Stefaniya Shabatura: I was born on November 5, 1938. Those were difficult times for Ukraine. My father served then in the Polish army, because we were under Poland. And then Ukraine had its short-living chance. All of it ended very soon: the Soviet troops invaded these lands and occupying Western Ukraine they told that they came to liberate us from Poland. Then my dad again went to serve in the Army, but this time it was Soviet Army, because he was called to the colors in the thirty ninth. Mykhailo Hnatovych Shabatura was my father. I was a peasant by birth.
Somewhere in the seventeenth century our village was devastated the Poles relocated some people to other places−I’ve read about it−and some people simply perished. Maybe, only separate individuals survived that bloody battle. And it was placed on record that Shabatura reestablished the village. This family name is rather rare here.
V.O.: What does it mean?
S.Sh.: I read once that “shabatura” meant Kozak bag, or “shabaturka” a small sack[1]. I was also told that shabatura meant the skin for parchment. The latter meaning is an old one and later this noun meant a Kozak leather bag. Maybe, my kin of Shabatura are from the eastern Ukraine maybe, they came with Kozaks, with our troops. I learned that the surname of Shabatura existed somewhere in the Mykolayiv Oblast.
And the family of my mother were rural sculptors.
V.O.: And what is your mother’s last name?
S.Sh.: Semanyk Anna Mykhailivna. My mother was born in 1914 and died in 2004. And my father was born in 1913 he did not return from war and was considered a missing person. The Museum of War informed me that he was itemized as KIA near Kharkiv. However, he is a missing person. There was violent fighting there.
My mother’s antecedents were rural sculptors. They made funerary monuments, and when a church was built in our locality at the turn of 19th and early 20th century, the architect employed them as helpers, because they were good stonemasons: the father and his four sons, all of them were stonemasons. They made not just ordinary crosses, but monuments. They loved very much to make Saint Nicholas as well as cut various graveyard figures. And when the church was built, they learned to build the church.
A Polish landlord had his estates there. Once one of Shabatura’s sons was transporting a monument to a nearby village. The road ran through a valley and a bog. Suddenly there arrived the landlord’s servants and said that he should make way for them. He answered: “I cannot leave the road, because I would be stuck and would not be able to pull out my load”. And he did not submit to them: they had to take the bypass through the swamp. However, when he was returning home by the same way they caught him and drove a rusted nail into his private parts. A horse brought him home, and he died. That was awful. This even triggered hostilities… Then another son went to the manorial wood to pick berries. And he was shot dead. So he lost two sons. He told to his wife and kin: “To put an end to this evil−because I can’t stand the sight of it−I’d better get away as far as ever I can.” He took two sons with him and emigrated to America, while his wife stayed at home. He was in correspondence with her, but all of a sudden he stopped short and we had no idea about his whereabouts. I inquired for his address, but his next of kin also got no letters from him.
Roughly in 1993 or 94th I visited America: Saskatoon (central Saskatchewan, Canada). There one man approached me and said: “We’re, probably, a family, because I’m Shabatura as well. Indeed, I’m already not Shabatura, but here is my mother, she will tell you”. I met a 95-year-old woman. And she let it all hang out. It appeared that she knew those immigrants from America to Canada. They lived next door, she knew them. One son married there, the second remained unmarried. They built churches. They did not sculpt any more, but built churches having learned how-tos here. So that’s the whole story on my mother’s line.
After the war we remained with my mother alone. Of course, it was a distressing time for my mother. The collectivization established the frightful regime of serfdom.
V.O.: It seems, you did not name your home village.
S.Sh.: I was born in Ivane-Zolote Village, Zalishchyky Region, Ternopil Oblast, on the bank of Dnister the downhill street led to Dnister. It is a wonderful place, wonderful nature, and my beautiful village.
I went to school. It was a junior high school, only seven grades.
V.O.: When did you finish your seven-year school?
S.Sh.: Wait a minute, I have but a hazy recollection. Then I went to a high school in Zalishchyky. At the time they avoided issuing certificates in order to prevent further studies but it was settled somehow. In Zalishchyky I finished the eighth grade. There was a teacher (I forgot his last name, his name was Markiyan) who flung insults at village children. The children might exert themselves, but he teased them all the same. It was something terrible. He was too ready to dish it out and many children had simply to quit. Somehow I managed to pass the exam and finished the eighth grade. But I saw him eliminating those children and guessed I was next I couldn’t resit for the exam and I did not like the idea of staying down I had to finish the school. I decided to take flight from that school actually I escaped from the teacher. And he taught us Ukrainian language and literature, even not math! It was something terrible. I went to a nearby school in the Potochyshche Village across the Dnister I graduated there.
