YAROSLAV LEMYK: A Memoir of Volodymyr Ivasiuk
30-05-2007 // // URL: http://maidan.org.ua/static/lvivmai/1180534246.html
“It is not time that passes, but we who pass.”
L. Kostenko
At a screening of a documentary about Volodymyr Ivasiuk, his sister Halia asked me to write a memoir about her brother. I promised. Now I'm wondering where to begin. Perhaps with my acquaintance, and later friendship, with Liubomyr Krysa—Halia’s husband.
Back in 1955, in the 8th grade at secondary school No. 1 in the city of Lviv, I became friends with Ihor Chorniy, who had previously attended another school with Liubomyr. We were all united initially by our shared views and a passion for photography.
The Krysa family had been resettled from the San River region. They lived a traditional rural life on the outskirts of Lviv, in a place then called Bodnarivka. It is now a part of Stryiska Street built up with high-rise buildings. In those days, the second half of the 1950s, everything there looked like a village. I myself am from a village, and I found it very appealing. Liubomyr's father, Stepan Krysa, kept a horse, a cow, a beehive, had a plot of land, and four children. Liubomyr was the eldest, followed by Lilia, Volodymyr, and Dartsia. He worked part-time in Lviv as a barber, or a *fryziier* as they used to say. He managed his household: plowed, sowed, tended to the bees, and what impressed me most, and even attracted me, was that he would often gather a trio of musicians on Saturdays and they would simply hold concerts for their own amusement. His wife, also named Stefaniia, worked around the house, raised the children, and treated these concerts with kindness and humor. I always found it strange that this musical “chapel” played not for anyone else, but for themselves—simply to have fun. Stepan Krysa played the violin, but he clearly had musical talent, because whatever instrument he picked up, he could play it.
The children did not turn out to be musicians. Only the sons of his brother Vasyl Krysa became famous violinists: Oleh and Bohdan gained world fame as violinists. But Stepan didn't take after his Krysa family—they were all shopkeepers, and probably the best of them was his brother Vasyl, who, according to his stories, wanted to teach Stepan to trade, but nothing came of it. Stepan had an artistic nature and commerce passed him by. I often visited the Krysas' home. A fine, wholesome Galician family that went caroling together during the Christmas holidays and loved singing and music. Liubomyr and I would take pictures, discuss, argue, develop the film ourselves, and print the photos. It was sometime in the late 1960s, after all the children had finished secondary school and Liubomyr and I had returned from service in the Soviet army, that Ivan Dmytrovych began to visit the Krysa family. He seemed to us then like a respectable man who had fallen in love with Dartsia. They later married. Ivan Dmytrovych held high positions at the Lviv Medical Institute, and it was likely through his help that Volodia Ivasiuk and Halia, his younger sister, transferred from Chernivtsi to the Lviv Medical Institute. He helped them get a two-room apartment, as Ivan Dmytrovych had some great affection for Volodymyr Ivasiuk. It was then that Liubomyr Krysa met the young medical student, Halia. At that time, Liubomyr and I were already “older bachelors,” had various romantic adventures, and at first, upon meeting, Liubomyr didn't take it seriously. But Halia fell head over heels in love with him. That’s when our friendship with her and our acquaintance with Volodymyr Ivasiuk began.
I can’t boast that I was so knowledgeable about Volodymyr’s musical achievements, or about the Lviv music scene in general. Everyone sang “Chervona Ruta” or “Vodohrai,” from Vladivostok to Toronto. And it was so common, and Volodia was always so modest, that it seemed a natural phenomenon. Sometimes at Liubomyr’s apartment, who was living separately at the time, Volodymyr would play and sing a new melody on his guitar. We listened with interest, offered some comments. Sometimes he would play a melody on the piano at home, but he never expected praise or criticism from us. He probably guessed our level of “musical” expertise. It was taken as something mundane, because I considered him a composer, and somehow didn't realize he was the best. It's only today, with the benefit of hindsight, that I can judge his genius. I will always remember his modesty and sincerity in conversation, even with a musical ignoramus like myself.
