Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko and Iryna Pavlivna Kovalenko

Interview with Ivan Yukhymovych KOVALENKO and Iryna Pavlivna KOVALENKO

(With corrections by the Kovalenkos. They also removed certain fragments)

V.V. Ovsienko: On September 12, 1999, in Boyarka near Kyiv, at the home of Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko at 36 Chubarya Street, Vasyl Ovsienko, coordinator of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group program, is recording his autobiographical narrative. Participating are his wife, Iryna Pavlivna Kovalenko (née Pustosmikh), and Nina Borysivna Kotlyarevska.

Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko: I, Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko, was born a dissident. I was born in the small, remote village of Letsky, near Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi. It was in 1918, on December 31. Our family was large: four children. My father was an outstanding farmer, famous throughout the village, because he knew how to get a good harvest from a small plot of land. So, when land was being divided after the revolution, he didn't rush to get a lot of it—he could have, because they were giving one and a half hectares per person. But he took only three and a half hectares for the whole family, as if foreseeing the future dekulakization. But from those four hectares, with skillful farming, he harvested enough for his family and even had some left to take to market and sell.

I received my education later, in Pereyaslav. But before that, I survived the Holodomor. In our village, only half the people died out, whereas other villages were almost completely wiped out, or two-thirds died out. Why? Because a commune called “Mayak batrakiv” (The Farmhands’ Beacon) was organized in the village. My father, realizing he couldn't escape this disaster, joined the commune. There, they gave a ration per person: one glass of millet per day. But even that was enough to survive somehow.

Having survived the Holodomor, I had to flee the village, even though I was still a member of this commune. My mother did the same, because my father, although considered a poor peasant (four and a half hectares), was still subjected to various repressions. They got to him in the end. Even though dozens of decent and good farmers were deported from the villages—deported to Siberia, deported God knows where—he managed to avoid this. Why? Because in the commune, he started working as a tiller. And this commune, in the beginning, lived up to the hopes of the commune-Bolsheviks: it produced a very good harvest, because the head was elected from among the local peasants, and there were decent people among them.

But later, when they started sending the “twenty-five-thousanders,” my father's life became much worse. He was, of course, kicked out of this TOZ [Association for Joint Cultivation of Land]. And, what's more, they found him guilty of something: with one of his fellow villagers, of whom only two or three were left in the entire village, he was raising a pig and sharing the costs. They found out about this, and for that, they dismantled his house, destroyed his entire homestead, and the only thing they didn't do was kick him out of the village. This was after 1930.

I remained a member of the commune and was supposed to work in it, from the age of 7 to 16. But since there was no school in the village, except for two or three primary grades, my mother fled to Pereyaslav and enrolled me in School No. 1. It was a very good school. It was built by Prince Gorchakov, a great patron of the arts. He equipped it with all the best teaching aids. There was even an astronomical observatory.

I was a good student, but even then I showed defiance. After being a Little Octobrist for only two or three months, I refused to join the Pioneers, and I couldn't even think of joining the Komsomol. And so I lived my whole life without being a Komsomol member, a Pioneer, or a Party member.

While working in the commune, I was getting an education. I worked in the summer and studied in the winter. But even then, I had “dissident” sentiments. I was expelled from school three times. Once, I was out of school for a whole six months because when they were collecting three karbovantsi from each student to help striking workers in Austria, I said: “Some fools are on strike over there, and we have to pay the money.” Where could I get three karbovantsi to pay? So they expelled me for that. I didn't study for half a year. I was barely reinstated through the efforts of my older brother, who had gotten a job as the school director in that village.

Working in the commune and studying at school, I finished that school poor and in rags. And I finished it thanks to a teacher, Nykanor Vasylyovych Ruban, who gathered three destitute students, myself included, and set up a shelter for us at the school, a type of boarding house. And we fed ourselves with whatever was in the cafeteria. They had hot breakfasts there, and whatever was left over—that's what we ate.

So I finished this school in 1936. I didn't even have the money to be in the graduation photograph. But I received my certificate with only one ‘four’ [B grade], which is equivalent to a silver medal certificate today. That ‘four’ was in Russian language.

Then I moved to Kyiv to live with my mother, who was finding work on construction sites. Her maiden name was Maria Hryhorivna Bozhko. An aero club was being built in Kyiv. At that time, Stalin was training his “Stalin's Falcons.” My mother worked there as a cook. And I immediately applied to the university. I wasn't accepted into the university because they found signs of tuberculosis in me. One doctor told me: “Do you want to get well? No medicine will help. Go to a construction site and work there in the fresh air. That's the best medicine.” Back then, there was no medicine for tuberculosis.

I listened to him and went to work on the construction of a keyboard factory. In reality, it was the construction of the Antonov military plant. I worked there for two years. I changed various professions, went through everything. But then it was time to be drafted into the army. I got scared then: I didn't want to go into the army. I went and enrolled in Kyiv State University.

Iryna Pavlivna Kovalenko: Should I speak for myself? So, in 1938, Ivan entered the university. He had a medal, and I had a medal, which allowed us to enroll without exams. But the rector at the time, Rusko, summoned us and told us (we ended up in his office together): “We cannot guarantee your admission to the faculties you have chosen.” (Ivan Yukhymovych had chosen the faculty of Ukrainian philology, and I, Russian). “I can guarantee you,” he said, “admission to the newly created faculty of Western European languages and literatures.” We didn't know each other yet, but we each considered it and decided it was better to enroll in this faculty. Especially since it was so prestigious and offered a certain scope. We were accepted into this newly created faculty. It was only the first year. We chose the French department of the Romano-Germanic faculty. That's how we met, finding ourselves in the same group. Six months later we were already close friends, and on December 31, 1939, on Ivan Yukhymovych's birthday, we got married.

