EXCERPT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF BOHDAN SOROKA
(December 2007)
In January 1969, Liubka went to Kyiv for a congress of student youth. There she was supposed to speak on behalf of the section for the ideological education of youth. The congress was overseen by the Central Committee of the Komsomol, where all speeches were vetted. This dragged on for weeks. Liubka submitted the text of her speech, which ended with lines from a poem by Vasyl Symonenko:
Гей, нові Колумби й Магеллани,
Напнемо вітрила наших мрій!
Кличуть нас у мандри океани,
Бухту спокою облизує прибій.
And she added that she would be speaking without a paper. They told her she would fail with such a speech and gave her a prepared text written at the Komsomol Central Committee. Ultimately, after long debates, everyone agreed that Liubka would deliver a welcome address to the delegates. At the opening, she sat in the presidium between the first secretary of the party, Shelest, and the cosmonaut Berehovoy. Her speech ended with such applause that later the Komsomol secretaries congratulated her on her success and admitted they had been sure she would fail. After the congress, a book with its materials was published, titled "Students Swear an Oath to Lenin," where Liubka's speech was completely replaced with the text she had refused to read. The headline was "Our Compass is Marxism-Leninism." This text was replete with thanks to the dear Communist Party, faithfulness to Lenin, and quotes from Krupskaya.
In early February, I went to Kyiv to see Liubka and to see what the preparations for the congress looked like. Chornovil found out that I was going to Kyiv and gave me some samvydav papers for Ivan Svitlychnyi. Early in the morning, straight from the train, I was at the Svitlychnyis’. Ivan opened the door, and then Liolia appeared. They invited me to have breakfast with them. We started talking, and within a few minutes, they, seeing me for the first time in their lives, invited me to stay with them as a guest. Two small rooms, but full of books, manuscripts, graphics stuffed onto shelves, ceramics by Halyna Sevruk. They placed a pile of samvydav in front of me to read and went to work themselves. During the day, Liubka was at meetings at the Komsomol Central Committee, and in the evening, she came to the Svitlychnyis’ to read samvydav. Among other things, Ivan Svitlychnyi showed me a collection of poems by Ihor Kalynets, "Opening of the Vertep," and said that this collection was being prepared for publication in the West: “Do the illustrations for it.” I was taken aback. I had never seriously engaged in graphics, I couldn't even imagine that I could do any illustrations. With fear, I began to read. The poems captivated me, a whole world of interesting images opened up that I had never thought of. Everything excited my imagination so much that I could no longer stop thinking about compositions. As we parted, Ivan asked me to make him an ex-libris and showed me the one Halyna Sevruk had made for him. So, having gathered inspiration, in the fall of 1969, I finished seven linocuts. That's how I became a graphic artist. Later, many experts told me that these were my best works. That same autumn, Liubka and I got married. I passed the engravings to Kyiv to Vira Vovk, who transported them to the West.
Also in 1969, these engravings, as the series "Folklore Motifs," were first exhibited at the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art on Drahomanov Street. It was an exhibition-sale of artworks donated to the fund for the completion of the new museum building. The completion was necessary to save the unique collection of icons that were being destroyed in the Armenian Cathedral in Lviv.
Very soon, in 1970, a book by Ihor Kalynets, "Poetry from Ukraine," with my engravings was published in Brussels. The book was actually published in London, but for the purpose of conspiracy, the publication details listed the city of Brussels (let the KGB search). The foreword stated that "we are publishing this book without the knowledge and without the permission of the poet and the artist. We do this for two reasons: to save for Ukrainian culture a high-quality contribution of the poetic and artistic creativity of the young generation and so that the cultural circles of the world would learn what quality and what content of Ukrainian cultural creativity is being suppressed by the occupiers of Ukraine..."
