Who is clipping Ivan Mykolaichuk’s wings?
On June 15 Bukovynians will pay tribute to Ivan Mykolaichuk, their renowned fellow countryman who was an artist, director, and scriptwriter
The Day has already written about the situation regarding the Ivan Mykolaichuk movie theater in Chernivtsi which stopped operating in 2010. Concerned, his wife, People’s Artist of Ukraine Maria Mykolaichuk, spoke on the telephone with Chernivtsi Oblast Governor Mykhailo Papiiev and again raised the question about creating the Ivan Mykolaichuk Cinema and Arts Center in Chernivtsi. Such issues as holding the third ethnic festival “A visit to Ivan” in village Chortoryia, where Mykolaichuk was born, and reviving the Ivan Mykolaichuk Film Festival which was supported by the regional administration in 2012 were also discussed.
“The Mykolaichuk Festival must be held! I dream of having it in Ivan’s native land, in Bukovyna,” PAPIIEV said. However, no work has been done on the building of the Mykolaichuk movie theater for 30 years now! It used to be nice and even grand. Chernivtsi residents loved it because it bore such a distinguished name, because Ukrainian films were shown there and because it symbolized Bukovyna and its people.
Today the movie theater stands abandoned, neglected, and half-ruined! It is only mentioned on Mykolaichuk’s birthday when a solemn program is offered at his house, which now functions as a museum, including speeches by writers and an ethnic festival.
Two years ago, on Mykolaichuk’s anniversary, his wife insisted that his name be removed from the movie theater’s signboard. “If it is possible to keep using the building as a movie theater, let them do so. If not, his name should be removed so it does not dangle in the wind. When I come to Chernivtsi, I try to meet representatives of the city council and I always hear promises. But I have grave doubts that anything will change. To have been fighting for Ivan’s heritage for so many years is a ridicule to his memory and Ukraine’s entire cinematography,” Maria MYKOLAICHUK said.
Her doubts were reasonable. The promised reconstruction is nowhere to be seen. Also, the process of turning the movie theater into a budget-financed institution Ivan Mykolaichuk Culture and Arts Center has been delayed. Under a decision by a session of the Chernivtsi City Council of January 31, 2013, a competition was announced for a long-term lease of the building with the condition that films continue to be screened there and the lessee remodels the building by 2016 (!). However, nothing of the kind has happened. The city council did not receive even one application from investors.
Now this movie theater has even been removed from the list of the city’s cultural objects. The signboard with an image of Ivan Mykolaichuk is the solitary reminder that the movie theater still exists. There is also a much-damaged memorial sign initiated by People’s Artist of Ukraine Vasyl Ilashchuk, also a Bukovyna native, and set up in Teatralna Square in Chertivtsi to mark the 70th anniversary of Mykolaichuk’s birth. The memorial sign is distinctive in that it has the form of wings. According to the design of sculptors Serhii Kliapetur from Kamianets-Podilsky, Yurii Oliinyk from Moryntsi, and Orest Dzera from Lviv, it is this image that runs through the life and artistic activities of Mykolaichuk. It can be seen in its movies: a white bird with a black mark, the wings of a flock of swans in Vasyl Zemliak’s writings, the wings of white swans who came to stay at the lake in Mykolaichuk’s native village of Chortoryia. Printed on the feathers of “Mykolaichuk’s spiritual wings” are the names of works to which he contributed.
Wings can be drawn apart, therefore, at the anniversary celebration the authors expressed their hope that soon a monument to Ivan Mykolaichuk would be installed in Chernivtsi, on both sides of which there will be the wings…
Unfortunatelly, anniversary celebration is over and a monument to the glorious Bukovyna master was never installed in Chernivtsi. Temporary sculpture also did not find its place and did not turn into a permanent monument to Ivan Mykolaichuk, but, instead, was “deported” from Teatralna Square on the flower bed in front of a movie theater and today resembles wings of a wounded bird.
“Currently there is a plan to transfer the movie theater on balance of Kalynivsky Market (the way it was done to the Summer Theater in Taras Shevchenko Park of Culture and Recreation), which must renovate the building using its own funds and then turn it back to the city ownership,” assured Svitlana Khimiichuk, Director of the Department of Economics at Chernivtsi City Council. The administration of the market declared their willingness to take over the renovation of the movie theater.
According to Khimiichuk, the future of the movie theater will be decided at the meeting of the executive committee of the City Council. But in the process of reconstruction its purpose use will be preserved.
Member of the Executive Committee of Chernivtsi City Council, rector of Bukovyna State Medical University Taras Boichuk is convinced that the community has no right to lose such a valuable object.
“We must preserve the purpose use of this facility, it has to be a movie theater, which has to be named after the world-famous Bukovyna public figure Ivan Mykolaichuk, because his artistic heritage is a national treasure,” said Taras BOICHUK.
Meanwhile, Ivan Mykolaichuk movie theater marks its anniversary in ruins…
