A Memoir
In the late 1980s, the Ukrainian scholar Yaroslav Dzyra wrote in the newspaper “Molod Ukrainy” (Youth of Ukraine) that the tradition of observing May 22 was started by students of the T. H. Shevchenko Kyiv University back in the fifties. On this day, some students would travel by steamboat to Kaniv, while others would lay flowers at the poet’s monument in Kyiv.
Students mostly gathered in the evening. Impromptu literary evenings and Shevchenko readings would take place.
After reading Yaroslav Dzyra’s article about May 22, I recalled how, in the early sixties, a story circulated orally among the youth of Kyiv that the tradition of celebrating May 22 as the Day of the Poet's Reburial began in 1862.
It is known that the memorial service over the coffin with the Kobzar's body was held at the Church of the Nativity in the Podil district of Kyiv. According to the legend, a year later, prayers were again offered in the same church for the repose of the soul of the departed Taras. And after the divine service ended, people were in no hurry to return to their homes. They would stand near the church, talking and singing songs.
The unusual event that occurred in the Church of the Nativity during the panikhida over Shevchenko’s remains was memorable for all present.
Through the crowd of parishioners, a woman in black passed as easily as a shadow, carried a wreath of thorns over the heads of the multitude, silently placed it on the poet’s coffin, and then quickly left and disappeared.
The proximity of the Dnipro River inspired a poetic mood in those who lingered near the Church of the Nativity. Some recounted how the Kobzar’s body was transported across Ukraine and how people everywhere came out to meet Shevchenko’s coffin; others retold the speeches given at the Poet's funeral and reburial; still others recited his poems.
According to the legend, this tradition continued until the church was destroyed during the Soviet era.
According to Ya. Dzyra, students of Kyiv University traveled to Kaniv specifically on May 22 as early as the 1950s.
In my opinion, Ukrainians have always, in every decade, remembered the day of the reburial of Shevchenko’s remains. Someone would invariably come to Taras's grave on May 22. A rewarding layer of our native history awaits its researcher.
But let us return to 1961.
Having read about the ceremonies being prepared for May 22, we, students of the Kyiv Medical Institute—Lidia Piven (Huk), Olena Umanets (Terslia), and I—went to the Shevchenko monument on that day.
Not far from the monument, we saw a small group of students singing “Topolia” (The Poplar). More and more people approached the group. Passersby would stop, listen, and begin to sing along with everyone. After singing, the people dispersed. And on the slope where the monument stands, red tulips and crimson peonies remained, blazing with color.
That day, May 22, 1961, made an unforgettable impression on us. For the three of us were natives of the rural depths of Ukraine—Lidia Piven from Sencha in the Poltava region, Olena Umanets from Haisyn in Podillia, and I from Tykhyi Khutir in the Kyiv region—where in the 40s and 50s everyone still spoke Ukrainian, knew Shevchenko's poems by heart in every home, and his birthday was widely celebrated in March. Lectures, amateur arts concerts, and plays based on Shevchenko's dramatic works were held in village clubs and schools. And so it went, year after year, until the Brezhnev era. Arriving in Kyiv, we all felt the harsh grind of the Russification policy: instruction in higher and specialized secondary educational institutions was conducted in Russian, and the use of the Ukrainian language was ubiquitously disdained in government institutions.
We began to search for centers of Ukrainian culture, for like-minded people. And so the following year, in 1962, on May 22, the three of us found ourselves once again at the Shevchenko monument.
In the park around the monument, students stood in small groups. I listened. Everyone was speaking Ukrainian.
And I was already delighted, for I felt that we were not just three in all of Kyiv, but more. How my heart warmed when I also saw my school friend here, a construction student Vasyl Zdorovylo, and students of the Kyiv Medical Institute Yaroslav Hevrych, Volodymyr Rudyk, and Borys Pavlenko.
It was only the following year, on the eve of May 22, that I learned that in 1962, the creative youth from the "Suchasnyk" (Contemporary) club had laid flowers at the Kobzar’s monument for the first time.
The year 1963 began under the sign of preparations for the new Shevchenko jubilee—the 150th anniversary of the poet's birth.
At that time, I was attending the Club of Creative Youth and singing in the "Zhaivoronok" (Lark) choir.
I remember how an active member of the Club of Creative Youth, the young scientist Erast Biniashevsky, with his characteristic emotion, told us that Jawaharlal Nehru himself had announced the creation of a Shevchenko jubilee committee in India. A conservatory student, Vadym Smohytel, reported that a monument to Shevchenko was going to be erected in America, in Washington. Yuriy Milko had heard that Japan had sent five students to Kyiv University to study the Ukrainian language in order to translate the works of T. Shevchenko.
In the Soviet Ukrainian press, there were reports that Moscow also intended to unveil a monument to the Kobzar. Information about Shevchenko’s international recognition was breaking through the Soviet walls of isolation. Volodymyr Nerodenko, the head of the "Vesnianka" (Spring Song) folklore and ethnographic ensemble, proposed at one of the Club of Creative Youth meetings to build a high mound on the Dnipro banks in Kyiv in honor of the 150th anniversary of Shevchenko’s birth, bringing soil from all over Ukraine in our caps and handfuls.
We were all thrilled by this proposal, but it seems not everyone understood that the authorities would not agree to it. And so it came to be.