From that time on, our life has been a shared one. Although Ivan Yukhymovych later served five years in the camps, we consider even those years to have been lived together. I wrote him a letter every day. He thought of me, I thought of him. And it's hard to distinguish our biographies separately, because we lived our whole lives together, experienced everything together, thought the same way, read the same books, and had the same interests.

I'm from Chernihiv itself. I was born on August 26, 1919. So I'm six months younger. My family is from the Chernihiv urban intelligentsia. My mother, Olha Mykolaivna Pustosmikh (she died at the age of ninety-seven in 1979), worked with Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky in the statistics bureau. She was the youngest employee of this bureau, a so-called “records manager.” Kotsiubynsky used to visit us. Our families were friends. The children, my older brothers and sisters, would attend the Christmas tree party at Kotsiubynsky's house and were friends with his daughters, Oksana and Iryna.

My father, Pavlo Pylypovych Pustosmikh, was repressed in 1930 and exiled to Central Asia. My mother sold everything she could and went to save him, because he had fallen gravely ill there. And my sister then took me to Kyiv, where I graduated from School No. 56. I graduated with distinction.

My father was later shot. In 1937, he was arrested a second time, there, in his new place. Without the right of correspondence... And “without the right of correspondence” meant he was shot. It was only later—still under Stalin—that Ivan Yukhymovych managed to get a certificate stating that he had died of a stomach ulcer.

V.V. Ovsienko: They had a whole list of diseases that were written down as the cause of death for anyone.

I.P. Kovalenko: Despite the fact that the main language in Chernihiv was Russian, our family lived with Ukrainian interests. My mother subscribed to all the Ukrainian journals. And the atmosphere in that statistics bureau itself was progressive, Ukrainian, one might say. I have a photograph that includes Mykola Vorony, Arkadiy Kazka, who worked in the statistics bureau, and Kotsiubynsky. Pavlo Tychyna also visited us a little. He was acquainted with my older sister. But I have no memories of Tychyna. But my mother was very good friends with Mykola Vorony; he gave her some of his books and would inscribe them: “To my dear Ol-Ol.”

When I met Ivan, his views were uncertain... I still can't say they were that anti-Soviet. But I was precisely of that anti-Soviet persuasion... After all, my father had been taken away. I entered the university, having hidden this fact. Somewhere I wrote that he had died. Otherwise, they wouldn't have accepted me into the university. I hated this government. And Ivan Yukhymovych caught this spirit from me. He caught the hatred for those who shoot innocent people. And I learned the Ukrainian language from him. That's how we exchanged what we could, our riches, and began to live together.

V.V. Ovsienko: So you started living together—but where did you live?

I.P. Kovalenko: At first, we didn't live together. I lived with my sister. She had her own family, her own children... And Ivan found shelter on the Otradnyi khutir—that's what it was called then. It was just an open field, and on it, a barrack. There was a small airfield for planes where they taught cadets. And Ivan's younger brother was a pilot-cadet. So in this barrack, he, their mother, and Ivan were given a small room to live in. But his brother finished his training, received an assignment, and went somewhere. And I, once I got married, went to that house, to that barrack. Well, it was impossible to exist there, because the walls were so thin, it was so cold... How we ever survived there, I don't know. And it was a seven-kilometer walk to the university, because the trams were practically not running.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Seven to the tram. And then a long way by tram.

I.P. Kovalenko: I don't know—we rarely got to ride the tram. That's how we lived until the war itself.

And the war began for us like this. We were taking our third-year exams. We worked very hard, very productively, and were doing very well on the exams. We still had to take a course on some Western literature. We were working on it at night (Yakymovych was the lecturer). One Sunday, a very sunny day, I went outside and saw planes flying overhead. The atmosphere was already such that war was about to begin any day. I thought: “I'll scare him.” I came in and said: “Get up, the war has started, German bombers have already arrived.” And he took it as a joke. Suddenly, a neighbor comes and says: “They've bombed Zhuliany, the war has started!”

Well, the war began. We barely passed that exam and had to flee somewhere. We went with the students to dig trenches. And then they called us all in and said: “Go home. Classes will begin in three months. We will notify you.” But where were we to flee? To that barrack that was being bombed? And bombs were already starting to fall on that place. My sister had left—there was nowhere to live there either. So we went to my mother's in Chernihiv. And they had already managed to arrest my mother—arrested her for expressing the opinion that the Germans might actually occupy Chernihiv. She said she was very lucky (as she put it) that the investigator was a Ukrainian. If he had been a Jew, she wouldn't have gotten away with it. Because the denunciation was written by her Jewish colleague. We arrived, and she was just at home. It was great fortune.

But Chernihiv fell into a special zone: the Germans, to get to Kyiv, first began to bomb Chernihiv. And Chernihiv ended up among the most damaged cities. There are five such cities, starting with Stalingrad. Nothing was left of it. The bombings began... Kyiv had not yet been taken—but in three days, Chernihiv was destroyed. It was impossible to remain there. Even the oblast party committee didn't have time to evacuate—Fedorov and all those... They didn't stay behind on assignment, but because they didn't have time to escape.

