THE FUNERAL OF VALERIY MARCHENKO
On March 13, 1984, the Kyiv City Court, presided over by Hryhoriy Ivanovych Zubets (then the deputy chairman of the Kyiv City Court, and now a member of the High Council of Justice!), found Valeriy Marchenko to be an especially dangerous recidivist and sentenced him to 10 years in special-regime camps and 5 years of exile. This sentence was effectively a death penalty for Marchenko, as he suffered from nephritis, and the court was well aware of this.
On April 2, he was taken from the Kyiv SIZO for transport. Fifty-five days in transit prisons, in Stolypin wagons… Following him, learning somehow of her son’s path of suffering, his mother, Nina Mykhailivna, flew like a swallow. On May 27, he was brought to the special-regime camp VS-389/36 in the village of Kuchino, Chusovskoy district, Perm oblast.
I had the chance to see Valeriy there only twice. One time, he was being led out for a walk in the small courtyard, and I pressed myself against the window of my work cell. It was drizzling. Valeriy was wearing a long, striped camp coat. I didn’t even see his face. When the guard went to get other prisoners, I quickly called out to Valeriy through the small window (the courtyards were directly beneath it), greeted him, and said that I remembered him a little from the university, from when he once spoke very sharply at the Ukrainian language circle led by Associate Professor Tetyana Kyrylivna Molodid. Valeriy hardly remembered me, as I was two years behind him, and he had spent most of his time in Baku, studying Azerbaijani philology.
We couldn’t talk for long, so as not to expose him to punishment.
The second time I saw Valeriy was when our 17th and his 19th cells were taken together to the large room for a movie. Such a treat was “permitted” once a month. Mykhailo Horyn, Ivan Kandyba, and Leonid Borodin were in the cell with Valeriy; it was he who was showing the film. The prisoners from one cell sat on one side, those from the other—on the other. We were not allowed to talk. I still managed to shake Valeriy’s hand. His hand was thin, cold, clammy, and trembling. And he himself was incredibly thin, but he tried to smile. With such a pained smile. When we returned to our cell, Viktoras Petkus said: “He is not for this world anymore.”
Valeriy spent only about two months in Kuchino. Like everyone else, he was taken out to work, to “twist cords.” Then he was taken to the prison hospital in Perm, and we heard nothing more about him. Sometime late in the autumn, KGB agent Chentsov came into our work cell (Lukyanenko and Petkus were there) and, with a note of sincerity, said that Marchenko, unfortunately, had died. In a hollow voice, I asked where and when. Chentsov replied that it was in Leningrad, at the All-Union MVD Hospital named after Ivan Haaz. As for when—he said he didn’t know. He deliberately didn’t say, because he knew that we honored the deceased with a three-day silence on the 39th to 41st days and a fast on the 40th day.
Levko Lukyanenko suggested honoring Marchenko on December 10, Human Rights Day.
Later, I was in the 19th cell with Mykhailo Horyn, and he told me how terribly Valeriy had suffered, but he never complained about his fate. He didn’t publicize his drama, but neither did he put on a false bravado. He would repeat: “My dear fellow, we must pray.” And he prayed with inspiration: he would become so engrossed in prayer that he neither heard nor saw anyone around him. If someone addressed him, he would calmly remark: “Excuse me,” and continue. When a kettle of water was brought, after everyone had taken some, he would wet a sheet and wrap his naked body in it: in this way, toxins that could no longer be eliminated naturally were expelled through his skin. When he wrung out the sheet, a liquid as white as milk would drip from it.
After my release on August 21, 1988, I often traveled to Kyiv. Mykola Horbal invited me on the Feast of the Intercession, the fourth anniversary of Valeriy’s funeral, to visit his grave in the village of Hatne near Kyiv. There is a photograph: Semen Hluzman, myself with still very short hair, Ivan Sokulsky, Mykola Horbal, Yosyf Zisels, Zinoviy Antonyuk, Yevhen Proniuk, and Yevhen Sverstiuk by his white cross.