Volodymyr Nerodenko also proposed removing the thujas that formed a narrow corridor restricting the path to the monument. Someone did heed Volodymyr's proposal, and so those inappropriate thujas are no longer there.
In 1963, it seemed to us students that the world thought of nothing but our poet, and consequently of Ukraine. It was only much later that we would learn that in that same America, where a monument to Shevchenko was unveiled in the center of Washington before a gathering of two hundred thousand Ukrainians from around the world—in that same America, almost no one knew anything about Ukraine.
From the end of April 1963, the “Suchasnyk” Club of Creative Youth began preparations for its first open-air Shevchenko literary evening, dedicated to the Day of the Reburial of Shevchenko’s remains on May 22.
In the first half of May 22, at the suggestion of artist Halyna Zubchenko, a small group traveled to the sculptor Ivan Makarovych Honchar to invite the artist to the evening and to spend that day in the atmosphere of Ukrainian folk art. The group consisted of the artists Alla Horska, Halyna Sevruk, and Liubov Panchenko, as well as the biologist Halyna Vozna, Kyiv Medical Institute student Anatoliy Korniyenko, and university lecturer and poetess Hanna Ihnatenko.
Ivan Makarovych was as happy as a child. He was grateful for the invitation and for the fact that we had dared to hold such an event. With youthful zeal, he set about showing us Poltava rushnyky (embroidered towels).
Alla Horska would turn to us and say quietly, but with emphasis: “All that we do is trivial! This is how it should be done!” To this day, it is not entirely clear to me what she meant when she said that “this is how it should be done”: whether it was the heights of folk art or the dedicated work of an ethnographer. Incidentally, it was Alla Horska who told me that she had come to realize she was Ukrainian thanks to Ivan Honchar. It was among his collections that she understood she must be a Ukrainian artist.
From Ivan Makarovych's, we went together to the Shevchenko monument. It was a remarkably beautiful, sunny day. The chestnut trees were blooming all around. A nightingale was timidly chirping in the park. One thought: is there anywhere else in the world where nightingales sing in the middle of a city?
People slowly began to gather. The majority were young.
The literary evening of May 22, 1963, dedicated to the bright memory of Taras Shevchenko, was opened by a representative of the regional Komsomol committee, Oleksandr Klushyn.
“…On this day, Ukraine buried its son on Chernecha Hora (Monk's Hill). Let our gathering on May 22 become a good tradition,” the speaker concluded. Meanwhile, a considerable number of people had gathered. I was shown the university vocal ensemble “Dnipro,” the folklore-ethnographic ensemble “Vesnianka,” the inter-university traveling student choir “Zhaivoronok,” which was also a folklore-ethnographic group.
Yevhen Sverstiuk gave the floor to the poets Iryna Zhylenko, Vitaliy Korotych, Mykola Kholodny, Hryhoriy Tymenko, and, it seems, Viktor Mohylny.
They say Iryna Zhylenko denies her participation in this evening, claiming that she and Volodia [Drozd] had gone to another city. However, I stand by my memory. I recall how Iryna, after reading two or three of her poems, lamented to me: “And they didn't understand my poems again… not at the medical institute, not here…” And I tried to convince her that these poems were wonderful and understood by all. This was on May 22, 1963.
In addition to the aforementioned poets, people came up one by one to the steps of the pedestal and recited Shevchenko’s poems. And then Yevhen Sverstiuk gave the floor to the actress Tetyana Ivanivna Tsymbal.
For the first time, I heard and saw up close how Tetyana Tsymbal lived through every poem she recited. She became indignant with Shevchenko, grieved, suffered, rejoiced, and smiled gently. It was as if Taras Shevchenko himself had appeared before us.
After the performances, people did not disperse for a long time. They sang songs with lyrics by Shevchenko and Ukrainian folk songs. When “Dnipro” finished, the students from “Vesnianka” would begin. And then the members of “Zhaivoronok” would continue the singing. Or everyone would sing together. Inspired and powerful—“Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyi” (The wide Dnipro roars and groans). A banner floated above the heads of the admirers of the Kobzar's memory: “We have not forgotten you, Taras!” I saw this banner near the Shevchenko monument on March 9 and May 22 for many years.
They dispersed peacefully, without any displays of irritation from the authorities. There were no police, no so-called druzhynnyky (volunteer patrolmen). However, as it turned out, the authorities soon became extremely irritated by the nationwide honoring of the poet's memory and tried in every way to put an end to this dangerous tradition.
In the following years, in various institutions, especially in higher educational establishments, preventative summons to party committees, rectorates, places of work or study, and even to the KGB began.
By 1964, the Club of Creative Youth had effectively ceased to exist. But the young people who belonged to the Club remained. Therefore, there was someone to ensure that the tradition of celebrating May 22 did not end.
We understood that neither the state institutions nor the regional Komsomol committee, under whose patronage the Club had once been, would facilitate the organization and holding of a literary evening at the Shevchenko monument on this day. So we had to do without their help.
Two weeks before May 22, I met with Yevhen Sverstiuk, with Borys Riabokliach, the head of the traveling student choir “Zhaivoronok,” and with the poet-doctor Vitaliy Korotych. We discussed how best to honor Shevchenko's memory.
All three agreed to take part in the evening in memory of the Kobzar.
