PRESENTATION OF THE PUBLICATION: MIKHAIL KHEYFETS. SELECTED WORKS. IN THREE VOLUMES.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. – Kharkiv: Folio, 2000. – Vol. 1: Place and Time. The Russian Field. – 272 p.; Vol. 2: A Journey from Dubrovlag to Yermak, 1979-1987. – 228 p.; Vol. 3: Ukrainian Silhouettes. The POW Secretary. – 296 p.
V.V. Ovsiienko: The Kyiv City House of Teachers, December 10, 2000, presentation of Mikhail Kheyfets's three-volume set. On stage are Mikhail Kheyfets and Yevhen Zakharov. Hosted by Yevhen Sverstiuk.
Y.O. Sverstiuk: We have been gathered here by the cheerful and always smiling Mikhail Kheyfets [Stormy applause]—the author of these three volumes, which we have long awaited. Although not everyone knew what would be inside, we all hoped it would be interesting, as Kheyfets always is. We have also been gathered by Yevhen Zakharov, who initiated this publication. [Applause].
I will say a few preliminary words. This book has its heroes, and these heroes are present here, and they can testify. There is a saying by Byron, something like: “Do not look for heroes on the pages of history: the days of your youth were the days of your glory.” The days of your youth...
Mikhail Kheyfets’s youth is no longer in its first bloom, but it shone in the place they chose for him, and at the time they sentenced him to. "Place and Time." I think everyone knows the joke that opens "Selected Works." Perhaps the author himself would recite it, but he will speak today. I will read it:
A conversation at the KGB: “Rabinovich, it turns out you have relatives abroad?” “What are you talking about! I don't know them. I've never written to them.” “Well, now you'll sit down and write.” “I don't want to, I don't need to.” “You must, Rabinovich!” “Dear brothers!” Rabinovich began. “I have finally found the place and time to write to you.” (Applause, laughter).”
So, Mikhail Kheyfets was enlisted, given a time, and found a place in Mordovia. I think he became a hero of camp legend, a fully deserved hero, so to speak. Far from everyone could use that time, and not everyone could get their bearings in that place. Reading this book, on which, admittedly, a completely different portrait ended up (On the cover of the first volume is a portrait of Joseph Brodsky), but that's a matter of prestige. Reading this book—and it is impossible to tear yourself away from it—I noticed what a diary of heroism it is. A diary of heroism—to create, to write what is forbidden, and where it is forbidden. And most importantly—to get it out to freedom.
I would like to remind you of the perennial actors on the stage of history—the ones who were always driven away… Mikhail Kheyfets, as someone from the Sixtiers generation, still remembers that school. And he also remembers the time when a new issue of the magazine "Novy Mir" came out with the article "On Sincerity in Literature." It was a time—I was a student then—of one pogrom after another. They cracked down on nationalists, they cracked down on supporters of modernism, and then quite unexpectedly, they began to crack down on an article about sincerity. Sincerity—oh no, that you are not allowed! I think that this perennial figure on the stage declared itself here with full force, I would say, with unprecedented force. There is a constant truth, and at a time when "Pravda" could be easily bought for two or three kopecks in a Saturday issue, but when someone started talking about truth, at first they misheard, and then, when they understood what he meant—"Ah, so that's who you are!" Such was the question posed to truth.
And so Mikhail Kheyfets, freed from all conventions in the place assigned to him, found it possible to summon this truth.
Finally, there is also this element of fascination. You may recall that there was a warning against generalization and fascination. “Just don't be deluded and don't be offended.” And so Mikhail Kheyfets, as a researcher of the zone, came with his fascination and the ability to see who is who, with the ability to discover the real and distinguish it from the false. I think that it was precisely from this fascination that his book was born.
I read his "Place and Time" very carefully. Someone said: this is a work of journalism, "Jewish notes." The book's subtitle is perhaps a key to everything. It is the ability to see the truth without the glasses that people automatically put on for such delicate issues as their own national origin. But Mikhail Kheyfets sees with the eye of an observant writer and then describes everything at the depth of his understanding. And here there are an extraordinary number of interesting, intimate interpretations, without which no serious writer can do.
By the way, a question that was a mystery to me, one that we have all passed by in one way or another, was: Taras Bulba and Yankel in Gogol's famous story—what is between them? Why does Yankel stick with Taras Bulba, surrounded by enemies? He remains very loyal to him. And why does he remain constantly in this boisterous environment, without hiding? Because Taras respects him for being a man who is a professional in trade, just as Taras is a professional in battles. This integrity, professional integrity—one has to be a good writer to be able to see such things, which were completely scattered and lost during the era of building socialism in Russia.
So, I would like to conclude my introductory words by saying that before us is a real author, a real writer, a writer who was and will be interesting. And we are very pleased that he comes from Jerusalem to Kyiv as if to his own home. [Applause]. Now, let us ask the publisher of this book, Mr. Yevhen Zakharov, to speak. [Applause].
Y.Y. Zakharov: Good evening! I am very glad that I can finally present the book that I have dreamed of publishing for more than ten years, because I read the book "Place and Time" a very long time ago. I realized even then that Mikhail Kheyfets is a person who analyzes the national question with great subtlety. As for me, I have never seen anything better in samizdat, nor anything more objective in this sense. Even back then, we were planning the publication of "The History of Dissent in the USSR," and there was an agreement for him to write a kind of international essay, to collect his observations from the camps on national groups—Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Balts, Armenians, and others. Unfortunately, that project could not be realized then, but today—it has been.
Mr. Yevhen said that this edition is adorned by the first story, "Place and Time." But I think that one of the most interesting pieces is the article "Joseph Brodsky and Our Generation," which essentially started Kheyfets's story as a dissident. [A few words indistinct]. Mikhail Kheyfets, who wrote this article about Brodsky back in 1973, was the first to call him a great poet and the first to write an article about him [indistinct].
Our organization (the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group) has been collecting various materials on the history of dissent for quite some time now, both archival and museum materials, samizdat, photos, and originals. [Indistinct] Soon a list of persons who were convicted for political motives in Ukraine in the post-Stalin era will be released. And this list numbers more than two thousand people. [indistinct]. This work, in my opinion, is necessary, because our archives, unfortunately, are closed or not fully open—because you can only look at the cases of those who have been rehabilitated. And if we don't do this, we won't have a history, because, as Vasyl Ovsiienko, who works on this program, says, history is, unfortunately, not always what happened, but what is written down. So we are collecting materials so that history will be just. These are audio interviews, memoirs, documents, and other materials that we will be publishing.
