In the attic of an old house, artist Ihor Solodovnikov stumbled on a collection of 5,000 photographs taken by his grandfather, Ivan Lytvyn. The images preserve the faces of Ukrainian villagers in the postwar period and the folk traditions that were rarely, if ever, captured by official Soviet photographers.
The unique find documents how rural Ukrainians lived and worked, what they wore, and how they spent their precious free time. The photos also reveal the transformations taking place in Ukraine from the late 1950s to the early ’70s as local customs gave way to Soviet influence.
Read Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s account of the discovery.