Yevhen Sverstiuk prepared a speech—a word about Shevchenko. Vitaliy Korotych was to read his poems and invite other poets to perform, Borys Riabokliach promised to bring “Zhaivoronok,” and I undertook to invite students from various educational institutions to the evening. Even cadets from the Kalinin Higher School of Communications were invited to the May 22 evening. It was not the first time I had invited them to Ukrainian literary evenings. A few cadets always came. They say they were there this time too.
Students from the medical institute showed particular activity in preparing the evening: Yaroslav Hevrych, Oleksandr Serhiyenko, Lidia Piven (Huk), Olena Umanets (Terelia), Borys Pavlenko, Viliamin Mykhalchuk. We went into student lecture halls, spoke about the tradition of celebrating May 22, and called on them to support it.
On May 16, 1964, students of the Kyiv Medical Institute traveled by steamboat to Kaniv. On board the ship were the rector of the institute, Professor V. D. Bratus, as well as the entire party committee.
It was my first trip to Kaniv. A strange excitement filled my chest. At my invitation, the young artist Liubov Panchenko was traveling with us. Her stylized Ukrainian attire, her long, tight, and pitch-black braid, the beaded ribbon above her forehead—all of it evoked admiration from many. The mood was inexplicably elevated. The banks and steep slopes of the Dnipro were drowning in greenery and in a blizzard of white blossoms from apple, pear, and cherry trees. And at night, nightingales sang.
Surprisingly, the steamboat sailed without excessive noise; a solemn silence surrounded us, and one could only hear the orchestras and solo songs of the nightingales from both sides of the Dnipro.
In the evening, someone announced that the steamboat would arrive in Kaniv at 4 a.m., but it was recommended to stay on deck until 7 a.m., and then proceed in an organized manner to the grave to lay wreaths.
Indeed, it was a breathtaking spectacle when, in turn, huge groups and columns of people with wreaths and flowers walked and walked, laying them at the grave, speaking warm words, and invariably singing “Zapovit” (The Testament). And so it continued all day.
But we—I and a few of my friends—did not want to wait on the steamboat from four to eight in the morning. We—that is, I, Liubov Panchenko, my niece Liuba Plakhotniuk (Horiachun), Mykhalchuk, Hevrych, Korniyenko, and I believe Oleksandr Serhiyenko—left the deck as soon as the ship moored. We carried a large bundle of red viburnum branches with us.
We walked along the path above the Dnipro. Someone shouted: “The nightingale in the dark grove greets the sun...” Indeed, everything was just as in Shevchenko: the dark grove, and on the horizon, over the Dnipro’s surface, the sun was rolling, and the nightingales...
For me, everything was a first. The journey by steamboat along the Dnipro, the Ukrainian landscapes sung by Taras Shevchenko, the amazing wooden stairs up Chernecha Hora, and the frantic beating of our hearts at the poet's grave.
It was still quite early, but people were already slowly approaching.
Liuba Panchenko moved away and was sketching nearby.
When we were returning to Kyiv, I addressed the students several times, urging them to come to the Shevchenko monument on May 22 for the traditional literary evening in memory of Shevchenko.
After arriving from Kaniv, Oles Serhiyenko and I once again reminded our fellow students about May 22.
And on May 21, I was invited to the rector's office for a conversation, which took place in the presence of the party committee secretary, the head of the local trade union committee, and a representative of the regional Komsomol committee. A peculiar Soviet triangle.
Everyone knew Professor Vasyl Dmytrovych Bratus as an intelligent and balanced person. But during the conversation, the professor did not hide his irritation, periodically resorting to shouting, and advising me to transfer to the literature faculty.
The essence of the conversation boiled down to one thing: that I had been drawn into their circle by nationalists who wanted to use me. They said the exact same thing to V. Mykhalchuk, to Nadiya Svitlychna, and to many other young people with whom preventative talks were held at their place of residence or work.
“We advise you not to go to the Shevchenko monument...”
“But why?”
“You could be used...”
“So, in your opinion, I’m a prostitute to be ‘used’ by someone?”
At the end of the conversation, the “troika” demanded that I not go to the Shevchenko monument the next day and that I take all measures to ensure that no medical students were there.
I replied that I was not going to dissuade anyone, and that I myself would go to lay flowers at the Shevchenko monument because I saw nothing wrong in it. I believe that they should have come too. After all, the whole world was honoring the bright memory of Shevchenko that year.
The representative from the regional Komsomol committee invited me to the regional Komsomol committee at 4 p.m., saying that the first secretary wanted to talk to me.
When I arrived there, I met Yevhen Sverstiuk, Vitaliy Korotych, and the head of the “Zhaivoronok” choir, Borys Riabokliach.
We were invited to see the secretary of the regional Komsomol committee, Leonid Pustovoitenko. The whole conversation boiled down to persuading us not to hold a literary evening at the Shevchenko monument and not to go there at all.
“But it's an evening to honor the memory of the Kobzar!”
“To honor the memory of Shevchenko on May 22 is an insult to the great Russian people.”
Comments, I think, are unnecessary.
The secretary demanded that we abandon the idea of organizing the evening.
“We won't be able to do anything, because honoring Shevchenko's memory has become a tradition. People will come, regardless of whether we want it or not,” Sverstiuk and I replied.
Vitaliy Korotych began to persuade us not to go to the evening tomorrow, because, he said, it (the evening) could be steered in the wrong direction.
“And in what direction? And who could do that?”
