The Brooklyn Museum in New York corrected the label for a watercolor by Ilya Repin: instead of “Winter Scene, Russia,” the catalog now lists it as “Winter Scene, Ukraine.” The museum itself clarified that the landscape was painted en plein air on December 11, 1876, in Chuhuiv—a city in Kharkiv Oblast—and this is recorded in the artist’s own Cyrillic inscription beneath the work.
According to art historian Oksana Semenik, Repin’s clear indication of the Ukrainian origin of the landscape became the key argument in her lengthy correspondence with the museum: “Three years later, and finally, the Brooklyn Museum officially recognized that the city of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region is Ukraine,” Semenik said. She noted that the negotiations began as early as 2023; as a result, the museum removed any mention of the artist’s Russian nationality and left only his places of birth and death to avoid conflict.
Biographical facts confirm that Ilya Repin had a direct connection to Ukraine. He was born on July 24, 1844, in the same city of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv Governorate (now Kharkiv Oblast), spent his childhood there, and returned multiple times during the 1870s and 1880s. In his later letters, the artist addressed Ukrainians directly as his “dear compatriots,” stating, “I have loved you since childhood and regret that I cannot move to live in sweet, joyful Ukraine.”
Ukrainian themes run throughout Repin’s body of work: from Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Evening Gatherings, and his portrait of Taras Shevchenko to numerous ethnographic scenes and landscapes of the Kharkiv region. These works form the basis of Ukrainian researchers’ demands to recognize Repin as a Ukrainian artist within the context of his true cultural heritage.
The correction made in Brooklyn is part of a broader international process. For example, in January 2024, Finland’s largest art museum, Ateneum in Helsinki, also changed the label “Russian” to “Ukrainian” for works by Repin. Similar revisions are being made by other European institutions in response to documentation that confirms the Ukrainian origin of many artists traditionally classified as “Russian.”
The Brooklyn Museum’s decision not only restores historical accuracy regarding this specific artwork but also supports the global movement to resist Russian imperialism and return to Ukrainians their cultural heritage that had been appropriated for centuries.
Author: Lukian Selskyi