Illya PAPIZG. Jesus near the cross.
MEMORIAL PLASTICS
Oleg Sydor looks at the graveyard in the Old City at the outskirts of Pidgaytsy village as a rare historic, cultural, artistic and aesthetic monument. Its original peculiarity as a unite ensemble of the folk memorial plastics is conditioned by aesthetic expressiveness even in comparison with famous centers of stone carving in Halychyna, western lands. The author starts his narration from the very beginning of the graveyard, then analyses the most ancient grave monuments of the middle of the XIX century and examines crosses – crucifixes of the beginning of the XX century. The ensemble has been formed in great degree due to creative work and endless self-perfection of the three generations of masters from one family – Papizhiv. The masters’ grandchildren and even great-grandchildren nowadays are devoted to stone carving. Due to rare originilaty of the graveyard, wide range of monuments and satisfactory state of majority of them nowadays the problem of the further saving of the ensemble is becoming urgent. It is time to give it the status of museum-necropolis that is under the state protection.