“Well, I don't want to say right now in what direction or by whom, but I advise you to cancel the evening. Let's listen, boys…”
Of course, no one agreed to the secretary's demand or Vitaliy Korotych's advice.
Just a few days earlier, while discussing with Korotych how best to hold the evening on May 22, I had said that the authorities obviously did not want such an evening to be held specifically on May 22. Korotych replied to that: “They let the genie out of the bottle, and now they can’t stuff it back in.”
And here was the same Korotych, along with the secretary of the regional Komsomol committee, trying to stuff the giant back into the bottle.
Regarding this, Lyudmyla Chorna, an employee of the Shevchenko National Preserve in Kaniv, writes an interesting article, “Non-Jubilee Events in a Jubilee Year,” in the newspaper “Nasha Vira” (Our Faith) No. 108 for April 1997. The author based her article not on memoirs, but on archival documents of former Party and Komsomol institutions.
I quote a passage from Lyudmyla Chorna's article verbatim: “A report from the Secretary of the Central Committee of the LKSMU [Leninist Young Communist League of Ukraine], Comrade Yu. Yelchenko, to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU [Communist Party of Ukraine], Comrade M. O. Sobol, dated 26.05.1964” (UDRHOU, f-1, op. 24, case 5894, fol. 163-165) informs that on May 20, the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine… from Korotych—a poet, an employee of the Strazhesko Institute of Clinical Medicine—it became known about the intention of some representatives of the creative intelligentsia of Kyiv to gather on May 22 at the monument to T. H. Shevchenko in connection with the anniversary of the transfer of T. G. Shevchenko's remains from St. Petersburg to Kyiv. M. Plakhotniuk—a student of the medical institute, and Ye. Sverstiuk—a literary critic, invited Comrade Korotych to participate in the gathering, to which Korotych refused and informed the Komsomol authorities about it.” (Ibid., fol. 163).
Mrs. Lyudmyla Chorna's information came as a surprise to me. There is something to reflect upon.
How are you doing, Mr. Vitaliy Korotych, in distant Boston, in a foreign land, without your dear Central Committee of the CPU and Central Committee of the LKSMU? Or perhaps you are perishing from nostalgia? Of course not! For you are like a tumbleweed… that rolls with the wind.
Having promised Pustovoitenko and Korotych nothing, we dispersed.
A summons to the regional KGB was waiting for me at the dormitory. My classmate V. Mykhalchuk received the same summons.
I was questioned by comrades Ivanov, Loginov, and another KGB agent whose name I no longer remember.
The conversation lasted for many hours. They asked me questions—I answered. And the KGB agents got angry. My answers clearly did not satisfy them.
The peak of the nonsensical questions from the three KGB agents was the demand to write an explanatory note stating for what purpose we had disembarked from the ship earlier than the rest and had walked separately from the group.
Unfortunately, I wrote an explanatory statement (I later learned that they had no right to demand such a statement, and I had the right not to write it).
The content of my explanatory note did not satisfy the security service officers. For I had written that we disembarked earlier than others because we desperately wanted to see and hear how “the nightingale in the dark grove greets the sun.” And again the oral questions rained down: “Why did Mykhalchuk take off his shoes and walk barefoot?”, “Why did you bring viburnum, when the institute brought a wreath?”, “Who invited Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska to Kaniv?” (This must have been some inexperienced spy who mistook Liuba Panchenko for Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska). By the way, all these questions had also interested the rector and the party organizer of the medical institute the day before.
The conversation at the KGB lasted for many hours, from 3:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. The KGB agents conducting the conversation changed. The conversation had the character of an interrogation. After nine in the evening, Ivanov entered the office again. He said that he had just driven past the Shevchenko monument and saw a small group of people there. “They are singing some sad, oppressive Ukrainian songs, as if mourning someone. It’s so anachronistic!” “To each their own! It seems to me very ‘contemporary.’ Both Shevchenko and his poetry… That’s why you summoned me here… Shevchenko’s poetry is always contemporary.”
Both at the medical institute and at the KGB, the issue was that the student V. Mykhalchuk had left a very “seditious” entry in the guestbook. The rector of the medical institute, Professor V. D. Bratus, called Mykhalchuk's entry slander, attributing its authorship to me, although I genuinely had nothing to do with it.
Mykhalchuk and I viewed the museum's exhibition separately. As I was leaving the museum, I read that entry. What was so seditious that it so alarmed both the rector and the KGB?
I don't recall V. Mykhalchuk's entry verbatim, but I remember that the student, a native of the Cherkasy region, expressed his love for Ukraine, for Shevchenko, and concluded with the words: “The time has come, Taras, for all of Ukraine to come to you on bare feet, to bow down.” That was the extent of the sedition.
They say that an hour later, this page was torn out of the guestbook. I wonder if the museum still has this entry, or if, perhaps, it is in the safes of the KGB?
It is understandable that I did not get to the Shevchenko monument that evening. Despite the preventative measures, many medical students did come, including Oles Serhiyenko, Viliamin Mykhalchuk, Borys Pavlenko, Volodymyr Rudyk, Olena Umanets (Terelia), Lidia Piven (Huk), and others.
I was told that many people, including students, had gathered. And around the park, dozens of cars from the agency on Volodymyrska and Rozy Liuksemburh streets were parked. Those who got out of these cars dispersed among the admirers of Shevchenko’s memory and, perhaps, sang the “sad, oppressive songs” along with everyone else. And in the side alleys, our dear militsiya (police) was on high alert, as if an unprecedented terrorist act was about to explode.