We gathered some belongings and set off into the unknown—somewhere to the east, to escape from the Germans. On foot, no one gave us a cart. We walked all the way to Pyriatyn in the Poltava Oblast. We lived there for three months, waiting for a chance to break through further east, but we ended up in the Pyriatyn encirclement. Some peasants there, good people, gave us shelter. We waited there for three months for an opportunity to go further... But then—a paratrooper landing in Lubny, and we were completely cut off. It was hopeless to try to go on.

We walked back. We walked the same entire path back to Chernihiv. The house was destroyed, nothing was there, just walls... And there we survived the occupation. We nearly died of hunger. We sold what we could. Ivan took up painting. He painted icons, sold them, we went around the villages. And in the villages, people were well-off, they gave us potatoes. As a man, he couldn't walk on the roads. I went alone to sell things, to trade, I brought back what I could.

And Ivan Yukhymovych will continue from here.

I.Y. Kovalenko: We started to get by somehow, earning money for food, getting by—sometimes on dead horse meat, sometimes something else. But the thing is, the Germans started organizing roundups and deporting the youth. We ran into an acquaintance of ours who said: “I'll arrange a fictitious job for you with the Germans, at the ‘Zahotzerno’ [Grain Procurement Office], so they won't touch you.” We agreed. So he arranged it.

I.P. Kovalenko: This was three months before the liberation.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes, three months before the liberation. We had just gotten settled, received our *ausweises* [ID cards], when the roundups began. Thousands and thousands were deported then. But these papers saved us. We remained there and waited for the liberation.

I.Y. Kovalenko: We went through the front line again, the shelling, the bombing, everything else... The next step was to get some kind of teaching job, even though our education wasn't finished...

I.P. Kovalenko: You missed something.

I.Y. Kovalenko: What?

I.P. Kovalenko: You missed that we met the French during the occupation.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Ah, that was my doing. During the occupation, I met a whole large group of Frenchmen who were forced to work for the Germans.

I.P. Kovalenko: These were labor battalions. They were mobilized for construction, like semi-prisoners. They were Frenchmen with very communist sentiments. And we already knew French and could communicate. So they started visiting us frequently, coming to our home, telling us about their lives, and we exchanged thoughts. They told us how hard it was for them to work, that many of them had died and were buried here, in Chernihiv. They asked that when Chernihiv was liberated (and liberation was already approaching), if they didn't live to see it, that the graves of their comrades not be forgotten. We promised to report to the Soviet authorities about them and their request, that it would be done, that we would fulfill their request because it is the duty of every person. When our forces arrived, Ivan Yukhymovych immediately wrote a report about his work among the French.

I.Y. Kovalenko: That I conducted explanatory work, found literature in French.

The French were very drawn to me. To living people in general, because they didn't understand the surrounding environment and the events that were taking place. Then they gave me their list. I finished the report and took it to the oblast party committee. They were very interested in it there. They scolded me terribly for not leading them into the forest to the partisans. But how could I?

I.P. Kovalenko: The French didn't express such a desire.

I.Y. Kovalenko: But I took the opportunity and said that I was without a job. So they told me: “A school is opening, go to the school.” And right away, from the first day, I was appointed director of the only surviving school, School No. 4. I worked there for about four months, until the real cadres, the party members, began to return from evacuation. They created such conditions for me that I had to leave that directorship.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, the conditions were like this: “You'll bring that cabinet to my house.” (And we had gathered those tables, those chairs, those cabinets with such difficulty, just to start the school year somehow...). “My family is returning—make sure I have a table and all that.” Well, such conditions that you either had to go and give bribes, or...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Or something... After working like that for four months, we went to be ordinary teachers: I as a teacher of German and English, which I knew, and my wife—of German and Russian. We lived like that for four years in Chernihiv. We didn't plan to leave, but we saw that they were starting to gradually remove everyone who had remained under occupation. First one person would disappear, then another, then a third. And even people like this: one day he's a school director, and the next day he's gone. So I said: “As hard as it is for us, let's leave everything...” And we moved here, to Boyarka. My mother was working here, she had a small room. We got jobs at Boyarka School No. 1.

I.P. Kovalenko: Where we worked together for eight years, starting in 1947. And in 1945 our son was born, so there were three of us... Our son is an interesting figure: Oles Ivanovych Kovalenko. He is interesting in that he's a polyglot, but his main language is English. He made a contribution to Ukrainian culture: he translated quite a few classic works by Ukrainian writers into English.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Seven classics.

I.P. Kovalenko: Such as, for example, *Khiba revut voly, yak yasla povni?* (Do the Oxen Bellow, When the Mangers Are Full?) by Panas Myrny. Here on the shelf are the books of his translations: works by Kotsiubynsky, Marko Vovchok, Panas Myrny. Our son was born in 1945—the war had just ended, and he was born.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. We started working at the Boyarka school. We worked conscientiously. We really liked this work. At first, things were a bit freer... So we did all sorts of things: we went on hikes, organized a theater, staged plays. And only classics: Gogol's *The Government Inspector*, Ostrovsky's *The Forest*, some Ukrainian things. But even then I showed my “dissident” nature. When I spoke at an open party meeting and said it was empty talk, they fired me. I was without a job for several years. True, I always had private lessons. I also worked at a military sanatorium.

I.P. Kovalenko: Tell them how they tried to pull you into the Party.

