Serhii Hamchenko’s Notebooks

The category is represented by Serhii Hamchenko’s notebooks of different years – from 1876 to 1920. Such “autodocumentary” texts are of considerable interest, because they can be studied both as texts in themselves and as a source of information: about the author and about the contexts.

Thus, on the first pages of the latest chronology of the notebook, we see the contact details of the girls – members of the Kyiv circle “Studio” (the Head – Danylo Shcherbakivskyi). It follows from the context that these are works on the excavations of the Trubetskyi estate, and therefore the notebook can be dated by 1926-1927.

The notebook mentions the first five people of the circle – “pelicans” (Natalia Kotsiubynska, Yevhenia Spaska, Maria Novytska, Maria Viazmitina, Nadiia Venh(r)zhenovska) and the second five (Kateryna Bilotserkivska, Maria Venh(r)zhenovska, Polina Kulzhenko, Nadiia Heppener, Anna Moroz). Each of the girls was responsible for processing certain categories of finds, such as tiles, smalt, jewelry, ceramics, necklaces, bracelets and etc. The cases dedicated to the excavations at the Trubetsky estate reveal in more detail the history of the girls’ involvement in the excavation works.

Oleksandra Buzko

Fig.1.

Art critics from the “Studio” circle, 1927. Seated: Maria Shchepotieva, Maria Venh(r)zhenovska, Maria Viazmitina, Yevhenia Spaska. Standing: Nadiia Venh(r)zhenovska, Maria Novytska, Natalia Kotsiubynska (photo from N. Viazmitina’s family archive)

Fig.2.

The fragment of the Hamchenko’s notebook with the names of “Pelicans”.

Fig.3.

The first “five” of the “Studio” circle – “Pelicans”. Seated: Maria Viazmitina, Yevhenia Spaska. Standing: Nadiia Venh(r)zhenovska, Maria Novytska, Natalia Kotsiubynska (photo from the family archive of N. Viazmitina)

Fig.4.

Materials to the article “Pelicans” by N.A. Kotsiubynska (The Archive, the AUAC fund, case No. 679)