In my mind, the pagan gods that Halyna Sevruk had made in ceramics were now swirling. I had a great desire to create a whole pantheon. I wonder what it would look like? What were they like, these gods? Halyna knew little as well. Lesia Krypiakevych showed me reproductions of 12 engravings created by the Polish graphic artist Stanisław Jakubowski. That was something. The V. Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library had many studies on this topic, but they were all somewhat confusing. Finally, having already a certain idea about these gods, I went to Kyiv to talk with the historian Mykhailo Braichevsky. At that time, he was very famous in certain circles as the historian who wrote the article "Reunification or Annexation?". Mykhailo Braichevsky told me that as a historian, he could help me very little. It is unknown what our pagan gods actually looked like. The Zbruch Idol is authentic. A few names of gods remain; the rest are assumptions and legends. Stanisław Jakubowski created their images in the form of the Polish szlachta. And Valentyn Moroz quoted Lesya Ukrainka to me, who wrote, "these are not my gods," when she saw a pagan god created by the then-young sculptor Konenkov. This idol is fearsome, with one eye, terrifying and cruel. We depicted the serpent as a cheerful young man. So, I made my gods as reinterpretations of past times, gods who were kind, whom people were not afraid of, and whom one could scold if they did something wrong. I called this series "Ukrainian Mythology." Later, on the advice of Serhiy Plachynda, who was captivated by my linocuts, I made six more compositions for Ukrainian mythology—and a whole pantheon emerged.
In February 1971 in Philadelphia, and in April in New York, and later also in Cleveland, an exhibition called "Contemporary Ukrainian Graphics" took place, where 16 of my linocuts and several ex-librises were presented. The authorities in Lviv reacted to this event only a year later. The Artists’ Union began to prepare a meeting on this matter. The chairman, Emanuil Mysko, asked me to come to this meeting.
“I am not a member of the Union, and therefore I will not come.”
“Bohdan, I am inviting you personally,” said Mysko. “It is in your
interest: to come and speak.”
I did not come and did not speak.
On January 4, a closed, expanded party meeting of the Artists' Union took place. The head of the Union, Emanuil Mysko, reported on the state of work with creative youth. As I later learned from the minutes of the meeting, the communists dedicated considerable attention to me personally. I quote:
"Hutorov I.F., artist: ‘The lack of control over the activities of certain artists, whose moral character is far from determined, has led to the result that Soroka, a graduate of our HEI, educated in a Soviet HEI, has embarked on the path of communication with our ideological enemy.’
Konstantinova V.I., head of the propaganda department of the Lviv city party committee: ‘The board must cultivate intolerance towards apoliticism, it must give a sharp assessment to the activities of Soroka and others, who lead the entire creative collective of the Lviv organization of the Artists’ Union astray.’
Kurylo K.P., artist: ‘Do everything to ensure that the constant influence on all the work of the combine makes impossible both the clandestine activities of Soroka and the deplorable fact that the lack of ideology, the triviality of themes in the works of individual artists, has allowed our enemies to use their works for their own provocative purposes.’
Vysotskyi V.M., instructor of the regional party committee: ‘Soroka’s work—peruns, dashbohs, and others—were praised, supported in every way by certain unhealthy tendencies in the Union.’ (Presented in the original language)."
On Malanka, January 13, 1972, we were preparing for a big celebration—our daughter’s birthday, who was turning one. And on the morning of January 12, the news of major political arrests in Ukraine swept through. Among others, our greatest friends at the time were arrested: Iryna Kalynets, Mykhailo Osadchyi, Slavko Chornovil, Stefania Shabatura. We were no longer in the mood for celebration.
The thaw was over. Different times had come.
On January 23, 1972, an article appeared in the newspaper "Vilna Ukraina" with the title "A Little About 'Silent Works' and Noisy Commentators" and the subtitle "On the Occasion of the Ukrainian Graphics Exhibition in New York." The article was signed by: E. Mysko, Ya. Chaika, L. Levytskyi, S. Hebus-Baranetska, I. Ostafiichuk, M. Andrushchenko, I. Katrushenko, S. Koropchak, Ye. Beznisko, O. Obrotsa, Z. Ketsalo. I cannot help but quote one paragraph from this article: "We, Soviet artists, like our entire people, educated, hardened, and rallied around our dear Communist Party, vigilantly stand on guard of our socialist achievements. We will not tolerate any interference in our affairs. And therefore, we, the Lviv artists, whose names and works nationalist scoundrels tried to use for their dirty political goals, angrily brand their shameful, treacherous attempt. As the authors of the works, we categorically distance ourselves from you, you gentlemen ‘artists,’ and we lodge our decisive protest. We will not allow anyone to turn our works against our native people, against the sacred friendship of the Ukrainian, Russian, and other peoples of our vast Motherland, against socialism, against our dear party. It is sharp, irreconcilable, like all Soviet art, and directed against the enemies of the Ukrainian people, against such ‘benefactors’ as the organizers of the aforementioned exhibition in New York. Do not forget this, you gentlemen without a fatherland, and do not tread with your dirty boots into our bright house, into our temple of art."
E. Mysko, Ya. Chaika, M. Andrushchenko, Z. Ketsalo were not the authors of the works from which they were distancing themselves. And I had to be condemned somewhere, so they organized a meeting at my workplace. At that time, I worked at the art production combine, in the monumental arts workshop. After graduating from the institute, a team was formed with my classmates Bohdan Soika, Zhenia Beznisko, Mykola Krystopchuk, Mykola Andrushchenko, and our team leader was the already experienced master Vlodko Patyk. For several months a year, mainly in the warm season, we would travel to carry out commissions—mostly laying mosaics, less often doing murals, and in winter we worked on projects and our own art. The geography of our travels was quite extensive—we traveled all over Crimea and the Caucasus, Moldova, and Belarus. We also worked in Lviv and at the resorts of the Lviv region. So, our director, Shpartak, summoned me and said that we would have a meeting and that I must attend. I immediately understood why my presence was mandatory. There were few people at the meeting, mostly older artists from the design workshop and a couple of KGB agents. Almost no one from the monumental workshop was there, because they already knew there would be an attack on me, so it was better not to participate. The director stood up and informed those present that "an exhibition of Ukrainian graphics took place in New York, and there were works by our artist Bohdan Soroka. This exhibition was organized by hostile forces with the aim of defiling our Soviet system, that it was a political provocation." Then the head of our workshop, Merzliakova Yuliia Frantsivna, spoke and condemned my hostile actions, said that it was a disgrace for the workshop, and anyway, how did my works get abroad? After that, the director gave me the floor. I said: "I did not send my works to the exhibition, that these works are not some clandestine, hostile things, that they were exhibited at our exhibitions. My works, the very same ones that were exhibited in New York, were sold at the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art, I gave many as gifts, and if someone wanted to buy one, I sold it very gladly, and who among you would have acted otherwise? And now whom am I supposed to condemn? I have not read any slanderous articles in our newspapers, so who am I to rebut? Apart from conversations, I have no specific information." After that, a couple of old men spoke up, saying that it wasn't good that there was an exhibition somewhere, but that it seems I am not so hopeless. In conclusion, the party organizer Kurylo spoke and said that they would draw conclusions and would work with me. As it later turned out, I was forbidden to go on business trips and thus they did not let me work. They gave me a place in the design workshop to see and control what I was doing. This lasted a year.
On June 27, 1972, an article by Roman Korohodsky, "Motifs of Slavic Mythology," with three of my reproductions, was published in the newspaper "Literaturna Ukraina." After this, he was fired from his job. He couldn't find work for a year. He told me then: "Bohdan, I would rather lose with you than win with them." So said the Ukrainian Jew, Roman Korohodsky.
In the spring, thanks to the efforts of Metropolitan Mstyslav Skrypnyk, the publication "The Bookplate of the Sixtiers" saw the light of day. Roman Fihol gave me this book. I was very pleased, as it contained five of my ex-librises. And Ivan Svitlychnyi's ex-libris was reproduced on the cover.
It already looked like Ihor Kalynets would be arrested, and we began to discuss our behavior during the investigation. Ihor maintained the position that we should stand up with dignity and clearly declare our position of disagreement with the existing system. I said that an investigation in a KGB isolation cell is not a debating club, that we should defend ourselves and deny everything that can be denied. Thereby not making the investigators' work easier, but rather more difficult. At least that's what my father taught me. In the end, we agreed that the poetry collection "Opening of the Vertep" was published without our consent.
On the morning of August 8, 1972, they came to us with a search. I was asked to voluntarily hand over the graphics that were printed in the book "Poetry from Ukraine." I handed them over very gladly. They rummaged around all day, found nothing special, because I had long been prepared for this. I even removed the three-volume Ukrainian General Encyclopedia, published before the war, from the house. I knew that they take it during searches. They finished in the evening. In the search protocol, they wrote that documents of an anti-Soviet nature were found and seized. These were my graphics, which I had handed over to them myself, an empty envelope to me from Ivan Dziuba, a postcard from Vira Vovk, a map of the Third Reich, a catalog of an exhibition in Canada, a couple of photographs, and poems dedicated to my daughter Solomiia from the camp.
On August 11, I called Kalynets several times. An unfamiliar voice answered. I realized there was a search there and went to see what they were doing. I rang the bell, KGB agents opened the door. They searched me, were sorry they found nothing. Kalynets and I joked a little. I told them that it's still not good to arrest a poet. I saw cognac.
“Shall we have a drink for the road?” I asked.
They did not object. After the search, I escorted Ihor to a "Volga" car. They sat him between two KGB agents. We saw each other again after nine years.
I was often summoned for questioning to the KGB investigation department, located on the former Peace Street. At first, they talked about Chornovil, but I couldn't tell them anything, and they simply had nothing to write down in the protocol.
Then they moved on to Osadchyi's case. I also couldn't recall anything interesting. And then the investigator says that it can't be that Osadchyi didn't give me his anti-Soviet novel "The Cataract" to read. After all, he dedicated so much space to your father, Mykhailo Soroka.
“In your place, I would have thought the same, but reality is different,” I said.
“Well, then,” says the investigator, “they will now bring a tape recorder and we will play a recording
of your conversation. But I warn you, then you will be held responsible for giving false
testimony.”
I knew that during an investigation I could not remember something, and that's not punishable, but for refusing to give testimony or giving false testimony there is a criminal article. But I was calm, because Svitlychnyi had given me this book to read. If the investigator had named him, I would have had trouble, but as it was, I agreed for them to bring the tape recorder. They brought a large reel-to-reel tape recorder. It stood there for a while and they didn't turn it on.
Later, I was summoned for questioning in Kalynets's case. Investigator Ivanov showed me the book "Poetry from Ukraine" and my engravings in it. I said that I had not made illustrations, but that the engravings were independent works, created under the influence of poetry. These works were presented at exhibitions here and abroad as the series "Folklore Motifs." What concerned the investigator most was the poem "Stone Babas." He said that in that poem, in an allegorical form, Kalynets expresses anti-Soviet nationalist tendencies, comparing the sun to the anti-Soviet system, which disintegrates in the end. And the stone babas are those who spoke out against the Soviet government. This, in particular, is confirmed in the review that was written on this poem. Here is the poem:
Кам’яні баби
Ми велети, що зі сонця посміли глумитись,
покарані зухвальці, обернені в камінь.
Тепер тільки від круків побираємо мито
білими козацькими кістками.
Стоїмо як ідоли чорної пустелі,
віхи знамення татарви й вовкулаків.
Впаде смерк смерті на зелені оселі,
коли сонце вибухне на мертві відламки.
Скинемо каменю чари, які нас тиснуть,
з ненавистю все просмалить наші вічі.
До слушного моменту ми затаїлись у тирсі
з правом раз на рік на відьомські віча.
He chewed on this poem for a long time. In the end, he said that if I had drawn a Soviet star pierced by a bayonet, it would have been a clearly anti-Soviet drawing, but as it was, they were relying on literary experts from the Writers’ Union of Ukraine.
The following dialogue took place:
“Do you admit that you made the drawing specifically for the poem ‘Stone Babas’?” asked
the investigator.
“I do not admit it, because I made this engraving not for the poem, but from the association of this
poem, and I see nothing anti-Soviet in it.”
Such was my answer.
Today the protocols of these interrogations have been published, but back then the investigation was long and tedious, only to be summarized later in short protocols. My case was separated into a separate proceeding, which was later closed due to lack of evidence.
At that time, Roman Petruk and Yaroslava Muzyka were also undergoing interrogation. Their graphics were also used as illustrations for Ihor's poetry. He wanted to see his poetry with graphics. Khrystia Pidsadniuk typed his poems on a typewriter, and Slavko Lemyk made photographic reproductions, and all this was bound together into poetry collections. They circulated in samvydav within a narrow circle of people. One such booklet, titled "Summing up the Silence," was taken to Germany by a Greek-Catholic seminarian, Petro Myroniuk. He bought ten small volumes of Lesya Ukrainka, cut the text out of one volume, and inserted the samvydav there. Yaroslava Muzyka agreed to have her engravings "Skovoroda's Symbols" placed in the collection "Memory of the World."
In the autumn, an exhibition dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Soviet state opened. I submitted two of my linocuts to this exhibition: "Cage Lifted to the Surface" and "The Mine." I saw where these works were hanging in the Art Gallery. On the eve of the opening, Leopold Levytskyi and I went to see how they looked on the wall. This was right after the exposition had been reviewed by the regional party committee. Where my works were supposed to be, only strings were hanging. We just looked at each other.
Soon, like other young artists, I was invited to a meeting at the regional party committee. The report was given by the secretary of the regional party committee for ideological work, Comrade Malanchuk. He told us "about the poverty of pre-war Lviv, about the lack of culture and literacy. There were almost no newspapers and magazines. Only after the arrival of Soviet power did all this appear. Today, the party actively influences the course of the ideological and political worldview of Soviet people in the conditions of a sharp ideological struggle, but we cannot penetrate deep into human souls," said the speaker. "For this, there is art. And you, as architects of human souls, must get where we cannot."
Then the head of the Artists' Union, Emanuil Mysko, spoke. He thanked the party secretary for finding the time to meet with us, despite all his busyness, and that he (Mysko) would not forget this day for the rest of his life.
Sadovskyi, the party organizer of the Union, promised that from now on, candidates for the Artists’ Union would be reviewed at the regional party committee, and then in the Union. Young artists spoke about their problems, that they had nowhere to work, asked for workshops, about housing problems, someone there was not getting their theoretical works published.
“And what will Comrade Soroka tell us?” spoke up the first secretary for ideology.
I was caught off guard and surprised that such a person knew me and wanted to hear something
from me. I stood up and said:
“And what can I say? I come before the exhibition opens, and there are
only strings hanging. Strings are hanging where my graphics were. I traveled to a
mine near Chervonohrad as part of a creative group organized by the Union. We
went down into the mine face, made drawings. Based on the collected material, I made
engravings, and I see—they have been taken down from the exhibition.”
And then I hear Vysotskyi (one of the secretaries of the regional party committee) murmuring as if not to me, but to himself: "Gods, Biloboh, Chornoboh, Dazhboh..."
I tried to explain to them that pagan gods are mythology, a fairytale. It's not a religion. Then the first secretary:
“And the exhibition in New York? Why don't you repent? Why don't you rebut them, these bourgeois nationalists who are slinging mud at us? We would like to hear your position here and in the press.”
“I have not read anywhere that someone is slinging mud at us. So who am I supposed to answer to?”
After that, my graphics did not appear in exhibitions for the next ten years. And the KGB agents periodically met with me, as they said, "for prophylaxis."
Prepared by Vasyl Ovsienko, July 1, 2008