The young people saw all this and paid no attention to the “combat readiness” of the guardians of the Soviet people.
They say that on that evening, people kept approaching the pedestal. They laid flowers and joined the singers. Many were from the “Zhaivoronok” choir. The choir was becoming odious.
When the singing paused, new speakers or reciters of Taras Shevchenko's poetry, or even their own poems, like Yevhen Varda, Mykola Kholodny, and Hryts Tymchenko, would mount the steps of the pedestal.
Vitaliy Korotych, of course, did not come, having informed the Komsomol authorities of the intention of some to gather on May 22. And perhaps he sat at home and scribbled a new denunciation.
On May 23, the KGB summoned the medical student V. Mykhalchuk for processing. I met him as he was leaving the dormitory. Vilia was handsomely dressed in an embroidered shirt, with a “Kobzar” in his hand. “Why did you take the ‘Kobzar’ with you?” “I’ll answer their questions with Shevchenko’s words. Look, I’ve put bookmarks in the ‘Kobzar’ so I don't have to search for long.”
Afterwards, Mykhalchuk recounted that he had indeed quoted Shevchenko in response to every question from the KGB agents.
And on May 23, I took the postponed exam in clinical therapy.
The examiner whispered to me: “Did you get into some trouble at the institute?” And she added: “You must have, if I’ve been told to examine you thoroughly.” However, she did not examine me for long, but gave me the “state-mandated grade,” looking me meaningfully in the eyes.
And Mykhalchuk, at the department of obstetrics and gynecology, was examined for 1 hour and 20 minutes. No matter how they tried to corner the student, he did not give in and emerged from the duel with honor: “They say Mykhalchuk was given an ‘excellent’ in his record book.”
Two days later, on May 24 (this is the date my memory has preserved; Lyudmyla Chorna gives the 25th), the spirit of May 22 hovered in the assembly hall of the House of Scientists, where an author’s Shevchenko evening by the actress Tetyana Ivanivna Tsymbal took place.
The evening began at 6 p.m. Backstage stood comrades Zavadsky from the “Ukrkontsert” administration and the institution's editor, Kulanov. According to them, they had received instructions at the regional party committee regarding the evening with a categorical demand to read nothing more than Shevchenko. And a ban on encores.
An artificial shortage of spectators was created in advance. Tickets were distributed to enterprises, and the people who were given the tickets did not show up. Meanwhile, a huge number of people who wanted to hear Tsymbal gathered outside the building, but they came without tickets or invitations. A "sold out" sign was posted, but there were many empty seats. People were storming the entrance. Viktoria, the actress's daughter, kept bringing out invitations. They were snapped up in an instant. The hall filled to capacity. And just as with people, it was filled with flowers.
The concert had two parts. “I mertvym, i zhyvym” (To the Dead and the Living), “Kavkaz” (The Caucasus), “Son” (The Dream), “Kateryna,” “Naimychka” (The Hired Girl) were performed. The hall thundered with applause. They would not let their favorite actress go, who so penetratingly and masterfully recited the poems of the most beloved Ukrainian poet. “Why are you staying on stage for so long?” Kulanov asked pretentiously. “You finished, you should leave.”
Tsymbal goes back on stage. And concludes by reciting:
*Чи ми ще зійдемося знову,*
*Чи вже навіки розійшлись?*
The actress nodded, indicating that it was over. The concert had ended. But the audience demanded she read more and more. And the actress reads. She performs Lesya Ukrainka’s “Na rokovyny Shevchenka” (On the Anniversary of Shevchenko’s Death) as an encore. The applause does not subside. Tetyana Tsymbal comes out on stage again: “I will now read the poem ‘Smert Shevchenka’ (The Death of Shevchenko) by Ivan Drach, who is present in this hall.” And again she reads tirelessly. Only the breathing of the audience can be heard in the hall. Thunderous applause. The actress bowed, went backstage, and immediately returned, casting a sad glance over everyone, and recited in a single breath: “І день іде, і ніч іде. І голову схопивши в руки, Дивуєшся, чому не йде Апостол правди і науки?” (And day comes, and night comes. And, clutching your head in your hands, you wonder, why doesn't the Apostle of truth and learning come?).
Everyone stood up. They greeted the actress with a standing ovation. Antonenko-Davydovych approaches, kisses her hand, expressing his admiration. Lina Kostenko lays flowers on the stage, at the actress’s feet. Tetyana Ivanivna Tsymbal addressed the audience, asking for their help in carrying these flowers to the Shevchenko monument.
Everyone applauded loudly for a long time, and then left the hall. Outside, a column formed. In front was the actress with her daughter, and next to them, Lina Kostenko. They led a large column of an impromptu Shevchenko demonstration.
I will dare to contradict Lyudmyla Chorna, who claimed that this proposal was supported by about 50 people.
My memory recorded that all the spectators (and there were significantly more than 50 people) simultaneously formed a column and moved along the sidewalk towards Shevchenko Park. The blooming branches of chestnut trees bent over their heads, and almost everyone held flowers. The column was singing.
There is no doubt that the actress organized this crowded procession quite consciously. She knew that on the eve of May 22, the authorities had tried to prevent the commemoration of the poet's memory.