In addition, we are preparing a book by Lyudmyla Yakivna Nemyrynska, which will feature ten cases. She defended Mykola Rudenko, Raisa Rudenko, Viktor Nekipelov, Yosyp Zisels twice, and other political prisoners. It will include her speeches. We are also preparing to publish the memoirs of Stefania Petrash and Petro Sichko, and many other books. [Indistinct]. In a month, the book "Two Fates" will be released—about the Ukrainian linguists Olena Kurylo and Yuriy Shevelov-Sherekh. A book by Kostiantyn Shtepa and Fritz Houtermans, "Purges in Russia," will be published. Shtepa was a famous historian, a professor at Kyiv University, and Houtermans was a famous physicist; they were imprisoned together in 1938 and wrote under pseudonyms. It is a very interesting study of the causes and essence of the Stalinist terror. This book will be out soon. And besides that, we want to publish Olena Kurylo's scholarly articles. We have many plans. This is a joint program of a historical-memorial series run by our organization—the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, which I represent here, and the Kharkiv publishing house "Folio," with whom we are implementing this project.
Thank you for your attention. [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: This is something from that history which was written down, and therefore became history. Indeed, we have few books that could be compared with Kheyfets's "Ukrainian Silhouettes." And this is all the more surprising—a writer from Leningrad who did not know the Ukrainian language, who ends up in a camp and only there becomes acquainted with the Ukrainian language and with Ukrainians, there he begins to discover who is who. I would like to emphasize that this is a special gift—to discover who is who. Very often, the person who could discover this is lacking. In any case, Stus was illuminated in memoirs, in the literary light from the pen of Mikhail Kheyfets. But among us are the heroes of this book, and one of the first of them I would like to ask to speak is Mykola Rudenko. [Applause].
M. Rudenko: Dear Mikhail! It is a great honor and joy for me to see you here in Ukraine. This is always your home, because you have many friends here who love you, who know you. For one cannot know a person better than when you sleep next to them on the same bunk beds, and in the SHIZO, and in the PKT, and during transit. This is something that is never forgotten, that remains for a lifetime. I am forever grateful to you for the words you said in your book about me, about our friendly conversations, about the translations of poems, about me as a person, about me as a political prisoner. It's true to say, no one has written about me like that, and for that, my heartfelt gratitude to you. I must say, this is a respectable talent. Not everyone is given to see "face to face—the face cannot be seen." But here, truly very close, "face to face"—you saw. I can't speak for myself; I don't know what I am like. I just believe you, that you spoke the truth about me. And I speak of others, about whom you wrote with great truth, with great love, with great sincerity. So please accept my gratitude. It is not just I who says this—others will say it too. I ask you very much: come visit us more often, we love you. Allow me to give you my memoirs. [Indistinct, applause]. I hope you will sign your book for me too. So, let me wish you a sharp pen—such as you have, have had, and will have—and health, and good work for the joy of Ukraine, because you write, for the most part, about Ukraine! [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: It would be a mistake if I did not invite representatives of the Israeli embassy to speak, but it seems they are not here. So, I will ask the man who communicated closely on the bunks in Mordovia with Mikhail Kheyfets, so much so that he still spends the night at his place now, out of old habit—Vasyl Ovsiienko. [Applause].
V.V. Ovsiienko: Esteemed Mr. Mikhail and all dear and heartfelt company! I once wrote an article titled "The Mordovian Union." "Mordovated," that is—connected with Mordovia. It's an interesting word—once my father came to visit me in that Mordovia and said: "There are some terrible names here—Mordovia, Umor, Barashevo, Yavas, Potma." Indeed, terrible names. So, there really was such a union there—a Mordovian one, an alliance of the Trident and the Star of David. In the journal "Zhovten," the well-known publicist Taras Myhal wrote about such an alliance. I affirm that such an alliance truly existed in Mordovia, because Ukrainians and Jews in the Mordovian concentration camps were the closest allies in the struggle against the totalitarian Russian communist state. We acted together in the same actions, held hunger strikes together, went on strikes, declared protests.
Ukrainians made up about half of every political concentration camp—always and everywhere. Although we, Ukrainians, constituted 16% of the empire's population, in the concentration camps we were half, and this testifies that Ukrainians did not lag behind in the fight against the empire; our merit in this is great. But also that the pressure on Ukrainians was always greater than, perhaps, on anyone else. If, say, in Moscow one could write books almost under the nose of the KGB and put them in drawers, in Kyiv Ukrainians could not write books and put them in drawers to be published later. Because they shook things not only out of the drawers of Ukrainians, but out of their souls, and they shook out their souls along with them.
That's why it happened that we, Ukrainians, wrote little about our time in imprisonment. We were there, in fact, at the forefront of all events, suffering perhaps the most, but not everyone could write, and not everyone thought to, and perhaps not everyone had the talent. And thank God that such a chronicler as Mikhail Kheyfets was found, who did it for us, and did it at the highest level. I am glad that at the end of the book "Ukrainian Silhouettes" there is a small essay about me. In first place is an essay about Vasyl Stus, then about Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mykola Rudenko, about Zorian Popadiuk, about Petro Saranchuk, who is here today. Unfortunately, Popadiuk did not come, and Dmytro Kvetsko did not come. There are many of our people there—read it! There is a whole pleiad of Ukrainian insurgents—Volodymyr Kaznovsky, Kost Skrypchuk, Mykhailo Zhurakivsky, Mykola Konchakivsky, Roman Semeniuk—these are real people, there is nothing fictional. Everything there is true. Kheyfets wrote only what he learned from these people.
I want to note such a feature of Mr. Mikhail—I was with him in the 17th concentration camp in Mordovia from October 30, 1975, and then in the 19th—I watched him sew those mittens. They come out from under his machine like squashed frogs. Because that man is focused on something completely different: a book was being written in his head. And so he would walk along the fence, his hands tucked in his sleeves, his hat crooked on his head—he was absorbed in himself. I never saw him write that book—it was done secretly. Only yesterday and the day before did he tell me how it was done.
