Ukrainian Cultural Garden

Address:
1008 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Cleveland, OH 44108
Sponsoring Organization:

United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio

Dedication Date:
1940
Contacts:

Anna Brezdun-Barrett, Hanyabarrett@gmail.com


History & Design:

The Ukrainian Garden is located on the west side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Having first arrived in Cleveland in the mid-1880s, Ukrainians first settled in the Tremont neighborhood and organized community life, which included robust cultural growth.

In October of 1939 a bronze plaque at the entrance of the Ukrainian Garden defined its purpose:

THESE GARDENS WERE CONSTRUCTED THROUGH THE EFFORTS OF THE UNITED UKRAINIAN ORGANIZATIONS AS A SYMBOL OF THE UKRAINIAN CULTURE AND ASPIRATIONS AND ARE DEDICATED TO THE FREEDOM OF AMERICAN LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY.

This purpose speaks volumes even today.

The Garden was completed in 1939. Mayor Harold H. Burton designated Sunday, June 2, 1940 as the formal dedication date for the Ukrainian Cultural Garden.  Composed of a series of brick and stone courts connected by paved walks, the south court is accessed by a stone and iron gateway originally displaying two bronze plaques and portrait reliefs by Frank L. Jirouch, Cleveland-born sculptor of Czech descent.

 

Statuary/Busts/Reliefs/Monuments:
The first portrait/relief depicts Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1593-1657), Hetman or military commander of the Zaporozhian Host (Zaporozhian Host is a term for a military force inhabiting or originating from Zaporizhzhia, the territory beyond the rapids of the Dnieper River in what is Central Ukraine today).  The second is that of Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky (1866-1934), a historian, teacher and author.

The center of the garden features a statue of poet Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka, pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka, (1871-1913), as well as three bronze busts that commemorate significant leaders in Ukraine’s history: poet and writer Ivan Franko (1856-1916), Grand Prince of Kyiv Volodymyr the Great (c. 956-1015), and Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (1814-1861), a poet, teacher and artist.

The statue of Lesya Ukrainka was dedicated in 1961.

 

The three busts were the work of Kyiv-born sculptor and graphic artist Alexander Archipenko, who immigrated to the United States in the 1920s.  The busts disappeared from the garden in the 1970s, leading many to believe that they had been destroyed or stolen.

It was not until the 1990s that the missing busts were found in a Cleveland municipal garage where they had been placed for safekeeping. Fiberglass replicas of the busts were made for the Garden, whereas the originals found a new home in the Ukrainian Museum & Archives in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.

Additional Information:

The statue of Lesya Ukrainka was designed by Mykhailo Chereshniovsky of New York.  Under the auspices of the United Ukrainian Organizations and the Ukrainian community, the project was initiated by Mykhaylyna Stawnycha, Branch 33 President of the Ukrainian Women’s League of North America.

St. Volodymyr the Great statue was a gift of the Ukrainian National Association – the oldest Ukrainian fraternal organization in the United States, headquartered in New Jersey.

Alexander Archipenko, sculptor and graphic artist, combined his native Ukrainian experience with that of his newly adopted country, the United States.  He was a part of the Cubist movement and pioneered abstract sculpture, using negative space in creative ways.

 

Map: