Career
V. Zankovich’s creative works (accomplished by him as a member of groups of authors), that won him a deserved success and fame, are the memorial complex Khatyn (1968) and the Brest Hero-Fortress (1971), which became a kind of national symbols of tragic and heroic periods in the history of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War (1941– 1945).
The memorial complex Khatyn, created by the talent of Belarusian architects and artists, is an important phenomenon. It is perceived as a complex artistic image. Due to a unique composition concept, the authors managed to combine architectural and sculptural forms, which are in harmony with a spatial structure of the village, burnt by Nazis during the war.
One of the dominants in the complex is a 6-metre bronze sculpture of an undefeated man. The sculpture is the figure of a sad Belarusian peasant in an unbuttoned scorched shirt, crossing a site of fire with a dead child in his arms. This image is filled with a lofty tragic feeling and a great inner power.
There have been erected ash-grey obelisks, crowned with 26 bronze bells,their number equal to the number of farmsteads, destroyed by fire at the place where the village of Khatyn had been. The obelisks remind chimneys, remaining on sites of burnt houses. There are memorial slabs inside frames, imitating shells of houses, with names of people who lived there.
The Cemetery of Villages, the only one in the world, had been singled out as a separate theme. There had been placed urns with the ashes of 186 Belarusian villages, which had shared the lot of Khatyn. A 128-metre reinforced concrete wall in memory of death camp prisoners had been constructed next to the Cemetery of Villages. Its niches contain documentary texts with information on horrific crimes committed by Nazis.
The memorial complex Brest Hero-Fortress is an example of a purposeful integration of monuments into one memorial area. Architecture, sculpture,landscape, light, colour, music and memorial texts interact in the spatial and artistic formation of the memorial complex.
A particular attention had been paid by the authors of the complex to maximum conservation of historical and documentary environment, which makes the complex artistically original and unique. Partially survived fragments of buildings, damaged by explosions, the fortress walls ruined by shells and miles, melted bricks remain war memorials of great emotional power. Nowadays,young visitors of the citadel upon the river Bug find themselves in a special emotional state of unintentional contemplating their responsibility for the destiny of their mother country.
V.Zankovich continues to develop his skills in monumental art by creating new works. He was one the authors of the memorial ensemble Minsk Hero-City (1985), the memorial complex Katiusha in Orsha (1973), the monument to the pilot N.Gastello and his crew (1964), the monument to K.Zaslonov in Orsha (1964), etc.