I'll say something else. In the 17th concentration camp, they conducted a massive search, taking everything handwritten. Among other things, they took notebooks with poems from Vasyl Stus, and Vasyl was severely depressed by it. They threw him into the punishment cell. Then Mr. Mikhail came up to me and said: "I still have a notebook with Vasyl's drafts—I took it to read. Let's memorize them—and they won't be able to scrape them out of our memory." Roman Semeniuk, who had a 25-year sentence but actually served 28 years, also joined in. We began to learn those poems—and then they grab me for transport. I remember it happened on July 9, 1976. I managed to learn only some 2-3 poems. And when I return to Mordovia on September 11, now to the 19th camp (the 17th had been closed)—Stus is in the punishment cell again. But Mikhail Kheyfets brings a notebook, written in such a clumsy handwriting, in Russian letters—he had written down Vasyl Stus's poems from memory. And then he dictates to me, and I copy them down too. That's how those poems were saved. This is an example of true internationalism for you! [Applause].
That man truly did not speak Ukrainian, but he asked to be spoken to in Ukrainian, read Ukrainian texts, and asked about some words. Why did he need it? He understood who was beside him. When he read Vasyl's poems about his wife ("You are here, you are here, all white, like a candle...") to his wife Raisa in the visiting room, Raisa said: "She is a happy woman! He has made her immortal."
Mr. Mikhail quoted me here—it should be the other way around, I quoted him, that history, unfortunately, is not always what happened, but what is written down. So, thank you to him for writing that history truthfully, and now, at least for the people who are recorded in this book—history will be just to them. Thank you, Mr. Mikhail, and may God grant you great creative success! [Applause]. And may that alliance of the Trident and the Star of David be strong and reliable! [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: "It's a pity we didn't get to do time together," Mikhail Kheyfets once said to me. [Laughter, applause]. [Phrase indistinct]. There are people here who would probably like to say something on behalf of Vasyl Stus—either Mrs. Valentyna or Dmytro.
Valentyna Popeliukh, widow of Vasyl Stus: I am pleased, but I was not planning to speak [indistinct]. I wish Misha happiness, health, creative success, and I want to thank him for what he did for Vasyl, for the Ukrainian political prisoners [indistinct, applause].
Dmytro Stus, son of Vasyl: A great deal has been said, and perhaps everything has been said. Mr. Mikhail visited us, and I know him as one can know him from "Ukrainian Silhouettes." I know him as a person who, perhaps, uniquely revealed not so much what happened, as we already knew various interpretations, but revealed the psychology of a person's existence in captivity [indistinct]. When you want to understand what people had to go through, you have to open his memoirs and read. When this man sat at our table, told stories, told jokes, one got the impression that to be able to rejoice in life, one had to walk the roads that he walked. I am grateful that these memoirs exist, that they were written by a person who loves [indistinct]. These memoirs about people who walked terrible roads will be interesting to our generation and to everyone. Thank you. [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: There is a chapter in "Ukrainian Silhouettes" titled "The Zek General." The zek general can no longer speak, but perhaps his wife, Mrs. Atena, will say something about or on behalf of Slavko Chornovil.
A. Pashko: [Speaks for several minutes, quotes something in Russian, but completely indistinct, very quietly]. I thank you, Mr. Mikhail! I wish you all the best. You know that you are very close to my soul. I wish you health, success, may the Lord help you [indistinct, applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: It turned out that among us is another character from the book "Ukrainian Silhouettes." This is Petro Saranchuk—an insurgent and anti-Soviet with a 28-year record. [Applause].
P.S. Saranchuk: I want to say that I did not sit with this man for a long time [indistinct]. We didn't even get acquainted, we just somehow came together. To this day, I still don't understand how it happened [indistinct]. But when I was about to be released from Mordovia, and Mr. Mikhail was already in Kazakhstan, I wrote letters to him. I really did not want to return to this vicious circle. When they began to fabricate a criminal case against me, I turned to him to arrange an invitation for me to Israel. [Long phrase indistinct—about leaving for Israel]. But they imprisoned me, and we could not correspond.
And when we talked back in Mordovia, he said that he was translating Stus. I gave him my Ukrainian literature textbook. But fate did not keep us together for long, so I don't have much to say. At one time, we were each busy with our own work, being in Mordovia. But to this day, we have remained very close people. It rarely happens among acquaintances that from the first day you become extremely close people. I thank Mikhail for all the kindness, for the kind words about me. I wish him great success in the future, and most importantly—health [indistinct, applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: Let's ask another anti-Soviet to speak—Yosyp Zisels. [Applause].
Y. Zisels: Good afternoon, dear friends! Unfortunately, I did not do time with Mikhail. We did time at different times and in different places. But my acquaintance with him began in the mid-70s, at first in absentia, when through samizdat materials we followed his adventures and what the authorities did to him, what he wrote then—from what made its way into samizdat. Then, when he was released from the zone into exile, we found his address and corresponded with him. I still have his postcard from exile; I treasure it very much. We only managed to meet in person in 1989, when I first came to Israel, where Mikhail Kheyfets was already a well-known journalist, working for a very serious, high-quality newspaper called "Vremya," and later "Vesti."
Much has been said about Mikhail today. But Mikhail is a very multifaceted figure, and there is always something to focus on to tell people about. He is a modest man, he doesn't like to talk about himself. There are people who have dedicated their lives to the struggle, and we are grateful to them for that. There are people who live in their past, because there is so much in that past—they write about it, they remember it. Unfortunately, not all people who are rich in their past can find themselves in a new, peaceful life. And that is a great pity, because, in my opinion, peaceful life requires no less courage, valor, bravery, and sincerity than that time did, and most importantly—conscience.
When you read Mikhail's articles, which I have had the pleasure of reading in the Israeli press in recent years, you see that this is an uncompromising person, a very serious and strong journalist. Even if you don't know his history, what he was imprisoned for, or if he was imprisoned at all, even then it is clear from his articles that behind them stands not an ideology, but a conscience, hardened by a great life, by experiences, hardened by the years of captivity he spent with others in Soviet concentration camps.
