This project explores through a gallery of portraits a society still unknown and often “caricaturated” in public opinion. Not aiming at ethnographic authenticity, it conveys a subjective vision of the Ukrainians, presenting them in socio-cultural...
Ukraine – heir to one of the most powerful European State. Its Golden age dates back to the 10th –11th centuries when Kyiv was shining out as the capital of a vast Kingdom gathering all the Eastern Slavs – Kyivian Rus. Mongol invasions in the 13th century began tolling for the Ukrainians the bells of a long and painful history under foreign domination. The disintegration of Rus resulted in the emergence of Ukraine, Belarus and Muscovy. The Ukrainians called “Rusyny” or “Ruthenians” well into the 17th century went above all through History known as “Little Russians”.
Despite a hard fight for freedom and for their cultural identity, the Ukrainians went almost unnoticed through centuries, forcefully absorbed by their Slavic “Big Brother”. Stripped of their cultural legacy, they became in public opinion a ghost people, nested somewhere in a “Russian province”.
Though, with the collapse of communism, the world awakened in 1991 to the emergence of a new State in Europe : Ukraine. One would have to wait until winter 2004 to witness a peaceful Revolution widely broadcast in order fathom the existence and the weight of a young nation and state, which is somewhat larger than France. The Ukrainians, oppressed and silent throughout centuries, have emerged to the world at winter temperatures, in order to defend democracy, but in the first place, to reaffirm their existence. Who are the Ukrainians ?
These European Slavs, who are nearly 50 million nowadays, inhabit a border land between the East and the West. Under the influence of the Byzantine empire first, later under that of the Catholic West, their cultural identity crystallized since the 16th century and gave birth to a modern national conscience during the 19th- 20th centuries.
Russification of Ukraine under the Tsarist Empire continued under the Soviet regime left a profound impact in the Eastern part of the country. Nowadays at the border of the European Union, independent Ukrainians are balancing between Moscow and Brussels. Regionalisms and language conflicts between Russian and Ukrainian divide Ukraine, but in the East as in the West, the majority of the population feel, above all, Ukrainians.
The project : “The Ukrainians : between the East and the West” explores through a gallery of portraits a society still unknown and often “caricaturated” in public opinion. Not aiming at ethnographic authenticity, it conveys a subjective vision of the Ukrainians, presenting them in different socio-cultural and socio-professional backgrounds. Some of these surrounding atmospheres are sometimes very personal, and distant from one another. Thanks to them, an individual as such comes into existence and becomes a unique character. Parallels of social, political, geographical, sensitive and philosophical aspect emphasize both resemblances and contrasts.
This disparate and often unpredictable ensemble intends to stir up reflections about the identity of a people, more than 15 years after their independence. Looking beyond the unprobable relations between the selected models, all of them are citizens of a young nation under reconstruction. As if to remind us of that, the same rule applies to all in the composition of an overall image. The subjects are invariably posing in the centre of the picture… between East and West.
© Cyril Horiszny
The web site presents a section of the photos serie " The Ukrainians : between the East and the West."