I.P. Kovalenko: The fact is, we didn't fit in at all, not just with the collective, but with the environment of party members. We were constantly at war with the Soviet government at the level of the school's party organization. We were “not like the others.” First, they wanted to somehow break up our friendship. We don't need to talk about that, but rather about how they wanted to subdue us. And you can subdue someone in two ways. The first is for us to join the Party. Once we were Party members, they could put pressure on us and “work us over,” that is, destroy our independence. But we avoided that. We avoided it at the cost of being fired from our jobs. Because when they saw that this wasn't working, they had to destroy us in another way. And we spoke out against the directors, against robbery, against lies in the collective, drunkenness, and against all the party members, because they were all very stupid and very bad. And professionally, they were worthless. But we were very highly valued. By whom? By the parents and the children. So they were so jealous or envious that they couldn't forgive us for it. Every year, they wouldn't include us in the staffing for the next school year.

I.Y. Kovalenko: That is, they fired us.

I.P. Kovalenko: The year ends, graduation party, bouquets, flowers, and such kind words from the students, from the parents. And suddenly: “You have not been staffed for the next school year.” And so it went on for several years.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Or, for example, they'd pull you out of class: “Go to the KGB, let the KGB deal with you.” They pulled me out of class and sent me.

I.P. Kovalenko: And all this because we had been under occupation. One time they said: “Go to 4 Engels Street. Let the KGB there give you a certificate saying you are loyal.” We went, found that 4 Engels Street in Kyiv, and said: “They told us that you should check our political profile.” They laughed and said that if they needed to, they would check it.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, they said: “You go to the district office...” We first went to Kyiv.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, who gives such certificates? These are just details, showing what it came to. It was just ordinary persecution—persecution at a high level. I remained at my job, but Ivan Yukhymovych, being more energetic... He has such a character that it was hard to handle him. So they fired him. He was effectively without a job for several years, until some kind of thaw began. This was already under Khrushchev. Tronko's brother worked in Boyarka, and Ivan was teaching his children, preparing them for the institute. So this Tronko's brother somehow, through his own brother, managed to get permission for him to work at the night school. The night school was the same as a concentration camp, because it was just full of “juvenile delinquents.” He worked there until they took him away. I.Y. Kovalenko: No, I later worked as a teacher for four years in the day school.

I.P. Kovalenko: You had a few classes at the third school.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Not a few, but many—I worked for four years, fourteen hours a week. But all that doesn't matter. But my main work was at the night school and the military sanatorium.

I.P. Kovalenko: You were working odd jobs—here and there.

I.Y. Kovalenko: But you're more interested in the creative work.

I started writing poems from a very young age, already writing poems in school. I started, like all fools, in Russian. Then, under the influence of my teacher Ruban, who had studied with Malyshko, I began to write in Ukrainian. But I never wrote any poems to please anyone. I could have been published in the district newspapers. But I just wrote for myself. I wrote what I thought. Back in 1956, when Tychyna was still alive, he was writing such filth... So I wrote such a poem about him that they could have imprisoned me for it back then:

Ти не поет - ти деспоту служив,
Не Україні, а служив ти кату,
Віддав святині чисті супостату,
У грудях матері не бачачи ножів.
Ти відвертався від кривавих жнив,
Коли твою палили рідну хату.
Ти пузо грів і їжу їв багату,
І при житті ти смерть вже пережив.
Цвірінькнув в юності, дістав вінок і славу -
Вони тобі належать не по праву.
Віддай достойним слави і вінця -
Тим, що за матір гинули в Сибіру.
А ти, що у підлоті втратив міру,
Чекай ганебного кінця!

I read that only to... I mostly wrote lyrical poetry. My wife pushed me toward lyrics: you're a lyric poet, a lyric poet, a lyric poet. That's why I have a lot of lyrical work. But things like that would break through on their own, on their own. I have a cycle of so-called “furious” poems about all these contemporary figures.

V.V. Ovsienko: And now let's return to the Sixtiers movement itself. You were probably acquainted with the people who are called the Sixtiers?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. Now tell them how you were completely separate from literary circles. He lived on his own.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Detached.

I.P. Kovalenko: Detached. He wasn't acquainted with anyone, didn't go anywhere, no one was interested in him. But there was a certain impetus in his life. This impetus was his acquaintance with Mykhailo Kutynsky. Kutynsky is the author of *Nekropol* (Necropolis). Now this *Nekropol* is being published under the name Shyshov, but Kutynsky is also mentioned. In reality, the sole author of *Nekropol* was Kutynsky. He gave us the entire *Nekropol* written by him, unpublished. It's lying up there in our attic. Do you know what *Nekropol* is?

V.V. Ovsienko: No, I don't.

I.P. Kovalenko: *Nekropol* is a huge work. In translation, it means “city of the dead.” Kutynsky independently carried out this colossal work—he collected data on all the prominent Ukrainian figures who lived and worked on this land, and wrote an encyclopedia: where, who, when they were born, died, what they did—a brief note—and where they are buried, in what condition the grave is.

I.Y. Kovalenko: He came here to the grave of Volodymyr Samiylenko. We met him. He began to visit us, to tell us about his work. Suddenly he asked: “Do you have anything written?” I said: “I do.” Then my wife gave him a few of my poems. That's when I started to get published. But that was later. At first, she rewrote the poems and gave them to him. He made my first small collection, “Chervona Kalyna” (Red Viburnum).

V.V. Ovsienko: What year did you meet Mykhailo Kutynsky?

I.Y. Kovalenko: In the late sixties.

I.P. Kovalenko: No. From 1965, something like that. Because in 1968—that was already Czechoslovakia.

I.P. Kovalenko: So, 1966, maybe, that year.

V.V. Ovsienko: And the collection “Chervona Kalyna”—what was its fate?

I.P. Kovalenko: Kutynsky typed it up, stitched it like a notebook, and gave it to Ivan Yukhymovych. He said it was his first collection.