In the 9 years of Ukraine's independence, apart from the fact of independence itself, we have little to be proud of—the economy is bad, the social sphere is bad, and we don't like the politics—neither domestic nor foreign. But there is one quality of our state, Ukraine, of which we can truly be proud—and that is peace, interethnic peace, which for 9 years no one has been able to disrupt in Ukraine. When we think about this, we don't always understand what causes this peace, why it happened that Ukraine, among other countries where interethnic and interregional wars are taking place, has remained such an island of peace. I think that one of the reasons for this is the life of people like Mikhail Kheyfets, his joint struggle with Ukrainians in the concentration camps. We understand that there are many dark pages in our common history, and we do not forget about them. But it is not very easy to write about this history objectively, and it is not very easy to cooperate after such a history; few have managed it.
Mr. Mikhail is one who has spent a lot of time on understanding between Jews and Ukrainians. His life, his books—this is one of the reasons why we live in peace today, why there is almost no anti-Semitism in Ukraine. When I recall the first steps of Rukh and other national-democratic organizations in the joint opposition to anti-Semitism, I think that I always remembered Mikhail Kheyfets then. Thank you to him from the Jewish community, and, I think, from you as well, for what he has done in his life and will do much more. Thank you! [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: I would like to remind you of one more trait that may disappear from our field of vision if it is not mentioned.
Yesterday, Mikhail, Vasyl Ovsiienko, and I spent the evening together, and I somehow recalled an interesting moment, not insignificant in the camps—it is the game, the ability to play a game even when you know perfectly well that this is your bitter and mortal enemy. He knew that it was not by chance, but that this was a mortal enemy. This ability to maintain the game was something younger people, people of a different temperament, could manage. I think that Vasyl Stus did not manage it, nor, say, did I—I maintained a cold distance from them. But he could play such a game with them [indistinct, interference.]
I am reminded of an episode with a prisoner, Vitold Abankin from Rostov. They nabbed him in the work zone during a visit in such a way that he didn't have time to swallow a container with a text and was holding it in his hand. And they, essentially, don't take their eyes off him, and he can't do anything. So he went to the guardhouse with that container in his hand. They undress him and look up his rear end, and Abankin says: “Well, chief—can’t see communism in there?” [Laughter, applause]. And they didn't know how he was able to hide things, they didn't look in his hand, and he held it in his hand the whole time. That's what it means to have the ability to constantly maintain a game in incredibly horrible circumstances [indistinct].
I would ask Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, who is here, to speak. [Indistinct, applause].
M.H. Kotsiubynska: [Recording skips] Our friend, a true friend—that's how I perceive him. Because in the preface to his "A Journey from Dubrovlag to Yermak," he reflects on literature on camp themes, wondering if it won't tire readers and him. There are many interesting and profound thoughts there, but he says that he has this categorical imperative that commands him: write! I can tell you that when there is such a categorical imperative and a person obeys it, then, as a rule, good things emerge.
Indeed, the subject matter is limited. Maybe it has been exhausted, maybe it has become tiresome, maybe not everyone likes it. But I will tell you that my literary experience shows that the subject matter itself does not yet indicate anything—neither breadth, nor depth, nor relevance. Let's take an example from a completely different opera. We know such a writer as Stefanyk. Where could the subject matter be narrower than Stefanyk's? After all, all his heroes, all his themes come from Rusiv, all his heroes live in Rusiv. He wrote that [indistinct] for him it was to love Rusiv and the truth within himself [indistinct]. What is very important—not just Rusiv, but also the truth within himself. And when this subject matter and the scope in which a person operates are combined, however synthetic it may be, but when it is combined with a categorical imperative, with love within oneself, then we have the result that we have in the books of Mikhail Kheyfets.
I would call it, to some extent, a human comedy. It is a kind of stained-glass window of various themes—larger, smaller, brighter, darker, which reflect, which are somehow barely noticeable. But at the same time, it is colossal human material. Some are described in more detail, some are given with a few strokes, but what is important—no assessment is imposed anywhere, all these assessments come from within. This is a whole column of different people, through whom we, in fact, get to know life.
Of course, I read with particular interest because in this human comedy, among this cohort of people, there are very many people whom I knew personally, whom I know from literature, from memoirs, about whom I wrote, whom I love.
And specifically among such people flashed a name that, perhaps, to many, if not all present here, says nothing, but to me it said a great deal. It is not at all a camp name; he is mentioned in the book "A Journey from Dubrovlag to Yermak"—a Leningrad professor, Yefim Grigorievich Etkind. For me, this name is dear because I knew him as a person, as an absolutely brilliant philologist. And in human categories, in moral principles, he was on a par with the heroes Kheyfets wrote about. I just couldn't recall it immediately—I once said that my memory is purely cinematic—I see everything as if in a film, frames are lit up. And with Etkind's name, such a moment comes to mind.
The mid-60s, I am living out my last years at the Institute of Literature. I am like someone with the plague: not everyone approaches me, not everyone communicates with me. And suddenly, a doctoral dissertation defense, and the first opponent to arrive is a brilliant professor from Leningrad, Yefim Grigorievich Etkind, who, to everyone's surprise, turns out to be an acquaintance of mine, who kisses me, embraces me in front of everyone, and who communicates only with me. This is already, so to speak, a protest, because he knew perfectly well what my situation was. And here is such a detail of the human comedy. In the evening, a banquet. Of course, I am not going to that banquet. With extraordinary persistence, Yefim Grigorievich insists, he calls my friend to pick up my child from kindergarten, he calculates how much time I need to go change and look beautiful. We enter the doors of the Writers' Union together, we enter this hall, already almost full. A small shock. A large table, behind which, of course, is his place [a few words indistinct]. "Excuse me, I'm with a lady." And he sits with me at a separate table, which in ten minutes becomes the center of the entire hall. He proposes toasts, he tells jokes, and everyone is looking only at this table. This is just an episode, one of those pieces of glass from Mr. Mikhail Kheyfets's stained-glass window that lit up for me. It is good that these pieces of glass exist.
And here is another point. That categorical imperative dictates a very clear moral assessment of people, situations, events [indistinct], and that assessment is correlated with some ideological assessment. Perhaps this is a banal characteristic, but behind it one feels what Vasyl Stus called "the posture of standing upright," which begins with the author himself, with the hero himself. He does not deliver speeches, he does not preach, but the very way he communicates even with his guards already shows that he is a person [indistinct]. Such a posture is illuminated extraordinarily brightly, and this is very important. In our time, there is so much spiritual dehumanization. Such a posture is even ridiculed and seems unfashionable, but without it, the world and humanity cannot exist.
