Oleksándr Fréydin is a well-known Ukrainian painter. He was born in Odésa in 1926. After the execution of the father in 1937, the family was expelled from the city, where they could return only after the war. He studied at the Odesa Art School named after Mytrofán Grékov, and worked and lived in Odésa until the end of his days.

The ideas of the “Severe” style of the late 1950s, which was the result of the post-Stalin “The Thaw”, captured him and formed his interest in “honest builders of communism for ordinary people”. Official sources constantly blamed the artist “for formalism.”

The special persecution was caused by his program work “You Are With Us, You Are With Us, Even Though You Are Not In The Columns”, which he created from 1969 to 1974. The work is a requiem for the victims of Stalinist repressions.

This is a large canvas, the location of which is unknown. In the Museum of Odésa Modern Art, there are large drafts made in charcoal and a sketch in oil on canvas measuring 54×46 cm.

In the foreground, there are three red coffins, arranged vertically one behind the other. The dead are in the coffins. A column of men can be seen behind them. All persons are dressed in shabby, grey-brown clothes. Facial features are vague and generalised. The background of the painting is dark brown. The image is expressive and intense.

Oleksándr Atsmanchúk, a friend and teacher of Oleksándr Fréydin, understood that this work was not similar to the pathetic official paintings on the Great October Revolution, and proposed to call it “Funeral in Madrid”, referring to the images of Spanish international brigade fighters, who “could be killed, but whom there was impossible to break.” But the author’s faith in communist justice led to another title – a line from the anthem of the Communist International.

This is the only work in the history of Odésa art that was banned, and the previously successful artist was deprived of state commissions and the opportunity to participate in major exhibitions.