V.V. Ovsienko: In a single copy?

I.P. Kovalenko: In a single copy.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No. In four copies. Another impetus for my public activity was meeting Yevhen Sverstyuk. I was the head of the trade union committee.

I.P. Kovalenko: At the night school.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I wanted to arrange a meeting with Ukrainian writers. And we had one teacher. I asked her: “Do you know anyone?” She said: “I know Sverstyuk.” “Could he come here?” (I had been following all his writings in the newspapers, I subscribed to *Literaturna Ukrayina*). She said: “He could.” “Then tell him to come.” And they came: Yevhen Sverstyuk, Vasyl Stus, and Nadiya Svitlychna. The three of them.

V.V. Ovsienko: Can you specify when this was? Stus was in Kyiv from 1963.

I.P. Kovalenko: Sixty... From that time, the surveillance of Ivan Yukhymovych began. It was 1966.

V.V. Ovsienko: Had the 1965 arrests already taken place? Was this before or after the arrests?

I.P. Kovalenko: After them. 1966.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I gathered a huge class—up to two hundred students. And the poets read their works there for three hours. Who did they read? First, Sverstyuk gave a report. He gave such a report that it was completely different from what he writes now, completely different... He gave a report, and then he read poems. He read poems by Vasyl Symonenko, and not the censored versions, but the unpublished ones. He read poems by Bulayenko—he was well-known then. And Nadiya Svitlychna read Ivan Drach—she said she was in love with Drach, although I don't see anything special in him. She read Drach.

I.P. Kovalenko: Stus read.

I.Y. Kovalenko: And Vasyl Stus read his poems. He was a little nervous, a bit flustered, but he read beautiful, profound poems. I am amazed that the students sat without fidgeting and listened for three hours. Afterward, I caught up with the poets at the station, got acquainted with Sverstyuk, with all of them, and I read one of my own poems to Sverstyuk—“Iudy” (Judases). He said: “Oh, a beautiful poem, if only it could be published.” It's in the collection. After that, I found out where Sverstyuk worked and visited him several times. Thanks to Kutynsky and samvydav, *Kalyna* circulated. It reached Czechoslovakia, the newspaper *Nove Zhyttia* (New Life).

I.P. Kovalenko: It was simply that Kutynsky sent his poems, including “Chervona kalyna,” to the Czechoslovak newspaper *Nove Zhyttia*.

I.Y. Kovalenko: The first poem published there was “Chervona kalyna.” And then they wrote a letter and asked me to send something else. I sent them “Bandura” as well. I can't list how many, because it all got lost.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, a dozen and a half poems and two interesting articles. One article—“Kyivska Honcharivka” (Kyiv's Honcharivka). It's about Ivan Honchar's museum. And the second article is about St. Michael's Cathedral.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I predicted that St. Michael's Cathedral would be restored.

I.P. Kovalenko: And he wrote: “I believe that someday it will be restored.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Did you see St. Michael's Cathedral?

I.P. Kovalenko: No, the one that was destroyed, he didn't see it—he wasn't living in Kyiv back then.

They asked us to send our poems, that they liked them. Later, that was the main accusation: that he was published abroad, you see.

I.Y. Kovalenko: In Canada, twelve or thirteen poems were reprinted. A small book was published on a printer. The KGB shoved it at me: “See, this is how it was in Czechoslovakia. And why was it also reprinted in Canada?”

N.B. Kotlyarevska: If you didn't receive any royalties, what does it have to do with you?

I.P. Kovalenko: Did they care about that? The fact was that it was abroad.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: You hadn't seen this little book, but they already had it.

I.Y. Kovalenko: At the school, we celebrated the centenary of Shevchenko's death, and I read one poem. Later, the investigator told me: “It was after this poem that we placed you under surveillance.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Is it also in your book?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. I never thought they would arrest some provincial teacher from some small town for this.

I.P. Kovalenko: Mykhailo Kutynsky also supplied us with samvydav. They took away two whole carloads of samvydav from us. They found the most samvydav at our place, a whole library. Everything that was published in Ukraine and in Russia. And Kutynsky, whatever he got, he brought to us. In the summer, he would rest here and bring all this literature to us, so as not to keep it at his place. His apartment was small. And so that people could be enlightened. And Ivan Yukhymovych distributed it very generously...

V.V. Ovsienko: Boyarka was filled with samvydav?

I.P. Kovalenko: Filled. In the evening, Ivan Yukhymovych would return from school—and students would already be standing by the fence. He would choose something, choose—and bring it out. I would say: “You'll get into trouble.” He'd say: “They won't betray me.” And then they questioned two hundred students.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Not two hundred. They questioned one hundred and forty students.

I.P. Kovalenko: They asked them: did he give you anything to read? No one said anything.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No one said anything.

V.V. Ovsienko: So you had very good students.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I'm surprised myself. They said: “He gave us a French grammar book.” How is it that they questioned one hundred and forty students—and they didn't say anything? Well, we can end on that note.

On January 13, right on my birthday, eight cars appeared here. Eight cars were parked on all the corners, and two were right here. And eight people conducted a search for eight hours.

V.V. Ovsienko: And the record states January 13, 1972. But why do you say it's your birthday? You said December 31?

I.P. Kovalenko: The fact is, he was actually born on January 13, 1919. But he was registered on the last day of the previous year for the army—they used to do that for the army. Anyone born in the first month was written down as being born in the previous year, so they would be drafted earlier. We always celebrate on January 13.

