The monument to Ivan Franko on the square named after him is a laconic and expressive monument, opened on August 28, 1956, to the 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The bronze bust of the Stonemason on a pedestal of red granite 4.5 meters high was created by sculptors Oksana Suprun and Anatoliy Białostotskyi, architect – Mykola Ivanchenko. The monument is located in a square directly opposite the National Academic Drama Theater, which also bears the name of Franko – a symbolic neighborhood of the artist and the stage, to which he is close in spirit.
Ivan Franko (1856–1916) – a writer, poet, scientist and thinker, whose work became one of the foundations of modern Ukrainian culture. He wrote prose, poetry, dramas, translated world classics, researched folklore and literature – and did all this despite persecution and imprisonment. It was no coincidence that his image appeared in Kyiv precisely here: the square, the theater, and the monument together form a cultural center where past and living art exist side by side.