Valeriy Miloserdov

Kyiv, November 1991, Fighters of the Ukrainian National Self-Defense Force at exercises

About the Works

Working as a photojournalist, Miloserdov managed to create several iconic images registering crucial historical events of the first years of Ukraine’s independence. At the time of their creation, these photos were published in news outlets and can be easily regarded as symbols of a new country that despite many uncertainties, economic and social turbulence, took a decisive move away from the Soviet past and was in search of new narratives and identities as well as was rediscovering the truth hushed up by the state for decades. Nowadays, Miloserdov continues his photojournalist career combining it with teaching and archival research.

Kateryna Filyuk

About the Artist

Valeriy Miloserdov (1961) is a Ukrainian photographer and photo editor. Worked in Ukrainian and Soviet mass-media. His series of documentary photographs about the problems of the Donbas miners “Abandoned people” (1994-99) won the Special Award of the jury at the Grand Prix Images Vevey festival (1995, Suisse). Works as a photo collection curator at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (Kyiv). Teaches at Viktor Marushchenko's School of Photography (Kyiv). The author of personal exhibitions and participant of the collective exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad.

Kyiv, October 1990,
The beginning of the student
hunger strike on
October Revolution Square

Kyiv, October 1991, Former Soviet political prisoner Ukrainian dissident Vasyl Ovsienko with the keys to his prison cell during a rally on Independence Square