There was no banquet. He had just recovered from an illness and had gone to stand in line for “dog's delight” (sausage) and was on his way home. And they sent me to the district education department to submit some papers. It wasn't necessary, but the pressure was on... I was delayed there. I came back—one of them is standing here... And Ivan Yukhymovych gestures: “Look! Beria's heirs are at work! Look!” They were rummaging through a drawer. He was later reminded of that a lot.

I.Y. Kovalenko: The search at my place wasn't as long as at Ivan Svitlychny's. At Svitlychny's, it was twenty-four hours.

I.P. Kovalenko: The thing is, Svitlychny was a conspirator and an experienced man. And this one... First of all, they knew where everything was. They went straight to the library, and also in a nook under the roof, they found Ivan Yukhymovych's materials and what I had been rewriting. Mine was here, his was there. They only went to two places.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They had conducted secret searches before that.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: So they were already running things in your house without you?

I.P. Kovalenko: Someone already knew where everything was. They just took all of my things. I had written letters to Kutynsky, and Kutynsky had returned them to me. Then they interrogated me too for what I had written there. I wrote letters to Kutynsky, commented on and reviewed his works. He wrote many works and dedicated them to me, because I was very interested in them. Then he expressed a wish for me to write a critical article about one of his works. I wrote it. He liked it very much. But he returned the original—also conspiracy... He didn't want to have it. Because he, Kutynsky, had served 25 years, so he thought it was safe here, but dangerous at his place. Then they said they would definitely have taken me too, but they took pity on the children and the mothers. My mother was already over ninety, and his mother was paralyzed. Our son had been taking care of her for ten years, and then they took him away... And our daughter was still in the younger grades.

V.V. Ovsienko: Your son Oles was born in 1945. And your daughter?

I.P. Kovalenko: She was born in 1957, Maria. Maryna Kovalenko.

V.V. Ovsienko: And were they living here at the time of the search?

I.P. Kovalenko: Our son was at work. He worked for “Intourist.” At first, when he graduated from the university, they sent him abroad right away. He was an interpreter abroad. They sent him to Egypt, he worked there as an interpreter on a liner, sailed the seas and oceans. He was in six countries. They sent him twice. And then it was as if it was cut off. And his career—that was it. He had shown such promise. They already wanted to take him into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But when they secretly started persecuting his father—he got nowhere. They drew a line—and after that, he didn't take a single step forward. Not a single step. They stuck him in a translation bureau. He translated for people there. He was just a clerk. And to this day, he just does translations. But his career is over. He lives in Kyiv.

And our daughter lives in Boyarka. She graduated from the institute. She had a Kyiv residence permit. But she was assigned to Borodyanka, even though everyone with a Kyiv permit was assigned to Kyiv. Ivan Yukhymovych was already home by then, but they gave her no leeway. They didn't even really allow her to teach.

V.V. Ovsienko: She also studied foreign languages?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. Ivan Yukhymovych knows three languages, and she knows French. So she works in a library. A very good friend of ours, Academician Hennadiy Kharlampiyovych Matsuka, simply went to the minister and asked that she be given a free diploma, so they wouldn't send her to that backwater near Chornobyl.

V.V. Ovsienko: Before your arrest, were there any signs that they were going to take you? Or perhaps you were in the circle of people arrested in 1972? At Svitlychny's, maybe, or with someone else? What were your relationships with these people?

I.P. Kovalenko: None.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, I was acquainted with the Svitlychnys. I used to visit the Writers' Union... Because they would invite me—someone would come from Czechoslovakia and they would send me a telegram: “Appear with new works.” And so the last time I went, I took many of my works, met many very interesting people. Sverstyuk met me, introduced me to everyone: to Dzyuba, to Svitlychny, to everyone. Miklos Musinka was visiting there. I was supposed to give him my works. But I thought about it and decided that this time I would refrain—the times were very uncertain. And it wasn't that I regretted it, but I just had some kind of premonition. And then I read in the newspaper that Miklos Musinka had been detained and a lot of samvydav had been found in his belt. But mine wasn't there. But there I met with the editor of the newspaper *Druzhno vpered* (Forward, Together), with other people. And in the camp, I became better acquainted with Svitlychny. There were eight of us poets imprisoned. I was very well acquainted with Svitlychny. Ihor Kalynets, Taras Melnychuk... Who else?

V.V. Ovsienko: Stepan Sapelyak, perhaps?

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, Sapelyak wasn't imprisoned with us.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, Vasyl Zakharchenko. It seems he didn't write poems...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Zakharchenko didn't write. But he was imprisoned with us and he disgraced himself terribly.

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, I know about his repentant statement.

I.Y. Kovalenko: The fact that he wrote a repentance is one thing. But in the camp, he was an ordinary informer.

I.P. Kovalenko: As it later turned out.

V.V. Ovsienko: You know, Vasyl Stus was already in exile when they released Zakharchenko—and he was his godfather. He sent his godfather a telegram with a single word: “Fie, Vasyl.”

I.Y. Kovalenko: Zakharchenko behaved very disgracefully. When a few people gathered and talked, about a hunger strike, about this, about that—he would sneak up unnoticed and listen to everything. Then—suddenly, a pardon. He was pardoned, released a year or more early. And the sentence he got was so... And then there was his repentance in *Literaturna Ukrayina*. Have you read it?

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, yes. I read it then in *Literaturna Ukrayina*, I think in 1977.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Why is it disgraceful? Dzyuba also repented, but he didn't mention anyone there, absolutely no one. But Zakharchenko—he went after Kalynets, H-luzman, everyone, absolutely everyone. He spat on all of them. He behaved very dishonorably. Well, okay, he did it himself, he repented himself, so be it. But for them to give him the Shevchenko Prize after that, it's unclear for what.