And one more point I wanted to emphasize. Everyone here has spoken about it. I want to say that this is an extraordinarily bright talent for national understanding. I cannot call it anything other than a talent. Because it is simply amazing how a person goes towards another nationality, opens up. He is interested in all of them, and what is very interesting, he, like no one else, at every step emphasizes these terrible flaws, these terrible grimaces of denationalization. This Zinenko, whether he is a captain or whatever, these guards and the chief of Ukrainian nationality—there are no greater haters of his compatriots who are sitting there. This runs through, to use clichés, like a red thread—it is shown at literally every step, and it sounds particularly sharp from the lips of a person of another nationality.
The fact that a Leningrad philologist converged with Vasyl Stus on such high intellectual levels, on the level of poetry, philosophy, history—this can be understood somehow. But how could this Leningrad boy, who, whether he wanted it or not, was brought up on the stereotypes of that propaganda, had some fragments of knowledge about the recent history of Ukraine that reached him—how could he so quickly call the UPA veterans with whom he sat, “the holy old men of Ukraine”? These words are especially dear to me. He understood them. I don't want to say that he descended to their level—no, who descends or ascends to whom, these are completely different categories here. But they were people from some other camp for him, but he understood them, he saw them from the inside like no one else. And for that, a big thank you to him!
Here, by the way, I wanted to make a small remark to the publishers, that since the book is published in Ukraine, where there are Ukrainian phrases and Ukrainian words, they could be printed in Ukrainian letters. I wanted to say that too.
Actually, this talent is somehow closest to me. I believe it is a huge merit. It is not so often encountered. I don't want to and won't develop this theme, but one of the first heroes Mikhail Kheyfets wrote about, a poet of extraordinary talent, of extraordinary intellectual potential—he did not maintain this high level of understanding of nationality, on the level of a universal human understanding of Ukraine. As sad as it is, in the last years of his life, he strikes a very false and unpleasant note. But Mr. Mikhail is always at his best in this regard. I think this is extremely important. It exists, and thank God it does—despite the hot spots, despite the outbursts of some terrible enmity at the highest and lowest levels, despite the everyday misunderstanding of nationality, gossip, and insinuations, despite the outbursts of some black energy—they exist, there is no getting away from it. One only has to look at history. It is there in today's life as well. But at the same time, there is something else. The existence of Mikhail Kheyfets and his books testifies that despite all this, it exists and will exist. And only thanks to this will our world not turn into a Tower of Babel, but remain a planet of people. [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: Let us ask Leonid Finberh to speak.
L. Finberh: Esteemed colleagues! Esteemed friends! Like Mr. Yevhen, I congratulate you all on today's celebration. We all read our Mr. Mikhail, and for this reason, we have gathered in this hall. Just two words. I want to address everyone present. We are now preparing an anthology of Ukrainian dissident texts from the 60s-80s. I invite all of you who write to help us. Everyone has the right to join this work. Thank you, and once again I ask Mr. Mikhail to speak—I hope this is not against the script. Thank you! [Applause].
Y.O. Sverstiuk: I think we have come to the main moment—the author's speech [indistinct, applause].
M.R. Kheyfets: What do I want to say? First of all, since so much has been said here, I will start with refutations. I am not at all as good as they said I was. First of all, although I really and repeatedly tried very hard to master the Ukrainian language, I did not master it. I read completely fluently, but I cannot speak fluently. But my Ukrainian friends all know Russian perfectly, and when I tortured them and asked them to speak Ukrainian with me, but since I didn't know it—I would switch to Russian, and they would answer me in Russian. So they never taught me. So there is no one to blame, but I will speak to you in Russian. You will forgive me, but my excuse is that I do not speak Hebrew either. So not very well in my own language, and not very well in yours—I speak Russian, forgive me.
Today is, indeed, a great day in my life, and in fact, I only just now, in your presence, realized it—I realized here, ladies and gentlemen, that I am a writer. [Applause]. Because when you publish a book—I have about ten books—well, a book comes out, and so what, everyone publishes books now. [Recording skips].
Just yesterday I read such a funny statement: Karl Marx published the first volume of "Das Kapital," then 10 years, 15 years, 18 years passed—the second volume still hasn't come out, the third volume still hasn't come out. One of his friends comes to him and says: "Isn't it time for you to think about a collection of your works?" To which Karl Marx replies: "They still need to be written." That is, he was not sure about what he was producing, he himself understood that something was wrong there, he was building a model and searching, and he saw and felt that something was not right, so he delayed the publications.
And so I was in the same position, i.e., I was publishing some books, but it was a preamble, perhaps. And then Yevhen Zakharov appeared in my life and made me a writer. [Applause].
In fact, I have lived four lives. And my real life, probably, was the first—I was, by education and by vocation, a school teacher of literature. I loved this work very much, and, in my opinion, I was a good teacher. But it so happened that this life of mine ended, because a school teacher in the Soviet Union could not feed his family unless he took on a double workload. I understood that I couldn't take a double workload—I would never write then. I didn't have the strength to give six lessons every day.
And I was forced to leave school and became a writer. And I led a strange writer's life, very strange. I seemed to even bow down, I seemed to have published a book about the "Young Guard," I published essays in the "Soviet Writer" publishing house, in thick all-Union journals—everything seemed to be fine, but it was very, very strange, because from a certain moment, whatever I wrote, everything seemed to be [indistinct]. I used to joke that the Soviet government was the most humane government in the world: it fed my family at the expense of the workers and peasants and demanded no return. And so it went on for four years, until they came for me. Only then did I realize that I had been under surveillance for four years. This was the result of a misunderstanding, a pure misunderderstanding.
I have lived a very strange life in general. As a very domestic person, not seeking any adventures, not striving for any trials or travels. My favorite pastime is sitting at home, first at a typewriter, and then at a computer. Or, at the very least, in the library, checking out books and reading them. I am a very private person, I have absolutely no public temperament, I have absolutely no desire to participate in any public organizations, let alone political ones.
