alternative forms of education
alternative lifestyles and resistance of the everydays
avant-garde, neo-avant-garde
censorship
conscientious objectors critical science
democratic opposition
emigration/exile environmental protection
ethnic movements
film
fine arts folk culture
human rights movements
independent journalism
literature and literary criticism media arts
minority movements music national movements party dissidents
peace movements philosophical/theoretical movements
popular culture
religious activism
samizdat and tamizdat
scientific criticism social movements
student movement surveillance
survivors of persecutions under authoritarian/totalitarian regimes
theatre and performing arts
underground culture
visual arts
women's movement
youth culture
applied arts objects
artifacts
cartoons & caricatures
clothing equipment
film
furniture
graphics grey literature
legal and/or financial documentation manuscripts memorabilia
music recordings
other other artworks
paintings
photos publications
sculptures video recordings voice recordings
The "Special Collection" of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) was established in 1937, and it contains some of the best works of the Ukrainian avant-garde and monumental art. The collection is comprised mostly of paintings and graphics that were considered inappropriate and unacceptable by the regime. They were collected by the secret police over a two-year period from museum in Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv and Poltava and were slated to be destroyed. However, they were preserved secretly in the museum, remaining hidden from the public eye during the Soviet period. Many of the artists represented in the collection were either repressed or executed for “formalism” or “bourgeois nationalism,” and many of their names were undeservedly forgotten until the late 1980s.
