and had them freeze in bursts of hearty laughter to mirror the energy of the original scene. Objects in the painting were replaced by modern equivalents: the cocked hat became a helmet; a musket converted into a rocket launcher; a mandolin was replaced by a portable speaker.
A drone flies in the sky, nods to an unmanned aircraft noticeable on the battlefield.
Mr. Lhuisset posted the photo a few days later social mediaand it was quickly adopted by Ukrainian media and government officials as an emblem of the country’s spirit of independence. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine released the video X on the social media platform with the title: “Cossack blood flows in our veins.”
For Ukrainians, the photo served as a means to return a masterpiece that, despite its Ukrainian roots, was not attributed to Russia for a long time.
“Some people think the painting is Russian, not Ukrainian,” said Eduard Lopulyak, a combat medic pictured in the photo. “It’s a way to remind them that it’s our cultural heritage, not Russia’s.”
Russia in turn says that Repin is a Russian artist and all his works should be considered Russian.
The artist was born in what is now Ukraine and studied painting there before moving to Saint Petersburg to further his career. Oleksandra Kovalchuk, deputy head of the Odessa Museum of Fine Arts, said Repin maintained strong ties to Ukraine by supporting friends and Ukrainian artists there. He traveled the country and worked closely with local historians to portray the Cossacks authentically, he said.
In many ways, the photo was Ukraine’s response to Russia’s reinterpretation of its painting. In 2017, the favorite of the Kremlin is the Russian artist Vasily Nesterenko reimagined Cossacks in modern Russian formIn his work “Letter to the Enemies of Russia”.
The project also has a more pressing mission for Ukraine: to help it rebuild its cultural heritage destroyed by nearly three years of war.
Bombing of museums and theaters in Russia they destroyed countless Ukrainian cultural treasures. Moscow’s occupying forces also looted such institutions Kherson Regional Art Museum in southern Ukrainehe lost almost his entire collection.
To help alleviate the losses, Mr. Lhuisset traveled to Kyiv late last year with a large print of the photograph and donated it to the museum’s director, Alina Dotsenko. “Today the Kherson museum is an empty building,” he said. “To become a museum again, it needs a new collection.”
The photo was displayed for a day at Ukraine House, a major cultural center in Kyiv, alongside empty frames left over from the theft in Kherson. Like most Ukrainian artworks, it was kept in a safe and secret location to protect it from Russian attack. When the museum reopens, it will be moved to Kherson, which is practically impossible today because it is less than a mile from the front line.
Mr. Malyk, a soldier, said he hopes to visit the museum after the war is over to show the picture to his children. According to him, like the painting, the photograph reflects an important moment in the history of Ukraine.
“We hope it will be passed down through the generations,” he said.
Daria Mitiuk contributed to the report.
