Yevhen Pavlov took his first steps in art in the late 1960s, and by 1971, together with his friend Yuriy Ruppin, he initiated the avant-garde group of Kharkiv photographers "Vremya" (Borys Mikhailov, Oleg Malyovany, Anatoliy Makiyenko, Oleksandr Sytnichenko, Oleksandr Suprun, and Hennadiy Tubalyev). The group marked the beginning of the Kharkiv school of photography, known for its "theory of impact." For a long time, it was the only active center of photo avant-garde in Ukraine.
Only in the context of those years, when defeminization and demasculinization were enforced by the Soviet regime, does the dominance of the naked body cult in the photographs of the "Vremya" group become understandable, as one of the fundamental positions of the "theory of impact." Its manifestation was Pavlov's 1972 series "Violin," which organically embodied the nonconformist ideas of those years. It is also perceived in the context of the Soviet hippie movement and the triumph of "The Beatles" musical culture at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. The main innovation of this work, significant for the broader cultural space of non-conformist art in the USSR, was the mass shooting of male nudes, realized as an artistic project. This work with a group of "hippie" youths became a prototype for happenings and actions, shot as film stills.
The transgression of the erotic theme, even when ennobled by the violin, was perceived as an assault on the moral foundations of Soviet society. However, due to its presence, the performance "with musical instruments" appealed