Even then, there was a portrait of him painted by my niece, Liuda Holubchyk (she had seen Valeriy only once). In it, a white cross is depicted, and an apple is falling. He desperately needed that apple, and his mother begged them to accept a parcel of only apples—“Not permitted.” Now that painting is with Nina Mykhailivna, and she loves it very much.
As long as the participants of that funeral are alive, they gather every year at Valeriy Marchenko’s grave and remember. I have recorded some of them.
From conversations at V. Marchenko’s grave on October 14, 2002.
Valentyna Hnativna Davydenko, Ukrainian language teacher at Hatne school. I remember that day like this. The head of the village council had forbidden digging the grave beforehand. Many people had gathered at our house, waiting to see what would be done. Then she burst in: “Why are you all sitting around! You need to dig the grave quickly, because they are already holding the service for Valeriy in the church!” I found many people. Our men went to dig the grave. I went home, because my husband was sick; he had just had his tonsils removed. My mother had gone somewhere, and I had two small children—born in 1980 and 1981. I’m sitting with the children. A bus pulls up. I jumped into it, looked, kissed Nina Mykhailivna, and was heading back, because I had to look after the children. When, thankfully, my mother-in-law returned. I said: “Go to the children, and I will go to the funeral.” I ran over. There were many people there whom I didn’t know. I remember someone started to speak: “Let us bury Valeriy. Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” And then someone next to me says: “It’s starting.” But the speaker fell silent. He was buried in silence; there was no rally. And there were so many of them—those KGB agents! My mother says to one: “Is that you, Petro?” I hear someone say: “They’re even afraid of him when he’s dead.” People in the village said there were a lot of cars at the funeral. All from the KGB. There were fewer of our villagers than KGB agents.
Anatoliy Vasylovych Marchenko, Nina Mykhailivna Marchenko’s cousin. I was at the funeral. The KGB agents were standing over there on the corner with their cars. All in hats, in trench coats. All standard-issue strongmen with those kinds of faces.
When I arrived at the relatives’ house where people were gathering to dig the grave, the head of the village council said that a KGB colonel had arrived and ordered the grave to be dug quickly. As quickly as possible, because the funeral service was already underway in the church, he would be brought here soon, and you haven’t even dug the grave, let’s get it done as fast as possible. Well, she got scared: “Who will show me the spot and who will direct the work?” I said: “I will direct it, you just give me the diggers.” She said: “I have some drunkards who are in my debt.”
Just as we started digging, they arrived. They stood in a group about 20 meters away. About a dozen of them. They watched as we dug. I was standing on top. They were taking pictures when we were digging the grave. Especially of me. One of them passed by and bumped me with his elbows twice. I remained silent. They were trying to provoke a conflict. Everything went off without a hitch. When the burial began, they said: “It’s about to start.” “It’s starting” meant a rally or something of that sort. But nothing happened; it all went peacefully.
When he was buried, and the grave was filled in, they walked around from all sides and took photographs.
And later my sister, who worked with the head of the village council, said (she found out from the head) that this colonel had ordered her: “Make a list of all Marchenkos up to the fifth generation and give it to me.” It seems the Marchenkos had gotten so under their skin that they were ready to destroy them all. Even the fascists, who demanded lists of communists, only destroyed the communist’s family. But these guys—up to the fifth generation. I don’t know if she gave them the list or not.
V.O. What was the head’s last name?
A. Marchenko. Also Marchenko, Halyna Petrivna. She is married to a Marchenko.
V.O. So she would have had to put herself on that “blacklist”?
A. Marchenko. They are distant relatives too.
Nina Mykhailivna Marchenko. Yevhen Oleksandrovych told me: “Well, Nina Mykhailivna, we must commemorate Valeriy. We need to say something.” I said: “Well, can’t you see what’s going on around us? Don’t speak, don’t draw attention to yourself.” Because he himself had just returned from exile. But he couldn’t hold back; he spoke.