The guardians of order had not foreseen the possibility of such a turn of events.
The authorities were extremely irritated by the nationwide honoring of the Kobzar and tried in every way to stop this dangerous tradition. With each year, the persecution intensified.
In the following years, in various institutions, especially in higher educational establishments, preventative summons began for those students and teachers who might go to the Shevchenko monument on May 22. They were talked to, persuaded, warned, and intimidated, and ultimately, expelled “for behavior unworthy of a Soviet student” or even for poor academic performance, after being "thoroughly" examined.
And those who were working were fired under various pretexts. Competitions, staff reductions, violations of labor discipline—as in the famous fable: "And to find a reason to pick on you..."
One of the first to be dismissed from her job at the university was Lidia Orel (1965)—now known for her dedicated work as an ethnographer.
Every year after May 22, someone would be fired from their job or expelled from the university or another higher education institution. They were persecuted just for daring to go to the Shevchenko monument on that day. To sing along with everyone, to listen to poetry, to lay flowers.
In 1968, R. Motruk was dismissed from Ukrainian Radio “due to staff reductions,” but in fact—for disobedience.
Nadiya Svitlychna also had to leave her job, supposedly of her own accord. She had been hired for this job on the recommendation of radio announcer Petro Boyko.
And so, a few days before May 22, Nadiya Svitlychna was summoned by the management of the institution and demanded not to participate in the commemoration of Shevchenko’s memory. Or to resign of her own volition. Petro Boyko also began to ask this of her. Nadiya found herself without a job.
In the spring of 1965, I think in the first half of May, the men's choir “Beskyd” from the Drohobych Pedagogical Institute gave a concert in the assembly hall of the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute, which I attended quite by chance, having seen a poster.
The hall was packed with students.
For us, Kyiv students, the news that the rector of the Drohobych Pedagogical Institute was singing in the choir was interesting.
But what stirred the hearts of the student youth most were two songs—“Nich yaka, Hospody, zoriana, yasnaia” (What a night, O Lord, starry, bright) and “Smilo, druhy, ne teriaite!” (Bravely, friends, do not lose!). After the first, it became clear that everyone longed for the Lord, was searching for Him.
The applause did not die down for a long time! It seemed that the choir could surprise us no further.
The announcer announces that “Beskyd” will perform a Russian song in Ukrainian translation. “Smilo, druhy” (Bravely, Friends) by the populist poet Alexandrov. The hall grew quiet, held its breath.
*Сміло, други, не теряйте*
*Духа на страшную прю.*
*Рідну країну спасайте,*
*Честь і свободу свою.*
The mood of the song was in tune with the feelings of the audience. The words “ridnu krainu spasaite” (save your native country) were perceived as “ridnu Vkrainu spasaite” (save our native Ukraine).
Evidently, Ukrainian society felt that prisons, and Siberia, and torments were soon to come, and that “we will endure all tortures.” And so, at the end of the summer of 1965, the first patriots would be seized and exiled to Mordovia, the Urals, Siberia, to prisons and camps. Meanwhile, the one who had been through prisons and exile—Antonenko-Davydovych—rose from his seat and listened to the song standing, and then greeted the choir members with fatherly warmth. All present also greeted the choir standing.
On May 22, 1965, the song “Smilo, druhy, ne teriaite” was heard again and again near the Shevchenko monument. The people of Kyiv sang this song. For the KGB agents and the militsiya, this was something new.
In 1966, May 22 was cold and rainy. People huddled together in a tight group. And again they sang “Khai nas po tiurmakh sadzhaiut” (Let them put us in prisons). And this was already a challenge. For at that time in Ukraine, political trials had taken place for what was essentially the Ukrainian cause. Kyiv, Odesa, Feodosia, Lviv, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk—this seems to be an incomplete geography of the political repressions in Ukraine in 1965. Among those convicted was one medical student, Yaroslav Hevrych. And who can count how many students were expelled from universities!
In my memory, when I think about the repressions, the talented ethnographer and journalist Vadym Mysyk always comes to mind. Only he knows how much spiritual torment he endured, forced to leave Kyiv. However, Vadym found himself in the Cherkasy region, diving headfirst into ethnography, into Ukrainian studies. Perhaps it turned out for the better? His talent might have withered in Kyiv libraries and on the capital's asphalt.
May 22, 1967. A warm, sunny day. When I arrived at the Shevchenko monument, I saw that significantly more people had gathered than in previous years. The hill on which the monument to Taras stands was completely covered with flowers. Peonies and tulips, blue and light blue irises, and luxurious branches of blooming lilacs blazed with color. Bunches of red viburnum berries were laid as a separate patch. It glowed red on the green hill where the Kobzar stood tall.
And people kept coming and coming. And laying flowers. Gradually, a mountain of flowers formed. Someone compared the quantity to those laid at the Lenin monument on his birthday.
The leader of the world proletariat was losing significantly, even though, as is known, flowers were brought at the expense of the state in a race by party committees of all levels and of Kyiv's institutions and organizations.
We, however, brought flowers in armfuls without any coercion. Apparently, for this reason, the park caretakers tried to remove them as quickly as possible.
An impromptu literary evening began. One by one, students come out and, without giving their names, recite poems by T. Shevchenko, Vasyl Symonenko, Volodymyr Sosiura, Volodymyr Samiylenko.