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes, for his recantation.

V.V. Ovsienko: But we've gotten a bit ahead of ourselves. This search—how did you perceive it? The arrest? How did the investigation proceed? Who conducted the investigation? That's what you should tell us about in more detail.

I.Y. Kovalenko: My search was more or less easy. When I heard about the searches at Svitlychny's, at Dzyuba's, I thought mine was child's play: only eight agents and it lasted only eight hours. Well, they took books, rummaged through this and that, forced me to open beds, sofas. They searched everywhere.

V.V. Ovsienko: You probably didn't hide the samvydav?

I.P. Kovalenko: It was standing there, in the library. It needed to be at hand.

V.V. Ovsienko: It's interesting, what did they take from you? Name at least the most important things.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Everything that was being published then. Everything.

V.V. Ovsienko: Ivan Dzyuba, obviously, *Internationalism or Russification?*

I.Y. Kovalenko: Dzyuba—of course.

V.V. Ovsienko: *The Ukrainian Herald*?

I.Y. Kovalenko: *The Ukrainian Herald*.

I.P. Kovalenko: The works of Vyacheslav Chornovil, all of Valentyn Moroz's articles.

I.Y. Kovalenko: “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky.” One work handwritten by Iryna Pavlivna...

I.P. Kovalenko: *Woe from Wit*.

V.V. Ovsienko: *Woe from Wit* is by Chornovil. Moroz's *A Chronicle of Resistance*.

I.P. Kovalenko: Correct. *Amid the Snows*...

V.V. Ovsienko: *A Report from the Beria Reserve*—that's Moroz's.

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes.

V.V. Ovsienko: And “Instead of a Final Word.”

I.P. Kovalenko: We had all of that.

V.V. Ovsienko: Absolutely everything...

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, and Kutynsky's *Nekropol*.

V.V. Ovsienko: They took that too?

I.P. Kovalenko: They took it.

V.V. Ovsienko: What is the fate of that work?

I.P. Kovalenko: It was returned from the KGB.

V.V. Ovsienko: Returned? And is Kutynsky himself still alive?

I.P. Kovalenko: He has already passed away.

V.V. Ovsienko: To whom was *Nekropol* returned? To him?

I.P. Kovalenko: It was returned to us, because it was taken from us.

V.V. Ovsienko: Someone needs to prepare it for publication.

I.P. Kovalenko: It's already been published.

I.Y. Kovalenko: It's being published.

V.V. Ovsienko: Where?

I.P. Kovalenko: It's being published in small portions in the journal *Dnipro*.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. It's just a mockery.

I.P. Kovalenko: But it needs to be published separately.

V.V. Ovsienko: But if it's being published in a journal, it won't be lost.

I.Y. Kovalenko: For the third or fourth year, it's being published in the journal in such small paragraphs.

I.P. Kovalenko: Kutynsky was friends with Shyshov. He did some of it, Kutynsky did some. Well, mostly Kutynsky. Kutynsky never got up from his typewriter.

I.Y. Kovalenko: He produced *Nekropol* in eight copies. Then he distributed it all among people. The KGB were rubbing their hands: we've taken all of Kutynsky's copies.

I.Y. Kovalenko: All the copies... But it turned out that Shyshov didn't have this.

I.P. Kovalenko: His wife came here once and said that someone here in Kyiv still has a copy.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Not only that, he had a large card catalog. He worked like a real scholar. He gave it to some Kozyrenko. The KGB agents came to him and said: “You have it.” He got scared and immediately brought it out to them. A huge card catalog. There were eight thousand names in it.

I.P. Kovalenko: Such was Kutynsky's feat...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Such a feat. And he came here to Samiylenko's grave. And he wrote such an indignant article: is there even one teacher of Ukrainian language here? They don't see that Volodymyr Samiylenko's grave here is so neglected—there's no monument, nothing.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, something is being arranged there now.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. The investigation lasted for nine months. The investigator was Mykola Andriyovych Koval. He spoke exclusively in Ukrainian. He didn't use methods of physical influence. But methods of psychological influence—as many as you like.

I.P. Kovalenko: Dishonest methods. For example, he would say: “Such and such people have already testified against you...” And he believed that they had.

I.Y. Kovalenko: And I believed it: so-and-so said you gave it to them, and that one said you gave it to them, and that one said you gave it to them, and so on...

I.P. Kovalenko: And he really did give samvydav to many people. And maybe they were watching how it happened—I don't know.

V.V. Ovsienko: They had operational data. Or they had suspicions. So they could use that to blackmail him.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, it was just their method.

I.P. Kovalenko: Why not? When you gave it to Hlushchuk, and he said they gave it to Hlushchuk and summoned Hlushchuk? Well, so what? They knew some things.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They were watching me. He said frankly that the surveillance began in 1961.

I.P. Kovalenko: And you ask if there were any signs of an impending arrest. Well, in hindsight, there really were. An atmosphere could be felt both at my work and at his.

I.Y. Kovalenko: And I was threatened at work: “You'll see what happens to you...” they would say. Four of my colleagues wrote a denunciation against me: the director, the head teacher, the party organization secretary, and one other teacher.

V.V. Ovsienko: Did they write the denunciations before the arrest?