And suddenly it turned out that a person like me ended up under surveillance because in one letter I expressed a certain assumption, which has now become an axiom for historians, perhaps. This letter was intercepted, and the state security organs decided that I knew too much. In fact, I just wrote in that letter that Comrade Lenin was shot on the orders of Comrade Dzerzhinsky. Today, this is common knowledge among historians, and I didn't want anything like that and didn't pry anywhere—I simply read that when the trial of the Right SRs was held, a participant in the group that organized the assassination attempt on Lenin [indistinct, interference], two bullets hit him—it was not a fiction. They were tried in 1922, and they were condemned, naturally, to what they were supposed to be condemned to—the "highest measure of social protection." But the humane Soviet court appealed to the VTsIK, and the VTsIK humanely replaced the "highest measure of social protection," execution by firing squad, with—well, what do you think? —immediate release from custody! And I could not believe in such incredible humaneness, not just of a Soviet court, but of any court in the world. I naturally understood that the comrades were following an order, then followed a second order, appearing as defendants at the trial, and after the trial ended, the comrades were released to serve further.
I began to find out their fate and learned that the leader of the combat group that organized the assassination attempt on Lenin ended his life, naturally, in 1937, it was not difficult to calculate, but he ended it in the role of a brigade commissar and deputy head of the GRU of the Red Army General Staff. Thus, I kind of understood that there was an order to shoot Lenin. And I wrote something of that sort to one person. The letter ended up in the "organs." I explained that I had simply calculated it from the verdict, and the verdict was published in a journal, openly available, called "Front of the Proletarian Revolution." But they decided that I was planning [indistinct], that I was a historian who had delved too deeply into their secrets and mysteries. And that's how my unusual fate began, and four years later, when my article on Brodsky fell into their hands, I ended up where I ended up.
I must tell you that my fate is atypical. It was much easier for me than for all my comrades, than for all my future cellmates and fellow prisoners. The fact is that I am a writer, after all, and I perceived what happened to me as a kind of creative assignment. [Laughter, applause]. That is, these years were not lost for me, as it were, and they didn't even think that they had given me the opportunity to get to a place where no writer could get, but I penetrated [indistinct].
I was a very naive and gullible person—I didn't understand the situation at all. When I realized they were seriously going to hand down a sentence, I told them: "Guys, you've lost your minds—putting a writer in the zone? I'll write everything down, I promise you! For every year of the sentence you give me, I'll write a book." Well, having decided to give a bit more, they gave me a bit more. [Laughter].
But that's why, of course, my life was easier than everyone else's. First, I worked in the zone. Second—it was, of course, a kind of acting experience, because in reality I don't like to lie—not because I'm such an honest person, but because I protect myself: when you lie, you still have to remember what you lied about. And my memory is limited, so I save it for what is really necessary, and not for remembering my own deceit. Therefore, I usually tell the truth. But here the situation was such that I was forced to deceive them. I played a certain role, I became an actor, it was an adventure in my life. I concocted a version, and I played it for the investigation all the time. I played it in front of everyone. I had an informant in my cell, and I played this role with the informant too. I got so into this role that it was hard for me to get out of it later. When I was writing, I had to force myself to write what really happened, not what I had made up for them. It's hard to get out of a role.
And, of course, there was everything. It was one continuous adventure. Let me tell you what the zone is. Ordinary life is material for prose, and in prose, as is known, there is no present. In life, as in normal prose, everything is invented. Well, in reality, it's not quite like that. There are places on earth where a detective plot is realized. That is the zone. I found myself in a detective plot, I even became the hero of a detective plot. It was necessary to write books so that no one would catch me. And, consequently, it was necessary to come up with some moves. I was telling here yesterday about such a seemingly simple move, how to hide something. I am still proud that I came up with a hiding place that no one could discover. There was a terrible shakedown in the zone, there had never been such a shakedown. Dozens of people were looking for my manuscript. They knew it existed, they turned everything upside down—and couldn't find it. And my hiding place was simple—I came up with it from Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Purloined Letter." I had read books, so I could use the knowledge I had gained in the zone. That is, a hidden thing should be in plain sight, right before your eyes—and then no one will find it. I took socks, made holes in them so they were holey—because whole socks can be stolen, but no one will steal holey ones—sewed up the holes on top so that nothing would fall out, and hung these socks in the middle of the zone, where the laundry was dried. And in these socks I hid my manuscripts. [Laughter, applause]. It was very convenient, because you could approach it at any moment, you could walk away from it at any moment: zeks come to change the washed laundry—this is a common thing, and no one paid any attention to it. It never occurred to the KGB men who were turning the whole zone upside down that the socks hanging right in the middle of the zone, right before their eyes, were what they were looking for!
Of course, it was a game, of course, there was a certain excitement. I got into completely fantastic adventures, really, and when I remember them, I still can't believe it myself. And, of course, what happens to people in the zone also happened to me. You begin to understand that God exists, and if you live as you should, then He protects you. Because, of course, there were episodes in my life when I understood that only God was saving me.
For example, I had a manuscript, already in exile, and I was finishing it, it was ready—the second volume of "A Journey from Dubrovlag to Yermak." I finished it, there were three days left until the end of my term, and I already understood that they knew, that they were right there, but I couldn't stop. When you write a book and finish it—there are many women here, they will understand me, it's like childbirth—you can't stop the process once it's started. You understand that it threatens you, perhaps, with death and you understand that it is terrible, but you can't do anything—it is happening. And I understood that they were here, but I hoped to finish before them—and I didn't: they came three pages before the end.
They came, I was lying in bed when the bell rang. And I didn't realize it was them—I thought it was some guest. And I'm thinking: well, I'll kick the guest out now—but where to hide it? The manuscript was large, and the room was tiny. I stuck it under the blanket—just where I was lying. In my room, besides the bed, there was only a table and one chair. I stuck it under the blanket—there were six of them: "Mikhail Ruvimovich, we are from the KGB, on the case of Viktor Nekipelov—here is a search warrant." They enter. I'm in my long johns and a shirt. They seat me on the bed and begin the search.