Yevhen Sverstiuk. We spoke with the priest in the Pokrovska Church, but he refused to come to the grave. He said: “We held the service in the church, and we will go no further.” He was very frightened. And he didn’t know whom he was talking to. The atmosphere was so oppressive, the fear was so great, that even Iryna Hluzman, who was always brave, said: “We shouldn’t say anything.” It was so obvious that everything was under the KGB’s dome.
We came to the edge of the cemetery. It was the last grave. There were no more graves beyond it. A very sharp wind was blowing. It was blowing out the candles. Our candles wouldn’t stay lit; we silently relit them. And then I said: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and recited the “Our Father.” And then the words of Lesya Ukrainka:
A crown of thorns will always be better than a king’s crown.
The path to Golgotha is grander than a triumphal procession.
It has always been so. So it shall be for eternity,
As long as people live and as long as thorns grow.
I am not quoting exactly now. But then, I quoted exactly.
A crowd of people was advancing towards us. Of course, we thought they were plainclothes KGB agents. We couldn’t imagine what would happen next. I understood that they were meant to stop our conversation. But, in fact, we had no further program. There were only a couple of minutes left, during which I recited the “Our Father.” Our conversation ended before they arrived. There was only the “Our Father” and the words of Lesya Ukrainka. That was all. And those people somehow stopped awkwardly. It later turned out that they were representatives of the village authorities who had been ordered to carry out the KGB’s command, “to ensure nothing happened.” They didn’t have time to do anything. We helped them out as well, because they didn’t want to do what they were ordered to do. And we didn’t want a conflict either. We only wanted to say at the grave the words that needed to be said. We quietly filled the grave and dispersed. And those people quietly dispersed too.
N.M. Marchenko. Many flowers were placed on the grave. There were no wreaths, but very many flowers. Later, it was said that after we left, two KGB agents went behind the fence (there was a fence here for my parents, and Valeriy was buried outside the fence), took off their hats (they had muskrat hats—that was their uniform), tidied the flowers, and looked at everything. The portrait of Valeriy was not this one, but a different one. They adjusted the portrait, tidied the flowers, and left. They did not touch the grave again. But they continued to eavesdrop.
Alla Mykhailivna Marchenko, Valeriy’s aunt. We came for the 40-day memorial and later. The things we put on the grave would disappear. There was a wreath made of thorny hawthorn—it disappeared. The viburnum disappeared.
Ye. Sverstiuk. “A nationalistic shrub,” as they wrote in denunciations against Volodymyr Kosovsky when he planted viburnum near the Kyrylo Stetsenko museum in Vepryk.
N.M. Marchenko. Everyone was particularly agitated then. By four in the morning, everyone was already at the Boryspil airport. The Lisovys were there, Proniuk was there.
Ye. Sverstiuk. All the zeks were there. You know, the most important things are those that are absolutely forbidden. When we arrived at the Pokrovska Church, where an instructed priest immediately held a prayer service, it meant nothing. We felt it was all planned. He was told to hold the service before people arrived. But everything began after the priest had left, having performed his official duties. The coffin remained, the people remained, and the honor guard remained—an almost honor guard by the coffin. And they could do nothing. Everything went off-plan. They were at a loss. They rushed after the bus driver, and we had told the driver to come at 2 p.m. It was only 10 a.m. In the middle of the church, the coffin stands, the honor guard stands… Truly, a better funeral than that, on the feast of the Intercession, in the presence of so many people, one could not have even prayed for, could not have even imagined.