On the steps of the pedestal is a student from the theatrical institute, Volodymyr Koliada. He talentedly recited several poems by classics of Ukrainian literature. He concludes with a poem by V. Sosiura, "To a Youth." When he recited: "Look, the sons of Russia are coming," at that moment, cutting through the crowd, the police began to grab people. Unexpectedly. And shove them into a police van. The people saw that four had been shoved into the van.
For a moment, the crowd froze, but in the next instant, a thunderous and angry chant of "Shame!" erupted. And the crowd, linking arms firmly, moved like a wave towards the police. And they, evidently, did not expect a unanimous reaction. The faces of the policemen betrayed their confusion. And none of them dared to grab new victims, and they all quickly got into their vans and drove away.
Pushing back the police, the people who had gathered at the Shevchenko monument went out onto the square opposite the university, blocking the roadway of Volodymyrska Street. For a short time, traffic stopped. The square seethed with protest. In one corner, students sang "Shaliite, shaliite, skazheni katy!" (Rage, rage, you mad executioners!), in another, "Khai nas po tiurmakh sadzhaiut" (Let them put us in prisons), and in yet another, "Chuiesh, surmy zahraly, chas rozplaty nastav" (Do you hear, the trumpets have sounded, the hour of reckoning has come)...
Slowly, the heat of anger began to subside, and everyone returned to the monument.
It was decided to call on those present to go to the Central Committee of the CPU and demand the release of those arrested and the punishment of those guilty of the crackdown.
Thus, I found myself on the steps of the hill and addressed the crowd approximately as follows: “Today in Moscow, the regular congress of writers of the USSR began its work. Today in Kyiv, they were honoring the memory of the greatest Ukrainian writer, Taras Shevchenko.
And today in Kyiv, a savage crackdown was carried out against those who came to honor the Kobzar’s memory. Four of our comrades have been seized by the police.
We came here with flowers and pure intentions.
I call on everyone to go to the building of the Central Committee of the CPU with the demand to release the arrested and punish those guilty of committing this crackdown…”
I announced the route.
Quite quickly, a column was formed and began to move.
In the first ranks of the column walked Oksana Meshko, the actress Tetyana Ivanivna Tsymbal, Valentyna Drabata, and Oleksandr Serhiyenko.
Also in the column were my friends Vasyl Zdorovylo, Heorhiy Veremiychyk, and Varvara Ponomarenko.
Several times, they tried to stop us, to disperse us. We broke through the cordons of police and the so-called people's druzhynnyky. At the corner of Shevchenko Boulevard and Volodymyrska Street, a dense cordon of police was formed. The column stopped. Negotiations, so to speak, began. But a hitherto unknown student in a white blouse came forward and addressed the column with a resolute voice: “What are we talking about? Haven't you seen how they talk to us? Follow me!” And she led the column, bypassing the cordon.
I still do not know the name of this courageous student. Who is she? Perhaps she will respond?
There were attempts to pull me out of the column, saying, “come out for a minute, we want to talk.” But my comrades held me tightly.
On Bankova Street, then Ordzhonikidze, water-spraying trucks came out to meet us, directing powerful jets of water at the column, but the column was not frightened and did not disperse.
Fifty meters from the Central Committee of the CPU building, a multi-layered cordon of police was waiting for us.
We approached closely and stopped. We stood in silence.
City officials came to us one after another, but we said that they were not satisfactory. We wanted to speak with the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU.
Finally, at one o’clock in the morning, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ivan Holovchenko, and a Mr. Kalash, a KGB officer for ideology, came out to us. It was he who had been the handler for Ivan Svitlychny during his first investigation in 1965 and after his release.
At the unanimous demand of the demonstrators, Minister Holovchenko promised to bring the arrested individuals to the main post office within half an hour.
Indeed, those seized near the Shevchenko monument were brought to the main post office at 1:30 a.m. They turned out to be Ihor Luhovyi, Rotshtein, the poet Viktor Mohylny, and the student of the theatrical institute, Volodymyr Koliada.
The Ukrainian public reacted to the events of May 22, 1967, with a Statement to the General Secretary of the CC of the CPSU, Comrade Brezhnev, the First Secretary of the CC of the CPU, Comrade Shelest, and the Minister for the Protection of Public Order, Comrade Holovchenko.
The statement concluded as follows:
“We demand: 1. That the police officials who gave the order to attack innocent citizens be punished. 2. That those police officials make a public apology to the people. 3. That there be guarantees that in the future, people gathering at the monument to the Kobzar to honor his memory will not be subjected to oppression and persecution.”
The statement was signed by sixty-four citizens.
The “Statement to Brezhnev” was not sent by mail; Hryhoriy Kryvoruchko took it to Moscow.
He recounted that the Ukrainian writers at the congress already knew about the events in Kyiv on May 22.
Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Yevhen Sverstiuk, and I had informed them from Kyiv via telegrams.
Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska and Yevhen Sverstiuk telegraphed the journal “Novy Mir” (New World), and I telegraphed Oles Honchar at the Presidium of the writers' congress.
Oles Serhiyenko added a note to the statement that we would await a public apology from the authorities on June 11, 1967, at the Shevchenko monument.
It was said that a commission was created at the Central Committee of the CPU and the Supreme Soviet to investigate this case.
