CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC DIALOGUES IN GALICIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The research aims to define the dialogical nature of cultural and artistic processes in the historical environment of late 20^th century Galicia, and to determine a list of significant events, artist associations, and personalities. The Research methodology is based on the principles of combining the system approach with historical principles, comparison, and synthesis. Historical and cultural, and formal-analytical, approaches with elements of comparative and descriptive analysis are used.

The mutual impact of policy and authorities on the artistic environment and education processes is analysed for the first time. The movement of individual artistic practices and artist unions as the main factors shaping the artistic environment in Galicia in the second half of the 20^th century is highlighted.

We conclude that pressure from the communist totalitarian authorities on the artistic community in Galicia, deportations, bullying, and isolation failed to destroy the structure of artistic dialogue. With changes in leadership and control vectors, cultural and artistic life searched for a unique form of expression, and Lviv (being a centre of culture and education) played an important role in shaping many new names that would later influence the environment. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of independent Ukraine, the processes to rehabilitate artistic values, based on national form and the dialogical form of the first third of the 20^th century, took place. Artist unions and new galleries that appeared to cater to the needs of cultural and artistic life in Galicia became instrumental in developing new artistic ideas both in Ukraine and beyond. Consideration of views and the importance of the creativity of individual artists and artist associations in cultural and artistic processes in late 20^th century Galicia created the preconditions by which to determine the importance and patterns of social and political influences on the development of Ukrainian art in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.