N.M. Marchenko. And above you all, the protection of the Mother of God—a huge icon covering the entire wall, with the omophorion. The impression was that Valeriy was allowed to be in this church for as long as he wanted. He loved this Pokrovska Church on Mostytska Street, in Kurenivka. In one of his letters to you, Yevhen, he writes that he once attended the morning prayer at the church to be free for his affairs. But he felt that it gave him little. So he decided to stay for the liturgy as well. And it was then he felt that the prayer had settled on his soul. So going to morning prayer is very little. One must attend church fully, then you will completely feel your connection with the Almighty.
Valeriy prayed in a way that I could not have imagined one could pray. When we were in a sanatorium in Transcarpathia for two weeks before his second arrest, he spent all his free time praying in the room. I would stand next to him and get tired. I was amazed. I would get up, walk around the sanatorium grounds, return—and my son would be praying. He used to say: “Only prayer, Mom, will save us.” Later I would wonder: “Why didn’t prayer save you?” But it did save him: it gave him a dignified funeral.
Ye. Sverstiuk. A very dignified one. No zek had ever had such a dignified funeral. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on a patronal feast day, in the middle of a church, the coffin of a zek, an especially dangerous state criminal, a recidivist, stands for four hours, and people stand around him like an honor guard—an honor guard under the Soviets! And all the parishioners take notice. Grandmothers light candles and say: “He must have been a martyr.” But no one can explain to them who he was. They can only guess. And the KGB can do nothing. It was a miracle! For the first time, I felt the presence of a miracle.
N.M. Marchenko. When my sister Alla came to me in Leningrad, leaving little Andriyko behind, we walked through that miserable, tearful Leningrad—it left such a heavy mark on me… I would never go there again, not even for a meeting with Ukrainians. Because those were my most difficult hours and days. We milled around the large gate that surrounded the Haaz prison hospital near the Botkin barracks. It’s a prison made of red brick. On what must have been October 5th, we were standing by this gate. I said: “Let’s walk around the prison, maybe there’s a crack somewhere, maybe someone will throw us a note.” And behind us, a woman, so belligerent, such a nasty ‘katsapka’ [derogatory term for a Russian], and two men, but they keep their distance: “What are you doing walking around here, what do you want?” They were shooing us away, and we couldn’t understand what they wanted from us. Apparently, that was the day Valeriy died, and they didn’t know what to do: to inform me or to outsmart me and bury him so that no one would know. The next day, the head of the prison hospital did not want to receive me. Finally, on the 9th, they received me and told me he had died on the 7th. And right away they start squirming, saying he had been dead for a long time, so they would bury him in Leningrad. I don’t remember the conversations verbatim, because I was in such a state…
But back on the 5th, I had gone to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and I was on my knees. Before that, it was so hard for me—I just had no strength. And then suddenly, during prayer, I felt incredibly light. And I thought: could he have died? But then I thought: no, they are giving him back to me. I went out and told Alla about it. His desire to break free from behind bars, his hatred for prison, was so great that it was transmitted with his spirit—and his spirit was with me. I felt a great strength of spirit that no earthly power could overcome.
Then the struggle began to prevent them from giving me the remains. We walked and walked… The excuses they came up with: they wouldn’t see me, there was no zinc for the coffin, they wouldn’t take it on the plane… The Leningrad KGB had some sort of envious feud with the Kyiv KGB. When I rushed to that regional KGB office, not yet knowing that Valeriy had died, the KGB agent couldn’t get rid of me and didn’t know what to answer, so he said: “Go to your own Ukrainian KGB, we have nothing to do with it.” I said: “I appealed to the Soviet KGB, I don’t care if it’s the Leningrad or Kyiv one. My son is in your custody—there is an order to release him to me.” Then he turns to another KGB agent: “Do you understand? They want to look good over there. Everything is fine for them, and we will be responsible for them.” Something along those lines. I understood: ah, so your departments are even feuding with each other? And around September 20th, there had been a verbal order to release him alive. But they said they had not received such an order. I didn’t go to humiliate myself before them anymore. But the KGB agent kept intercepting me here and there.