A few days after May 22, two men came to my workplace at the regional tuberculosis sanatorium in Dymer: the secretary of the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn district party committee for ideological issues, Comrade M. S. Zarutsky, and the chief surgeon of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, I. Denysiuk. He explained that he was heading the commission to investigate the incident that occurred on May 22.
During the conversation, it turned out that they were not so much interested in what happened on May 22 as they were in whether I intended to go to the Shevchenko monument on June 11.
I replied that I would go. After that, the threats began. Zarutsky promised to gather people from the entire district who would publicly condemn me and expel me from their territory.
In 1968, to nullify the Shevchenko tradition, the authorities initiated the festival “Kyivska Vesna” (Kyiv Spring) under the motto “In a free, new family…”
On that day, the area around the Shevchenko monument was crowded. Of course, most of those present had come to honor the memory of the Kobzar on the day of the reburial of his remains on Chernecha Hora.
The large gathering was facilitated, firstly, by the publicity about the events of May 22, 1967. Secondly, on May 22, 1968, leaflets appeared in Kyiv calling for active participation in the celebration of the Poet’s Reburial Day. They called for people to come to the monument on May 22.
It later became known that the author and distributor of the leaflet was Oleksandr Nazarenko—a worker at the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant and an evening student at the history faculty of Kyiv University. (In June 1968, he was arrested and sentenced to five years).
Arriving at the Shevchenko monument on May 22, 1968, I met many of my acquaintances and friends. We quickly realized that the “Kyiv Spring” festival had nothing in common with the tradition of the Shevchenko Days. We decided to boycott the festival. The true admirers quietly moved to a side alley.
The concert program of the festival finally came to an end.
As soon as the microphones were turned off and the buses with the artists drove away, the stage was taken over by patriotic students: poets, reciters, speakers. And late in the evening, the impromptu, so-called alternative evening of honoring the Kobzar’s memory concluded.
The celebration of the Day of the Reburial of Shevchenko’s remains from Saint Petersburg to Kaniv also resonated in other cities, such as Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.
At the invitation of the poet Ivan Sokulsky, a group of Kyivans—Iryna Bohdan, a pharmacist, Tetyana Ponomarenko (Hrebeniuk), an economist, Anatoliy Stetsenko, a student at Kyiv Pedagogical University, and Heorhiy Veremiychyk, a student at the Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers—arrived in Dnipropetrovsk.
The Shevchenko monument in Dnipropetrovsk stands on an island. A narrow wooden footbridge connects it to the mainland.
When we crossed the bridge, it was surrounded by police and druzhynnyky.
Around the monument, a crowd of girls and boys with red druzhynnyk armbands scurried about. And on a bench sat two KGB agents in dark glasses. One of them was recognized by my acquaintance, a worker named Viktor Terentiev. The KGB officer whom Terentiev recognized had tried to recruit him as a seksot (informer).
There were not many of us—about twenty people, and twice as many druzhynnyky.
We sang some songs and dispersed. A month and a half later, Sokulsky was arrested. He was sentenced to four and a half years. After his first imprisonment, a second soon followed. Ivan did not live long in freedom. He died in June 1992.
On May 22, 1969, everything happened as usual.
The youth came. Mountains of flowers grew at the foot of the monument.
And only after the festival, late in the evening, did the unofficial commemoration of Shevchenko’s memory begin.
In 1970, during a break in a rehearsal for the “Homin” choir, a university student, Mykola Matusevych, approached me. He proposed that I join an initiative, which consisted of the following.
Each member of “Homin,” or simply each of our acquaintances, was to be assigned a day on which that person would lay a basket of flowers. “So that there would be fresh, living flowers at Taras's monument every day,” said Mykola.
Of course, the idea was interesting and not difficult to implement. Thus, at Mykola Matusevych's suggestion, the flowers at the Shevchenko monument never wilted. And later, Mykola Matusevych became one of the founders of the human rights organization, the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, for which he experienced prisons, camps, and exile in Siberia.
1970. The “Kyiv Spring” festival. And again, an alternative evening in a side alley. And again, after the end of the official concert, young people on the steps. The words of Shevchenko were heard, songs with the poet’s lyrics were sung.
1971. Two weeks before May 22, the summons began for those who might go to the Shevchenko monument.
The KGB sent lists to the party committees of the institutions and establishments where the choir members worked or studied. And there, they were “processed.” So, the KGB and the party committees were doing the same work.
This time I arrived later. I was told that Anatoliy Lupynis (it was the first time I heard the name) had read two of his poems. A few days later, he was arrested. His arrest was fabricated, as searches and interrogations of many students began in connection with his case. Later, our paths crossed in prisons.
On May 22, one could always see Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, Vira Nechyporivna and Yevhen Romanovych Cherednychenko, Ivan Makarovych Honchar, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Leopold Yashchenko and Lida Orel, Halyna Vozna, Viktor Malynka, Valeriy Marchenko, Maria Stefiuk, Nina and Yevhen Obertas. How can one list them all?
It was a time of reaction, but also a time of the brave.
And then finally, in 1989, for the first time, blue-and-yellow banners fluttered near the Shevchenko monument, carried along with icons by people who had come once again to pay homage to the Great Son of the Ukrainian people, Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko.
Newspaper of the NRU (People’s Movement of Ukraine) “Chas” (Time), No. 19 and 20 (150 and 151), May 15 and 22, 1997.
Scanned and proofread by Vasyl Ovsienko on May 12, 2008.