And there are six of them—two are searching, the big boss, the most important one, who didn't introduce himself, is sitting at the table on the only chair in my room, receiving their loot, and three are standing, including the regional prosecutor, also a comrade of colonel rank. He got tired of standing—many here have been through searches, and they know that they last for hours, that it's not a quick business. He got tired of standing, and the prosecutor says: "I will search the bed myself." He approaches—a prosecutor, a colonel, a big shot—is he going to get his hands dirty with this? He says to me: "Mikhail Ruvimovich, lift the pillow." I lift the pillow. "Mikhail Ruvimovich, lift the mattress." Actually, I must say, I was an impudent person—if the manuscript hadn't been there, I would have told him to get lost, and let him work himself. But here I'm an obedient boy—I lift the pillow, I lift the mattress. "Lift the sheet." I lift the sheet. He says: "Roll it up." I roll up the sheet along with the blanket. He says: "Sit down." I sit down—I sit down on my manuscript, and he sits down next to me along with the witness. They sit next to me for the entire search. I am sitting on the very manuscript they are looking for. You must agree, this is fantasy—such a thing cannot happen in life! If it hadn't happened to me myself, I would have thought that the person telling this story was a great fantasist and a fibber. But it happened in reality. And, you see, when you are in the zone, there are moments in life when you understand that there is a hand above you that is protecting you.
I wrote three books—two books in the zone I wrote and one book in exile, that's three books. And then, when I found myself in Israel... They were deporting me, in fact, it's a funny story—they were catching me, I was hijacking a plane, because to conduct a search without a prosecutor's sanction, you need extraordinary circumstances. And so they take me off the plane as a hijacker and subject me to a personal search.
There were a lot of adventures, and it was not funny to me at all, I was even a bit nervous. And most importantly, of course, what was important for a zek, was to learn to lose. It was necessary to understand: you lost something—it's okay, you'll restore it. You lost a book—it's okay, you'll restore it. Something didn't work out for you—it's okay, we'll redo everything. In fact, what really helped me, of course, was that I am a historian, so to speak, in my structure. Because I understood that they were doomed, I understood that the truth was on our side. The question of time—whether I would live to see it or not, that's another question.
And on the other hand, I thought: so what, I've lived a decent amount, which is why it was easier for me than for many. I had already lived a decent amount, I was not too young. I had wonderful girlfriends, I have very good children, I had a very good job that gave me pleasure. I had the feeling that I had already experienced the highest pleasure in life, and everything that would come after would be a kind of repetition of what I had already had. Therefore, if life ends now—it's okay, I've already received my share, and it was a good fate. Therefore, I was not afraid of death, as it were. And the minute you stop being afraid of death, they are no longer frightening to you. And I must give credit to the KGB workers. They were good workers. First, the fact that they singled me out from the whole society—after all, in Leningrad there were many writers far more talented than me, far more interesting than me. But they chose me. It seemed like some kind of misunderstanding then. But now, looking back at [recording skips, empty section of tape]... plays no social role, has no social significance, and I am the only one who suddenly turned out to be a person who really influences the public consciousness of my country, Israel. That is, they chose the very one who was socially dangerous. They had this sixth sense, I didn't see it in myself, but they saw it in me. And they felt you very well during the investigation, they behaved quite professionally, they were worthy workers.
Another thing was what I did not understand. I did not understand the same thing that Vyacheslav Chornovil did not understand, which Atena reminded me of today. I did not understand that they play with you by the rules they themselves have established. So, they play chess with you, and they are professionals, and you are an amateur. They must win against you in any case. And if suddenly they lose, then what to do—then the game goes according to Ostap Bender: either a rook is stolen from the board, or the pieces are simply swept off the board and you are hit over the head with the board. That is, the outcome of the game must be determined. If it is possible to win against you by the rules, they gladly win against you by the rules, it gives them pleasure. But if they cannot win by the rules, they will switch you off in another way, or, as my investigator said: "Mikhail Ruvimovich, you don't know the practice." That was true—I really did not know the practice. And, how to say it, in general, it was easy for me, easier than for many, because I won against them. You understand, that's why I can be as I was. Here they told me that I am objective, all these compliments—it's easy to be objective when you are the winner, it's easy to be objective when you have won, and the winner has the right to be magnanimous. But when you have lost—it's much harder.
There was a lot of talk here about my attitude towards Ukraine. My attitude towards Ukraine is, indeed, special. I will not hide from you—I became interested in Ukraine even before my imprisonment, it was not connected with the imprisonment. I was studying the Narodniks and the Narodovoltsy. And then I first discovered that all the Narodniks and Narodovoltsy began here, in Ukraine. And as a historian, I suddenly saw unusually talented people, a bunch of talented people, brilliantly talented people. And I became interested in the country from which these talented people come. I suddenly discovered that it is a country the size of France, I saw that its population is about the same as in France, but the level of culture and the level of influence in world history are completely incommensurable with a country like France. One might think that the people were not talented—but I saw that the people were very talented, from these people whom I was studying. Then I understood the tragedy of this people, who were artificially limited in their development by historical conditions. And of course, I became interested in this people and this country.
And when I found myself in the zone, I was by that time a completely assimilated person, I had no idea about the national question—absolutely none! By the way, I was probably not a dissident either—I was a spontaneous dissident, on my own. But when I found myself in the zone, I suddenly saw nationalists of all stripes, as they used to say at that time. And the largest group were the Ukrainians. And I must give credit that this was the most, how can I put it, theoretically savvy group of nationalists, i.e., they were people who had developed a certain common understanding of the national question. Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska said here that I have a certain understanding of the national question—it is not my understanding, it is your understanding! You taught me this understanding, I had none of it at all.
Indeed, from these people, from the Ukrainians, in the zone I learned to understand that there is such a thing as a nation in the world, that man is a herd animal. He descended from the ape, and the ape is a herd animal. And what is animal in us—it still remains in us, it is in our genetics, we cannot escape it. We, of course, strive to be individuals, special, extraordinary, but still within us sits our primary foundation, in which we are herd animals and must live in our collective, in our group—this is how it is ordained by nature or, if you will, by God, and regardless of whether we want it or not, this is the will of our ancestors for the continuation of life, for the continuation of the species, for the continuation of themselves. It is embodied somewhere in us, regardless of whether we understand it, whether we want it or not.
But at the same time, what the Ukrainians revealed to me... What is the mistake of the nationalism that led to such troubles in the 20th century? People did not want to believe that every nation is needed by God, that God needs diversity, that God needs every flower that grows in his garden. Everyone wanted their flower to be a little better, and another to be a little worse. Well, the Ukrainians taught me precisely that every people is needed by God, that there are no unworthy peoples and no great peoples. [Applause]. And I kind of realized myself as a member of my own people. Hence my first book, "Place and Time"—it was born from this—about how, with the help of Ukrainians, I realized my national existence as a Jew. Hence, of course, my gratitude to this people, who opened my eyes to myself. So let me return to you the compliments that you have lavished upon me so much here.