I am telling these details because it was a whole charade orchestrated by the KGB, by an authority that virtually no longer existed, as Chernenko was already on his last legs.
Ye. Sverstiuk. It existed, it still existed.
N.M. Marchenko. Of course, but they were already somewhat worn out. Something was about to happen in that state. They won’t give me my son, they want to bury him like other prisoners, somewhere so that I wouldn’t even know where. But above us, above Valeriy, the Lord’s power was so great that I felt Valeriy’s presence in the Church. Then the zinc appeared, the tickets…
Alla Marchenko. You simply called or went to the KGB and said: “Let us leave.” The next day the hospital chief said: “This is an order. There must be zinc.”
N.M. Marchenko. On a single day, the 13th, the zinc appeared, we were running around somewhere with Vasyl Ivanovych, who could barely walk…
Alla Marchenko. And he even gave a bribe to the KGB agent.
N.M. Marchenko. Vasyl Ivanovych gives the KGB agent a three-ruble note… And the KGB agent just looks… They sealed the coffin without a wait, the boys didn’t take any payment: they motioned with their eyes at the KGB agent. They did everything to get rid of us as quickly as possible. They got us tickets for a flight that supposedly had no tickets, and loaded the coffin. At 4 a.m. we were at Boryspil. The guys were there, Valeriy’s cousin, my sisters arrived so early. They rode in the bus, and a whole cortege of KGB agents accompanied this bus. A whole army. Such fear. But there was a great force that snatched Valeriy from there. It cannot be expressed in words.
What did the foreign “voices” matter, what did a mother’s sobbing matter—were there few mothers there walking around and sobbing? Here, God’s power was over him. So little was required of Valeriy: to repent. Back in Kuchino, a KGB agent told me: “Just tell him not to write anything. Because there will be no way out for him from here.” I told Valeriy this, and he said: “They would want that.” He could no longer remain silent, seeing all those crimes and lawlessness. The UPA partisans have such a spirit and such strength that they don't go where there are red flags, portraits of Lenin and Stalin. No compromises: Ukraine must be free. And Valeriy also resolved for himself: the KGB are enemies of his people, the Soviet government is not his government. He, a student of a Soviet university, a Komsomol member, realized: I want my own state here. For this principle, for such a spirit, the Mother of God’s protection was over him. His mother did nothing, the mother only cried. And his aunt, and his stepfather, Vasyl Ivanovych Smuzhanytsia, grieved for him, went to the CC ideologue Malanchuk, begged for his release, wrote to Brezhnev…
Ye. Sverstiuk. The mother, of course, decided nothing, but nothing would have happened without the mother. She was a medium in the hands of Providence. She had to fulfill her role, and thanks to this, a miracle happened, a unique case in the history of the Soviet camps, when a zek is released to his relatives for burial.
V. Ovsienko. They had an unpublished instruction that when a prisoner died, he was to be buried near the place where he died or where he was imprisoned. He could be reburied only after his term of imprisonment had ended. That is, even in death, he remained under arrest. Rostyslav Lytvyn, the son of Yuriy Lytvyn, said that he and his sister Tetyana literally stole their mother, who died in captivity, and buried her in Vasylkiv.
Ye. Sverstiuk. In this case, something happened that was not foreseen by any laws or instructions. They themselves did not understand why they were doing it. The Leningrad KGB agents gave you your son’s coffin in defiance of all laws, and the Kyiv KGB agents were confused and did not know what to do. And until the very end, they did not know what to do. That’s why they allowed such an amazing blunder, that on a patronal feast day, the coffin of a state criminal stood in the church for four hours.
