Lysenko Mikhail Grigoryevich - an outstanding Ukrainian sculptor of the Soviet period. Despite the fact that because of his physical handicap he did not participate in the battles for the liberation of the country from fascism, he managed to capture in all his colors for centuries the heroics of revolutionary and wartime in his works.
The childhood of Mikhail Lysenko
Mikhail Grigoryevich was born on October 26, 1906 in a peasant large family in the village of Shpilevka, Sumy district. Raising the facts of his childhood biography, it seems that the troubles that hit the boy would be enough for several lives. However, Misha never felt miserable, his physical disability did not prevent him from communicating with peers on equal terms, to enjoy life in all its manifestations.
In addition to the poor existence of the Lysenko family, seven children were left without a mother very early. Tuberculosis at that time was very common, and little Mischa could not escape this scourge. In 50% of cases of bone tuberculosis, the spine suffers. Large joints are very often affected: knee or hip.
Because of the curvature of the spine, a hump is possible, and the second case leads to deformation of the lower extremities, a slowdown in their growth. This is followed by different leg lengths. I must say that Mikhail Lysenko had both of these shortcomings. Causes of the disease are called by experts unsuccessful living conditions: hypothermia, poor immunity, infections, hard physical labor.
Since the disease is accompanied by destruction of bone tissue in some places and excess calcification in others, Misha suffered a leg fracture in childhood, which did not grow together properly. As a result, there was a hump, an unbending knee and a shortening of one leg by 12 cm. In this state, the boy was sent to the orphanage in Kharkov.
Life in the commune
It is clear that the orphanages also didn’t live richly, but here the leadership tried to organize this life in a planned manner so that the state would benefit from every natives of the commune. Which of the pupils did not show due interest in studying, that earlier began to work physically. Thanks to the attention of educators and teachers, Misha early noticed the ability to draw.
Any children's games and entertainments were not alien to this boy on crutches. He even managed to deftly jumping on one healthy leg, using a crutch and with a stick in his other hand to chase the ball. If Misha was not a participant in the game of football, then the fan from him was also excellent. Mikhail Lysenko carried this passion for football through his whole life.
After graduating from high school, in the direction of the commune, Lysenko goes to study at the Kharkov Art Institute. In 1931 he successfully completed it. In the future, the sculptor very closely communicates with his classmates Ivan Makogon and Mikhail Deregus. The families of Lysenko and Deregusov for a long time even lived in the same communal apartment.
Creativity of a talented artist
The very first works of the young sculptor Mikhail Lysenko, a graduate of the art institute, were not just noticed, but recommended by a special commission for an international exhibition. It was a sculptural group dedicated to the fraternal Chinese people - "China is fighting." It was created in 1931.
The same commission played a very important role in the fate of the talented artist, sending him for serious treatment. I must say that the Soviet doctors of the Kharkov Orthopedic Institute then did the seemingly impossible - to fix such long-standing consequences of childhood tuberculosis. One after the other, the most complicated operations were carried out, after which Mikhail was exhausted for several months.
Although everyone knew Mikhail Grigoryevich as cheerful, carefree, with a good soul open, after eradicating his physical defects, it became clear that it still bothered him. Yes, he never grumbled at fate, but it was after appropriate treatment that life began to play with other colors. The main thing is that he got married. And not just married, but on the one to which he had the most tender feelings in the orphanage. His chosen one was Vaclav Maryanovna Serafinovich.
In his wife, Mikhail saw not only his wife, but also an ally in his work. Vatsa posed for him when a famous post-war work called "Fidelity" was created. And the creation of a monument to the red commander Nikolai Shchors is a whole epic. It turns out that Mikhail Lutsenko posed in the work on this sculpture, Leonid Kravchuk, who later became the president of independent Ukraine.
At that time, Kravchuk was still a student at Kiev University. Later, he recalled how, when walking along Khreshchatyk, a man approached him, who called himself the architect Lysenko, and offered to pose, as he noticed in Leonid's features the resemblance to the image of Schors. And so Kravchuk went to Mikhail Grigoryevich for work for two months. April 30, 1954 the grand opening took place on the boulevard. Shevchenko in Kiev.
The sculptor M. Lysenko did not have There were no special conditions for work; there was no workshop. Immediately after the liberation of Kiev from the Germans in 1944, he moved with his family to the ruined capital. One apartment was shared with the family of Mikhail Deregus. They lived here, and worked here. The sculpture of the same Shchors was molded simply in a common kitchen.
In 1947, Lysenko created two outstanding sculptures in Lviv dedicated to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. In the same year he received a professorship. In Kiev, Lysenko began to teach at an art institute. The daughter of Mikhail Deregus, Natalia recalls that she was inspired to watch the work of Mikhail Grigoryevich in her childhood when she entered the Art Institute.
He was very sensitive to every small detail of the sculpture, believing that there were no trifles in this matter. Michelangelo was his personal idol. Experts note in Lysenko's works unrestrained energy, expression. Back in 1934, he completed a work on the prisoners of the concentration camps "In the dungeons of fascism."
