An educated person always understands that without the past there is no present, without the traditional there is no new, and without the past there is no present. The identity of a nation is its civilizational brand, the country’s socio-cultural niche, and the defining principle of the state’s foreign and domestic policy. Love for the native language, rituals, traditional crafts in general, and understanding of the essence of national values nurtures and shapes love for the native land, for one’s homeland.

Today, the Ukrainian people are bringing back the forgotten pages of history and the great figures who were and are our pride. Among these figures is Ivan Makarovych Honchar, People’s Artist of Ukraine, sculptor, painter and graphic artist, talented craftsman, ethnographer, collector, and founder of the National Center for Folk Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum”. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ivan Honchar is a whole era in Ukrainian culture. This year, Ukraine celebrates the 110th anniversary of his birth.

He is one of the ideological inspirers of the Ukrainian revival of the 1960s, the confrontation of the 1970s, the inevitable changes of the 1980s, and the powerful national wave of the early 1990s. For more than three decades, since the late 1950s, Ivan Makarovych has been carrying out titanic work in the face of fierce opposition to the totalitarian regime. All his activities were aimed primarily at the comprehensive study, reconstruction, and popularization of Ukrainian cultural traditions of the past.

Museum director Petro Honchar notes: “The main concept of the Ivan Honchar Museum was not to collect and create a museum, but to spread culture and communication. We do not show what happened yesterday, we show what should happen tomorrow.” This idea is in line with the principles of the Khmelnytsky Regional Art Museum, which has a sculpture by Ivan Honchar “Native Land” from 1961 in its collection. The exhibition “Atlant” includes ethnographic works from the collection of the KhRAM, which demonstrate the diversity of Podillia antiquities. The main types of folk art are presented here: embroidery, pottery, carving, folk painting, Easter eggs, weaving, etc., thanks to which we can trace the evolutionary path from ancient samples to the works of contemporary Ukrainian artists from the museum’s collection, who continue the traditions of the Ukrainian people, interpreting them in their own way. By maintaining a close connection with folk art, contemporary art is transforming and acquiring a new sound.