Alla Marchenko. Nina, you spoke so ill of the KGB agents here… When we were circling the prison, it was Sunday, the 7th, the day of Brezhnev’s constitution, Lesya tells me on the phone: “Don’t say anything to Nina, but Lyuba Seredniak reports that today, that is, on the night of the 6th to the 7th, she heard some radio station say that Valeriy Marchenko had died in Leningrad.” But we went to the cemetery to the church of Ksenia the Blessed on the 8th, and only on Monday after 4 o’clock were you let in to see the hospital chief and told about his death. And they said: “Of course, you will bury him here, in Leningrad…”
N.M. Marchenko. They said it so casually, as if in passing. I raised a cry: “What do you mean, what Leningrad? He was certified for release! You were supposed to give him to me alive. There can be no talk of Leningrad!” But what did my cries matter to them…
Alla Marchenko. No, still, if it weren’t for the outcry, it’s not known whether they would have released him. Because all those days, for a whole week, the radio did not stop. Jacky Bax did everything she could. There were broadcasts for 10–15 minutes in Austria, Germany, Switzerland. Calls were made from Leningrad to one country, from there transmitted to Germany, from there to other countries.
N.M. Marchenko. The best connection was with Finland. My student from the 80th school lived there. I would call her. I’d say it briefly, and she would immediately transmit it to Anna-Halja Horbatsch in Germany, to Jacky Bax in Holland. She told me: “Nina Mykhailivna, if anyone asks about Jacky, just answer: she is Valeriy’s fiancée. Because she even went as far as the Queen of the Netherlands, telling everyone she was Marchenko’s fiancée and demanding his release.”
A. Marchenko. She is very modest. In Yuriy Lukanov’s film “Who are you, Mr. Jacky?” she didn’t want to talk about it.
It was impossible to get through from Kyiv abroad. Anna-Halja Horbatsch was blocked, Leonid Plyushch and Volodymyr Malynkovych were blocked, but from Leningrad it was very simple. That acquaintance of ours in Finland would immediately turn on the tape recorder—and it would go all over the world. Moscow and Leningrad were bombarded with leaflets from PEN clubs, with telegrams. Jacky Bax told about this when she first came to Kyiv in 1991 and was still walking around Kyiv with caution.
Ye. Sverstiuk. That is, the whole scenario that we know had a shadowy and very strong foundation behind it. This is what paralyzed them. They felt that they were under the control of the mass media.
A. Marchenko. Even during the second trial, leaflets from PEN club with Valeriy’s photograph were sent to the prosecutor’s office in Moscow and other government bodies, demanding his release. This had a great significance. That’s why the KGB agents looked at Nina with wide eyes: how could so many people in the world be interceding for such a little-known person?
N.M. Marchenko. In the Moscow prosecutor’s office, they didn’t want to say anything about my son—they had put him somewhere and wouldn’t say where. I finally get an appointment, and he says: “When it is known, we will inform you. There is no reason for you to sit in Moscow.” I go to another institution—I’ve already forgotten which one. I return to the same prosecutor for the supervision of KGB over places of confinement in the Russian Federation. Fine, I say, I’ll sit on the steps and wait. Just don’t say I’m slandering you. And the word “slandering” for them sounded so terrible that he said: “Don’t go anywhere. Sit for 10 minutes.”
V. Ovsienko. After Valeriy’s death, the U.S. Congress and President Ronald Reagan made statements. These statements are in the 4-volume set of documents of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
Ye. Sverstiuk. So, there was a coordinated system of pressure: on the radio, through letters, telegrams, a statement from the President. We don’t even realize the full extent of this system. This history of ours has not yet been written. But it existed, it’s just not been deciphered because no one has undertaken it. The miracle that happened had completely real mechanisms of pressure behind it. They were paralyzed, they had no strength to resist and were forced to release the body and find the zinc.
From Alla Mykhailivna Marchenko’s account on October 14, 2001.
