Ukrainian Refugees 1941/2022: Reflections of Mental Wanderings in an Apocalyptic World

The beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the focus of the study of the works of Ukrainian artists forced to leave their homeland during the Second World War. Events that happened almost a century ago perfectly resonated with the present, when thousands of Ukrainians were forced to seek refuge from the aggression of a belligerent neighbor outside their country. The documents of Ukrainian refugee artists used in the article come mainly from the archives of the Butler Library at Columbia University (New York) and are in the collection of the famous journalist, writer, and public figure Liubov Drazhevs’ka. The research was conducted at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University (New York, USA), and was enabled by the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program in Ukraine and a research grant funded by The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles, and coordinated by the Bibliotheca Hertziana — Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome.