A Voice from Vyriy
People have, after all, developed a countermeasure to the irreversibility of loss. They say, “I can’t imagine a world without…” The protest of IMAGINATION as the abode of all that is immortal—this is, in fact, “eternal memory.”
I cannot imagine a world without Lidiya Yatsenko. An art historian, a leading researcher at the Dnipropetrovsk Art Museum, a champion for the revival of Our Faith and the indigenous church, a rare expert on the Ukrainian icon, folk painting, and the parsuna portrait. And all those masculine suffixes in her titles—like “-ets” and “-nyk”—seem to suggest the figure of a stately man. Yet, Lidiya Ivanivna was small and delicate, generally inconspicuous, until her Word was heard. However, upon closer inspection, her facial features were filled with a certain Byzantine monumentality, and I was surprised that artists failed to notice it. Although… one esteemed master did paint Lidiya Ivanivna in a group portrait of her colleagues. Everyone in it resembles themselves, but she is unrecognizable; I suppose the author was constrained by the task of depicting “one of them.” But Lidiya Yatsenko was an exception to the rule, a step out of line, a leap beyond straightforward coordinates. And this was not for the sake of loud self-expression, but rather from a sort of natural, involuntary astonishment: her talent and intellect, which were ahead of their time, had to repeatedly return to that time—with that ardent wonder: can it be that fear still reigns? Can it be that the blinders have not yet been torn off?
Lidiya Ivanivna had a circle of like-minded people—narrow at first, then wider, as freedom began to dawn in the late 1980s. But for people of such a rebellious spirit, of such bold ideas and profound vision, life in Dnipropetrovsk was difficult. Mrs. Lida was truly valued and respected there, “where we are not”—among Ukrainian studies scholars in Kyiv. The world-renowned Doctor of Arts, Dmytro Stepovyk, consulted with Lidiya Yatsenko and relied on her opinion. At home, however, in her native city, in her native museum to which she devoted her life, she was an “eternal revolutionary,” a dissident, not like everyone else, as if that criterion of “EVERYONE” were truly the AXIS of spiritual righteousness.
The number “24” was fateful for Lidiya Yatsenko. On December 24, 1940, she was born. On April 24, 2005, she passed into the other world. And between those two definitive dates, there was another, perhaps no less significant twenty-fourth in her life: on May 24, 1966, Lidiya Ivanivna began working at the Dnipropetrovsk Art Museum after graduating from the philology department and trying her hand at teaching.
Her first work trip was to Petrykivka, as if connecting to the current that would power her creative being thereafter. “A flower and a bird. A cross and a star. A sacrifice and a feat.” I am quoting Lidiya Ivanivna from a rough audio recording. This phrase alone, from an oral confession, resonates with an unusual power of association, a capacity for reflection, and an all-encompassing sweep of imagery. In 1980, work was completed on the exhibition “Petrykivka Painting: Sources and Modernity,” which became a turning point in the study and understanding of Petrykivka as an island remaining from the mighty continent of Prydniprovian symbolic and decorative painting. Lidiya Yatsenko herself called that exhibition, memorable for Ukraine, “the Gospel of the Four,” because it was the work of four enthusiast friends: the chief curator of the collections, Viktor Yakovych Solovyov (forced out of the museum, died abroad), the restorer Viktor Ilyutkin (murdered under mysterious circumstances), Lidiya Ivanivna Yatsenko, and the then-young Nadiya Molchanova. Every exhibition prepared by Lidiya Yatsenko conceptually revealed phenomena that were either completely unexplored or, conversely, normatively established. This is how she re-imagined the folk painting, the “Mamais.”
This is how she researched, so poetically, inspirationally, and with scholarly rigor—as if nurturing it anew—the unique collection of Prydniprovian icons. This is how she became so intimately connected with the heroes of the Katerynoslav-Sicheslav portraits. Incidentally, Lidiya Ivanivna herself belonged to an old local family. Her grandfather, Ivan Rytiv, was an active member of the Prosvita society and participated in the revival of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Lidiya Yatsenko’s grandmother, also named Lidiya, from the Nebesov family of priests, was in charge of the 4th municipal women’s Trinity school at the beginning of the 20th century.
Our Lidiya Ivanivna was the unwavering head of the Transfiguration community. She went on a hunger strike in the cathedral when the oppression became unbearable. Some say it was a mistake. But that was how this fiery person was born and formed: she was ready to face a hundred dangers rather than take a single step toward customary and convenient compromise. In the late 1980s, Lidiya Ivanivna unhesitatingly joined the then-banned Ukrainian Helsinki Group. She did not shy away from the fire, for that fire raged within her very soul.
Only the handwritten journal “Porohy” by Ivan Sokulsky and the waves of our radio broadcast paved white paths for the lines of her poems. A poet of unique power, Lidiya Yatsenko read her poems only to HER OWN people, did not care about publications, and did not seek to join the Writers' Union, for she valued not official accolades, but something else that shone for her all her life. Some called her an eccentric, others tried to fit this powerful personality into the concept of “bohemia.” But we are convinced: only her published works, even just fragments of her poetic legacy, will finally reveal the true weight of the phenomenon that bore the name “Lidiya Yatsenko.”
Fascinated by the radical Russian poets of the Sixties, the young Lidiya initially wrote poetry in Russian. She found her first listeners and admirers in Leningrad’s intellectual circles while studying at the art history department of the Repin Leningrad Institute of Arts. But her Ukrainian identity prevailed precisely when new crackdowns on our language began. Lidiya wrote her first Ukrainian poems with dedications to the librarian Larysa Zahnitko—Loreliya, as this wonderful woman was called by her friends—and later to Ivan Sokulsky, whom she considered an ideal of a Ukrainian artist.
Lidiya Yatsenko’s poems seem to grow from the roots of our native iconography. It feels as if each one was created in the PRESENCE of the Mother of God, under the omophorion of the majestic Oranta, the tender Eleusa, the enigmatic Pravoruchytsia. And at times, they are tinged with the sorrowful light of the Mother of God of Lost Children’s Souls.
Two years ago, Lidiya Ivanivna Yatsenko created “from life” a sad cycle about her own life and the lives of other destitute people from Lahirka. The words “Boh” (God) and “bomzh” (homeless person) appeared in the same line for the first time. Surprisingly, the word “borh” (debt) also resonated with them. Unpaid utility bills, having the gas shut off, the electricity disconnected—the era of Kuchma’s twilight in the life of a persecuted and humiliated genius.
“And fate rushes on dark wheels…”
But at the very first of the Orange rallies, little Lidiya Ivanivna stood firm, even though she was just out of the hospital. And everything was just like it had been during the turbulent days 15 years earlier. Only her Oles had transformed from a “child of the revolution” into a stately student. And it was not Ivan Sokulsky who stood in the center of the square, but Mrs. Orysia Sokulska who led the rally. Lidiya Ivanivna told me: “Orysia’s voice is so strong now.”
Heads are hardened, colors blaze, and aortas burst from the tension, while souls impatiently await their flight. Lidiya Yatsenko’s soul remains with us. Just like her voice. Above all friendly words, I treasure a phrase from Lidiya Ivanivna, captured on tape:
“You always give me a voice…”
We present all of Lidiya Yatsenko’s poems from her own voice. In the recordings, the poems always emerge unexpectedly, as a continuation of her reflections within the context of the narrative. And so, I turn on the recording…
Де шлях Чумацький громами зорані,
Де йдуть понуро кудлаті хмари,
Засіймо зорі, засвітімо зорі,
Засяймо зорі, старий кобзарю!
А що талан той?
Блакить безкрая.
А що та вдача? Синь неозора.
На видноколі стану й заграю.
Засвітімо зорі!
***
Мов то ловня обвуглена й чорна
в золотавім і синім безмежжі,
Запорозька сумна Чудотворна,
лик святий потемнів від пожежі.
Лик її потемнів від пожежі,
слід її загубився в руїнах,
де Самарський собор, мов раїна,
занехаяне небо мережить.
Запорозька сумна Чудотворна
потемніла від сліз; як земля,
і важкі її руки порожні, –
загубила своє Немовля.
І нічого в світі не видно їй.
Самота стоїть, самота.
І меч душу прошиє самій, самій
від колючого древа хреста.
Богоматір Праворучиця
Праворучице, Божая мати,
Що Тебе не впізнали знавці!
Тільки Ти маєш право тримати
Бога Сина на правій руці.
Богоматір, або Бозка Матка,
Жалібниця за правих і лівих,
А праворуч сидить Немовлятко,
Осіняючи іменослівно.
І куди б не звилася дорога,
Чи й не був той успіх чи гріх,
Одесную припавши до Бога,
Ти, голубонько, молиш за всіх.
***
Шістдесятих марево років.
Мойсей уже би вийшов із пустелі,
а ми не вилізли із жебраків,
і досі в нас спустошені оселі.
Сторінки сліз вже морем натекли б,
і хвиля вже накрила б фараона,
а ми з неволі так і не втекли.
У рабстві залишилися до скону.
Герої вже загинули в борні,
а ми лишились – голі та німі,
зістарились в ярмі й померли у багні.
Амінь!
***
Дітям Нагорки
На вулиці заблудлі дітлахи,
стрибають зайченята-циганчата.
А доля мчить на чорних коліщатах,
не розбирає, де чиї гріхи.
Ні сліз, ні слів нема,
зате – є лицемір’я.
І тільки розмах крил, неначе начерк рук,
і на асфальті – наче жменька пір’я
Чи то хустинка, скинута на брук, –
хто сміє стверджувать: мовляв, не убоюся?
Піти завчасно, не загрузнувши у злі.
Ось казочка уся. Онука та бабуся
в могилі братській. Всі в одній землі.
А може, і не зовсім помремо ми
і є той світ, душі прекрасна мрія?
Побачимось, моя маленька Рома,
що на ім’я святе назвалася – Марія
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