After war I made some money on the side… People urged me: “You just try and paint small icons people need them and you just paint. They’re readily salable you’ll beat out,” my auntie tried to persuade me. I began painting for people to get a little bit behind one. However, the supervising teacher made the rounds of the villages of his pupils and heard about my painting icons, because everybody knew it. I was upset about it, but I didn’t become the target of gossip, even the principal kept mum on the contrary, when we were late (on Mondays children returned from their homes to Potochyshche), he took to ask everybody, but me: “Though she’s been late, she’s painting icons, she’ll make her mark.” Ivan Ivanovych was from Husiatyn. I finished that school there were no sadist teachers in it.
V.O.: When did you leave the school?
S.Sh.: I must have a think and consult my papers first. I decided to join the higher educational establishment. My uncle had graduated from the Chernivtsi University he was a vet and could help me. But I wanted to do it on my own. I made inquiries, where the art schools or institute existed in Lviv. I went to Lviv. I practiced painting, but never saw a living artist and hadn’t a slightest idea how to use paints I painted higgledy-piggledy. When I came to our institute and showed them my homework, they didn’t comment it, they refused even to register my documents. The refusal read that I was unprepared. I made new paintings and once more the said: “You are not prepared you will not enter the institute. A person may join our institute after finishing art school, with diploma works, life classes in art, and your works are amateurish. Try and finish the school.”
So I went to the art school. Usually they don’t admit the tenth-grade pupils.
V.O.: And where was this art school?
S.Sh.: The school was here, in Lviv they now call it a college. I barely joined the school as a candidate as far as I remember, on November 10 I was accepted as a student. All’s well that ends well. I worried about it, because the collective farm, the village council was not disposed to issue a certificate, so that I wouldn’t continue my studies. But my mother haunted their threshold and they issued the document. Later they established for her such daily work quota she could never fulfill herself, because there was nobody to give her a hand. Women leave only half of the quote, and my mother did. The regional party secretary said: “You have nobody to help you? What about your daughter?” My mother answered: “Well, she’s a schoolgirl.”−“You just wait and see: we’ll write a note on her painting icons, and she’ll come running here to fulfill the quota.” My mother wrote me about it in a letter. I went through a bad stretch. Our school headmaster Tarasov was a war vet and lover of rigorous training he watched over kids… something terrible. I was distressed for it. And Zalishchchyky Regional Party Committee Secretary was born in our village. I have no idea now who exactly didn’t give a go-ahead: either he or our school headmaster… For example, one fourth-year student was expelled for secretly drawing a church. They found out and he was expelled from the fourth year. I took it hard.
I finished the art school and entered the institute. I graduated from the institute. I had nothing to fear: I’ve got full marks in drawing and painting. So I had educational qualifications now. I joined the Association of Artists. I took part in exhibitions, because if you stood for the association membership you had to exhibit… the same is now, but at the time it was especially important: you had to exhibit a lot to enter the association. I managed to defend my degree work. The association’s chairman attended my defense and said that only for that very work I could join the Association of Artists.
At the time there existed such position as the creative director of folk masters. I applied for the vacancy. I was not accepted for employment. I think it happened already in 1969-70. Then we went round carol-singing, with a puppet show booth at the time the KGB had already put a tail on me. I was not accepted because I was not selected from among other candidates. They told me: “If only you were a party member…”. And I responded: “Is it really necessary to be a party member to be an artist?”
It began in 1967. I popped into their view after we went to the open court hearing Chornovil’s case (on November 15, 1967. - V.O.). They chalked me up then.
V.O.: And who accompanied you to the court then?
S.Sh.: Many Lviv friends came, e.g. the Kalynets. There were such Kyivites as Ivan Dziuba, Lina Kostenko, and Nadiya Svitlychna. There had been people who hadn’t been under arrest yet. There were many people. The court was open, according to that article (187-1, “casting aspersions on the Soviet reality”, - V.O.) there was no alternative and they had to stage a public hearing of the case. But they found a small room and all seats were taken. The militia on the threshold kept everybody out. But at dinner-time we broke through. We pushed away those militiamen, broke through and actually packed the hall: we shared it fifty-fifty.
At the same time I participated in literary soirees. You may remember that the sixties a kind of natural national revival took place. There were no special organize: just a natural process. I always tried to participate. I was already on friendly terms with the Kalynetses, Horyns, and some other people. We forgathered, organized soirees, even at home.
1970 came. We went to Frankivsk to attend the open court hearing of the case of Valentyn Moroz (on November 17.