He probably died not on October 7, but a little earlier. Because Lyuba Seredniak, a close associate of Hluzman, heard a radio broadcast at night saying that Marchenko had died in a Leningrad hospital. But they told us nothing, they chased us away from the hospital. They didn’t know what to tell us, whether to release him, because no deceased political prisoner had ever been released before. But there was a lot of noise around his name, so they didn’t want to have any trouble in Leningrad and said that everything depended on the Kyiv KGB. “See, they want to be the clean ones over there, they’ve dumped everything on us.” Because Nina was demanding his release on health grounds. On September 22, he was already being carried out on a stretcher, his hands were trembling. He didn’t even have a clean handkerchief…
While still in Leningrad, I wrote on the coffin that it was Valeriy (because they were transporting another coffin too). But they sealed it in front of my eyes. I was present when they loaded it onto the plane, and I watched to see if it was my signature. Before they let us off the plane, they said that the zinc coffin could not be brought into the house. And Nina signed a pledge that she would not do so.
The plane from Leningrad arrived at around 5 a.m. A bus was waiting for us: Semen Hluzman, his wife Iryna, Yevhen Proniuk, Yevhen Sverstiuk… I got off the bus on Bastionna Street, where my grandfather had lived his last years. Those who were on the bus can tell the rest of the story. I was told they drove to the places where Valeriy had lived: Kianivskyi Lane, where he lived until he was 15, to the university, to Bankova Street, where he worked at “Literaturna Ukraina.” And then to the Pokrovska Church in Priorka, in Kurenivka.
I arrived at Pokrovska Church around 10 o’clock, and the coffin was already there. It was the church’s patronal feast day. The plan was to carry it out at 2 p.m., so we had dismissed the bus. But our glorious Chekists wanted to rush it out as early as possible to disrupt the funeral, to have fewer people. Everything was done to make people afraid. They were warned: “Don’t go there. You know you’ll have problems.”
It turned out that, in defiance of them, there was no bus, and the coffin stood in the church for two entire services. Parishioners of that church recognized him from his photograph and lit candles. They said: “He used to stand here in prayer.”
I had brought a piece of red cloth from Leningrad to cover the coffin; I hemmed it in the apartment where we were staying.
In Hatne, the men, of course, carried the coffin to this spot. Just as in the camp, the tall Antonyuk and the shorter Proniuk were often side by side, so here in the photograph you can see that Proniuk can’t reach with his shoulder, so he holds the coffin with his hands. Everything was very quiet. It seems Sverstiuk was told there should be no rallies. He recited the “Our Father” and a passage from Lesya Ukrainka—it sounded like a prayer. It was very short. There was no priest. Nina had been in contact with Father Mykhail from Pokrovska Church, because Valeriy had been in contact with him. It was he who had brought Father Mykhail to conduct our father’s funeral service. Sometime after the funeral, Nina approached him, and he quickly fled. He had been intimidated. They still allowed services in the church, but not at home.
People stood silently. He was buried around three or four o’clock.
V.O. Was Lisovyi the only one with a camera?
A.M. No, Kysliy had one too, but they confiscated everything from him or forced him to expose the film. He is a professional photographer, so they gave him a good scare.
V.O. Was it not visible whether the KGB agents were taking photos?
A.M. People who were standing further away might be able to say. A woman who is buried here told us that when we left, a KGB agent came up, straightened the grave, the flowers, the portrait. As if he wanted to act humanely.
About 10 or 12 people went to my place for a meal after the funeral. Vasyl Ivanovych’s relatives from Transcarpathia were there—his sister and her daughter, who didn’t go to the funeral but prepared the meal.
It seems like a long time ago, we’ve been living without him for 17 years now, but he is with us every day. There isn’t a day that we don’t remember him.
Published for the first time.
Published in:
Ovsienko Vasyl. The Light of People: Memoirs and Commentary. In 2 books. Book I / Compiled by the author; Art designer B.Ye. Zakharov. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; K.: Smoloskyp, 2005. – pp. 327–337.
Photos:
Marchenko-L Valeriy MARCHENKO. Portrait by Liudmyla Ryabukha-Holubchyk. 1989.