And what's next? Then I finished my sentence. They deported me. But I won't lie to you and say that I didn't want it—I wanted it. It was very difficult to understand... I think I'm going over my time limit? Is it okay? What is difficult for a zek to understand? For the older generation of zeks, to which Petro Saranchuk, for example, belongs—it was probably easy for them to understand, but for us, the zeks of the post-war period, it was very difficult to understand that before us was an adversary. For example, you are sitting with an investigator, and you know who he is—you are a citizen of your country, you want good for your country, you think about it, you have some knowledge. It is quite possible that you are a normal person, you admit that you are mistaken about something. Only God knows the truth, and a person is allowed a piece of that truth. And he also knows something. He is a representative of law and order, he is a representative of the state, and maybe he is also right about something. You start discussing with him, you present some of your thoughts to him, you try to convince him that you are right. And you don't understand that before you is not an opponent, not a partner in negotiations—before you is an enemy, and no matter what you say, he has only one single reflex working: from what you say, to select what can be used in an indictment against you. You said this—that's such a sentence, and you said that—that's a different sentence. And that's all, nothing else interests him, everything else is professionally filtered out.
And it was very difficult for the zeks to understand that before them were enemies. And when you already understood that an enemy was before you, it was quite simple to live in the zone. Because the enemies were not very sophisticated. For example, how did I manage to leave for Israel? Very simply: I went to the stool pigeons and said that under no circumstances did I want to go to Israel. [Laughter]. What would a Russian writer do in Israel? I'd lose my language, I'd lose my readers—no, no, I definitely don't want to! Ah, he doesn't want to?! And they began to forcibly deport me to Israel. [Laughter, applause].
These seem like such simple things, but you know, it was so hard to figure it out! It was hard to realize this simple truth, that an enemy was before you. I think that we didn't really see them as enemies. Well, we had to figure everything out for ourselves.
I ended up in Israel and became a research fellow [2-3 words indistinct]. I became a professional historian, I worked at a university. I was prosperous, everything was fine with me—and then suddenly all my friends are arrested again, a new round. They deported me, they didn't manage to imprison me, but all the others are being imprisoned again. And what should I do? I've already told you that I'm not a public figure, not a politician, and in fact, I don't know how to ask anyone for anything—I simply lack the ability to ask for anything. The only thing I know how to do is write. And I sat down and started writing "Ukrainian Silhouettes"—to help those who were imprisoned again. Because if a person is already on the other side of the wire, I knew how important it was for people to have something written about them. This is important not only for morale, not only that, but often it is also important purely tactically. Because who are our guards? Ordinary collective farmers, it's just that instead of an ordinary collective farm, they set up a zone. This zone was their collective farm, where they went to work like men go to a collective farm field, and these went to the camp to work. For this, they received their six hundred square meters or whatever of hayfield, the camp chief would run to his hayfield in the morning, quickly write us up for the punishment cell and quickly run away, because hay needs to be mown during haymaking season.
This happened to me personally, so this is not a metaphor, this is how it really was. And they were bored, and here nearby, in the zone—people about whom they talk on the radio. And in the evening they go home, turn on Radio Liberty and listen to see if anything was reported about their zone on Radio Liberty. And if something is said about someone there—oh, that person already deserves great respect, and they might not be punished an extra time—they won't be thrown into the punishment cell an extra time, they won't be deprived of their canteen privileges, and they won't be picked on in general, because he's a big shot, they were talking about him on the radio yesterday. That is, this is some real help, not just moral support. And so I did what I could—I wrote this book. This was the fourth book about the camps. And then the Armenians were imprisoned—I wrote about the Armenians too, that was the fifth book about the camps, well, and I decided that I had settled my account with the "Geba" [KGB]: I had promised them six books, but since exile is one day for three, I wrote five books and considered my account settled.
And then I worked as a research fellow, quite successfully and very well, I made a so-called career—I went to international scientific congresses, was published in England and America, not to mention in Hebrew, my articles appeared every year in my university's scholarly notes, they were always in the departmental bulletin. In short, everything was good, plus I wrote books as well.
And then in 1990, my boss, who had taught me to be a historian, died. A new department head came, fired the entire department and hired a new one. I was left without a job, but quite quickly I became a journalist. And my new life began, in which capacity I now reside.
I am a fairly well-known journalist in my country—if I were to boast, I would even say that I am a leading journalist. [Applause]. And therefore, as a journalist, I do write books, but I publish them as journalistic books. And suddenly, in the spring, Zhenya Zakharov appears and offers to publish. And I remember that I have an unpublished book—"A Journey from Dubrovlag to Yermak." I say to him: "Take it, have a look." He looked and said that he liked it, but he would also like "Place and Time." I say: "Alright." He says: "And how can we do without 'Ukrainian Silhouettes'?" And then I suddenly remember that I have another unpublished book—"The Russian Field." I say: "There's one more, have a look." I send it to him, he looked and says: "Yes, but this won't fit into two volumes, we'll have to make a third volume." I say: "Please." And then Vasyl Ovsiienko interferes with his ideas and says that Kheyfets has another book, "The POW Secretary"—and it must be included. Zhenya supports him, and so a three-volume set of just camp writings arises. And suddenly, today, I realize: three volumes, ladies and gentlemen—this is not journalism! This is already literature, I am already a writer, and some new life is beginning for me! [Applause].
In fact, I have now started traveling to Ukraine. I had not been to Ukraine. I had not been to Ukraine before the zone—not once! And here, once, a second time, and this is the third time I have come to Ukraine. And it is pleasant and good for me here, I am sort of rediscovering the country, rediscovering cities, rediscovering people. It is very good and very pleasant for me here, for which I thank you all! [Applause].
Listened to, proofread, edited, and posted on the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group website http://museum.khpg.org on 2.02.2010 by Vasyl Ovsiienko. Publisher Yevhen Zakharov and author Mikhail Kheyfets. Photo by V. Ovsiienko, 10.12.2000.