In May 1973, I married Lidiia. The marriage was officiated by Fr. Hereliuk-Kupchynsky, an underground Greek Catholic priest, at the apartment where Lilia lived with her brother Oles. It was an ordinary two-room apartment on the 7th floor of a modern building. Lilia asked Halia to be her maid of honor, and Liubomyr was my best man. The wedding was modest, with a small number of close relatives from both sides, and Halia with Volodia. A small reception was organized by the bride herself. Volodia spent most of his time then talking with the teenagers present—my niece and Lilia's. Even when the guests were a little tipsy and asked him to sing something, he modestly declined. Indeed, at such a feast, one might sing folk songs, but not pop songs by an author.
I can't forget one incident when I suddenly fell ill. The flu or a cold. A fever, my temperature reaching 40 degrees Celsius [104°F]. It was evening, the clinic was closed. Lilia didn't know any doctors. She called Halia. And she immediately came over with Volodia, as a more experienced doctor, who brought pills with him and joked that he was a doctor only part-time. But he treated the situation responsibly and very seriously.
We were often together in social settings. Birthdays, name days, and so on. As was customary then, young people might sing after a glass of wine. But, looking ahead, I will say that the Soviet propaganda in all the newspapers portrayed Volodymyr as little short of an alcoholic—this deeply angered and even offended me. Because, if he drank, then 99 percent of our society were such “drunkards.” The remaining one percent were Baptists and the sick who couldn't drink at all. I never saw him drunk, although we were often at the table together. Everyone drank, but never got drunk. It is now that I can understand he was special, with a sensitive nature. Sometimes he could argue passionately. Youth—one wants to appear more mature. In his amateur films, he's always with a cigarette, as if to emphasize that he's older than he looks.
A little later I got to know the Ivasiuk family. They were a completely different family. Different from the Krysas. Urban, intellectual, poised, and a bit reserved. This reclusiveness may have led to the tragedy, although no one can be blamed for it, considering the thorny path of Mykhailo, Volodia’s father. In his youth, he had to “taste” all the blessings of the Soviet system.
The 1970s were the years of agony for the Moscow-communist empire, which committed the greatest crimes in Ukrainian society. Arrests, trials, long-term prison sentences, the destruction of the young Ukrainian intellectual elite. Numerous searches, dismissals from work, summons to the KGB, harassment and persecution for free speech, intimidation. Ukrainian society was paralyzed and terrified by the gigantic and mighty, as it seemed then, octopus of the KGB. They were everywhere; they had their informers among everyone. And so the reclusiveness of the Ivasiuk family is understandable. Volodymyr was probably summoned to the KGB more than once; they tried to “re-educate” him, to recruit him, to break his national spine, to turn him into an ordinary cosmopolitan or, even worse, a Moscow bard who would praise communism and the Moscow system. And they knew how to hound people well. In the press, at the conservatory, in daily life. The steadfastness and intransigence of the literary dissidents lay in their cohesion, their support for one another, and in the publicity about the persecutions and arrests. Some broke, but almost all stood firm before the Soviet monster. Even in prisons and camps.
But Volodia was alone in Lviv. The friends who surrounded him did not have such strong mettle and immunity to the totalitarian system, and he did not fully trust them. And Volodymyr was a creative soul. And Moscow already had a great deal of experience in destroying Ukrainian song. For it is known that song is the soul of a people. That is why now all electronic media, instead of Ukrainian song, inundate and poison us with Moscow pop music. That is why people like Danylko are the heroes of the day in Ukraine. Moscow destroyed the composers Kyrylo Stetsenko and Mykola Leontovych. The occupiers know well: to destroy a nation, the Holodomor is not enough. The main thing is to destroy the culture: burn libraries, appropriate the Ukrainian cultural heritage, raise children as Moscow Janissaries, ban folk traditions and religion, kill the song. And that the KGB, on Moscow's orders, murdered Ivasiuk, cannot even be doubted. There is much circumstantial evidence for this. Even the fact that the forensic examination was conducted by specialists appointed by the KGB, or that the case file on his death is located in Kyiv...
