Cultural and Artistic Dialogues in Galicia in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Abstract

The research aims to define the dialogical nature of culturaland artistic processes in the historical environment of late 20thcentury Galicia, and to determine a list of significant events, artistassociations, and personalities. The Research methodology is basedon the principles of combining the system approach with historicalprinciples, comparison, and synthesis. Historical and cultural, andformal-analytical, approaches with elements of comparative anddescriptive analysis are used.The mutual impact of policy and authorities on the artisticenvironment and education processes is analysed for the first time.The movement of individual artistic practices and artist unions asthe main factors shaping the artistic environment in Galicia in thesecond half of the 20th century is highlighted.We conclude that pressure from the communist totalitarianauthorities on the artistic community in Galicia, deportations,bullying, and isolation failed to destroy the structure of artisticdialogue. With changes in leadership and control vectors, cultural andartistic life searched for a unique form of expression, and Lviv (beinga centre of culture and education) played an important role in shapingmany new names that would later influence the environment. Afterthe collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of independentUkraine, the processes to rehabilitate artistic values, based onnational form and the dialogical form of the first third of the 20thcentury, took place. Artist unions and new galleries that appearedto cater to the needs of cultural and artistic life in Galicia becameinstrumental in developing new artistic ideas both in Ukraine andbeyond. Consideration of views and the importance of the creativityof individual artists and artist associations in cultural and artisticprocesses in late 20th century Galicia created the preconditions bywhich to determine the importance and patterns of social and politicalinfluences on the development of Ukrainian art in the 20th and 21stcenturies.