Transcript
Ryan Seacrest (0:00)
This is an iHeart podcast.
Capital One Bank Guy (0:05)
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com bank Capital One NA member FDIC.
Erin Menke (0:38)
Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild.
Aaron Manke (0:47)
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Erin Menke (1:10)
I have this idea. Art is a lot like Isaac Newton's third law of Motion. Just hear me out for a second. As the law states, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The forces of motion push and pull at each other. And in the same way, artistic movements exist in tension with themselves. You cannot have modernism without postmodernism as an essential counterbalancing force. And in that regard, consider the historical significance of art in relation to totalitarianism. Every time a state uses art as a means of control, oppression or propaganda, they cannot fully contain how that will reverberate in the greater artistic world. Oppressive art can birth art that is in its very form, an expression of rebellion. In 1934, Maxim Gorky proposed an artistic philosophy that would become known as Socialist Realism as an artistic expression of the new Soviet Union. The works in this field would celebrate the state and the party for the people. It was supposed to be a movement, but it would become a doctrine. The form of the work became the way in which the art was supposed to look in Soviet Russia, and naturally it provoked a response. The generation that came later birthed the so called Sixtiers, artists, writers and thinkers who came to prominence in the 1960s. Their work actively defied socialist realism in form and content. Many of these artists were socialist politically, but had become disillusioned with life in the ussr. Their interpretation of left wing values was not strict adherence to the Communist party line, it was an artistic expression. Enter Ala Horska. She was the Ukrainian daughter of a Soviet film executive and she would grow to resent the repressive politics of Stalin's Russia. She started painting when she was young, earning praise and recognition for realistic works. But ultimately she grew away from the style, growing increasingly fond of Traditional Ukrainian art. Her later works favored bold colors and abstract fantastical designs. Work that was in direct defiance of Soviet realism. In Kiev, she freely experimented with mediums. Paints, murals, stained glass windows, you name it. Her apartment became a popular meeting place for 60 year gatherings. By the mid-1960s, the KGB was keeping tabs on all of these artists. Their work was defiant in spirit as well as in form. One of Alla Horska's early stained glass windows was destroyed before it could be exhibited for the way that it depicted Mother Ukraine as a sorrowful presence under the yoke of Russia. Her phone would be tapped and many of her friends arrested or killed. Horska's work for the Ukrainian underground had only just begun. She provided shelter to enemies of the ussr, attended anti government protests, supported her colleagues who had been sent to labor camps, and all of this while continuing to produce bold artwork that celebrated the unique culture of Ukraine. Horska, however, didn't escape persecution for long. In 1970, she vanished without a trace. Her body was later found in her father in law's cellar. Her father in law, meanwhile, had been found dead on some nearby railroad tracks. It was supposed to look like a suicide after he had killed her. But everyone knew the truth. This was the KGB attempting to silence a public opponent. But if the intent was to silence her, it was ineffective. Her funeral later that December turned into a massive protest against the communist regime, and her name joined the ranks of martyrs for the cause of Ukrainian liberty. And then there's her artwork. Those murals, paintings and portraits, they outlived the ussr, and many still remain in treasured museum collections all across Ukraine. Their value comes from the indomitable voice. She represented someone who fought for persecuted people with every tool she had available to her. Art is a curious thing. It is inherently political, no matter how escapist it aspires to be. Art exists as an expression of culture, and culture is a cumulative thing, something that can't be forced onto a nation against the will of its people. And Russia today clearly realizes this, as during the war in Ukraine, several of a la Horska's pieces have been destroyed by invading forces. But it's 2025 and artistic practice exists farther than just one physical space. Destroying Horska's murals does not erase them from cultural memory or the digital copies taken by people who have seen them. Art is as ephemeral as an emotion, and both are indestructible.