Volodymyr Ivasiuk disappeared in mid-May 1979. The day after my birthday, on May 17, Halia told us that Volodia was missing. The weather in Lviv was hot at the time. The family was anxious. At that time, his mother, Sofiia, was living with Volodymyr in Lviv, and Volodia would always make sure to call and let them know if he was suddenly going away. It was such a routine that on the second day, his mother felt anxious, and a mother's heart is never wrong. The police, the officials she turned to, were indifferent. The anxiety spread to everyone… My wife Lida and I were in touch with Halia almost daily. She was married to Liubomyr at the time and was in the last weeks of her pregnancy with her firstborn, Sofiia. Of course, everyone reassured her as best they could. And then the sudden news that Volodymyr Ivasiuk had been found dead in the Briukhovychi forest.
Now we can reconstruct how it happened.
A “Volga” car pulled up to the conservatory, and there are witnesses who saw Volodymyr get into it with two men. This make of car was used by Soviet officials. After that, no one saw him again.
In those days, in the Briukhovychi forest, behind a high fence, there was a KGB building, a fact known to all residents of Briukhovychi who tried to avoid it. (Sometime in the early 90s, with the restoration of Ukrainian statehood, the KGBists dismantled the building. Covering their tracks—they had a lot of experience in that). An accident helped to find Volodia sooner than they had planned.
In May, in the city of Berezhany in the Ternopil region, a riot broke out in a prison for juvenile delinquents, and several hundred underage inmates escaped. Some were caught and returned to custody, but the Soviet punitive organs searched everywhere for the rest. The military combed the forests around the cities, as one could live in the forest in such warm weather. One such operation was taking place in the Briukhovychi forest, where soldiers accidentally stumbled upon the hanging body of Volodymyr Ivasiuk.
The KGB's calculation was simple—to hang the already dead Ivasiuk in the forest during those hot days. In a short time, it would have been impossible to determine anything. As Vasyl Krysa later told me, who was allowed with the family into the morgue for identification, there were no signs that Volodia had committed suicide by hanging. (No protruding tongue, his underwear was clean, but there were clearly visible signs of beatings). I have already mentioned the appointment of a special forensic examination and the false propaganda tales in the newspapers (and all press was under the control of the Communist Party and the KGB), which prove their involvement in this crime.
At the time of the funeral on May 22, 1979, Halia was sent to my mother Anastasia's house in the family village of Solova, so that it would not affect her health or the health of her unborn child.
In Lviv, it wasn't a funeral but a protest-demonstration. The authorities did not allow the coffin to be opened. The youth carried it on their shoulders to the Lychakiv Cemetery. At the head of the procession, holding a portrait of Volodia, walked Oksana Patyk, a medical student. Thousands and thousands of people, hundreds of wreaths, a sea of flowers. Rostyslav Bratun delivered a passionate, emotional speech over the grave, for which he was later removed from his post as head of the Lviv regional branch of the writers' union and editor-in-chief of the magazine “Zhovten.” The KGB did not forgive such uncontrolled acts.
This was the first great protest of Ukrainians against the occupying Moscow regime. Volodymyr Ivasiuk made a challenge to the authorities with the sacrifice of his life. His second sacrifice was the “Chervona Ruta” festival in Chernivtsi in September 1989. A protest rally in song. A national explosion that initiated the toppling of the rotten Moscow empire and gave Ukrainians the opportunity to restore an Independent and Unified State.
Contact the author of the text through Maidan-Zahid, [email protected]
Posted on the KHPG website by V. Ovsiyenko on February 25, 2008.