I.P. Kovalenko: They wrote it two years after the events in Czechoslovakia... The thing is, when the events in Czechoslovakia happened, Ivan Yukhymovych, on that very day, declared in the teachers' lounge, he organized a kind of rally. There were teachers there, and he said: “This is a fascist action.” They wrote a denunciation then.

V.V. Ovsienko: This denunciation was lying in wait?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes, it was waiting. But on the eve of the arrest, they summoned these people to renew the denunciation, to rewrite that paper in their own hand. This was one of the accusations—the fact that he condemned such an event. I told him then that he shouldn't do that.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They wrote that denunciation in 1970. Well, I was born that way, I can't tolerate anything like that. I can't tolerate it—and I called it a fascist action. You can't bring tanks into an independent country and crush people with tanks. That was one of the main accusations. In my camp, five people were imprisoned for Czechoslovakia.

I.P. Kovalenko: Samvydav, Czechoslovakia, poems like “Chervona kalyna.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Your own works were also incriminated?

I.P. Kovalenko: Of course! But in a stupid way, somehow.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I am particularly outraged that they incriminated me for the poem “Nedokoshenyi luh” (The Unmown Meadow).

I.P. Kovalenko: They really didn't like “The Unmown Meadow.” They even questioned me at the trial, asking what I thought about “The Unmown Meadow.” I said: “This is a poem completely devoid of political content—it's a philosophical reflection on the fact that a person has not managed to realize their purpose.” “No, he meant something else here—what does ‘with a scythe in his hands’ mean?”

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, as in, we've been mowing and mowing Ukraine, but it's still not completely mown—is that it? They knew what they were asking.

I.P. Kovalenko: Such foolishness...

I.Y. Kovalenko: The main thing is that of all these poems, “The Unmown Meadow” ended up in the cassation verdict of the Supreme Court. I filed an appeal... I have so many poems that they could have latched onto, but they chose “The Unmown Meadow.”

N.B. Kotlyarevska: That just shows their level.

I.P. Kovalenko: He was supposed to get more than he received. But we were very lucky, one might say. I went to get him a lawyer.

V.V. Ovsienko: And who did you find?

I.P. Kovalenko: I found someone... I've forgotten his last name. I only know that he was Jewish. They recommended him to me, said he was very good.

V.V. Ovsienko: Was he from Kyiv?

I.P. Kovalenko: From Kyiv, yes. An acquaintance recommended him. She had used him in some case already. She said he was a very good lawyer. He took on the case.

V.V. Ovsienko: But still, only lawyers who had clearance were allowed to take these cases. So they were KGB lawyers.

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. That lawyer went to see Ivan Yukhymovych for the first conversation. And he said: “Are you a Party member?” “A Party member.” “Then how can you judge me objectively if you're a Party member? Are you not Ukrainian?” “Not Ukrainian.” “Then what can you say about me, a Ukrainian?” The lawyer spat and said he didn't want to take the case. I felt helpless because one lawyer had refused, and there were no others. I was sitting in that law office near the Golden Gate in Kyiv, very sad. And the head of the office called me in and said: “I'd like to offer you the lawyer Yezhov.” I thought: who is this Yezhov? This Yezhov came out to me and said: “I've looked through it—there's no case there. It can be dismantled in half an hour. There's nothing there. I'll take the case.” So, Yezhov went. He had previously worked in a tribunal somewhere in the Baltics. He was completely removed from Ukrainian affairs. He knew absolutely nothing about Ukrainian national events—a complete outsider. But, apparently, a good professional. He said: “I'm currently defending war criminals, and I've already saved several of them. They were falsely accused. I came here, I don't know anything about what's going on here in Kyiv. Well, I'll figure it out.” He came to Ivan Yukhymovych, and Ivan said: “What is this, that there are no good lawyers anymore? There used to be the likes of Koni and Plevako—but now there are none?” “I will prove to you that there are!” And during the trial, he spoke very well. But they didn't let anyone into the courtroom.

I.Y. Kovalenko: It was a closed trial.

I.P. Kovalenko: He shouted so loudly that they could hear him in the corridor. And the secretary ran out and closed the windows... He said: “What, you summoned his colleagues and forced them to write these few denunciations—and you're trying a man on that basis?”

I.Y. Kovalenko: “...What has the KGB come to! If in 1937 one denunciation was enough for a man to disappear, now you summon four colleagues and force them to write denunciations against their own colleague?”

I.P. Kovalenko: In short, he would have gotten more. But Yezhov made a very strong impression, even on the judges. The prosecutor demanded six years and three years of exile. But in the end, it was five years.

V.V. Ovsienko: And who was the judge? The prosecutor?

I.P. Kovalenko: The judge was Matsko. And the prosecutor... I only know he was missing a hand.

V.V. Ovsienko: Ah, missing a hand? Many people know about him.* *(Probably V.P. Pohorilyi. – V.O.)*

I.P. Kovalenko: He was a terrible brute... After Ivan Yukhymovych's trial, Yezhov became so fashionable that everyone started hiring him. He handled several trials. One girl was even acquitted based on his arguments.

V.V. Ovsienko: A political case?

I.P. Kovalenko: A political case, yes. A girl was imprisoned somewhere in Odesa or...

I.Y. Kovalenko: In Odesa.

I.P. Kovalenko: In Odesa. She was completely acquitted. And then they blocked his clearance.

V.V. Ovsienko: Of course.

I.P. Kovalenko: I met with him here. He was so frightened. He said: “No. I can't.” He had a heart attack then, he was expelled from the Party. He was in a terrible state.

[End of track]

I.Y. Kovalenko: ...But who is going to listen to all of this?

I.P. Kovalenko: It's your job to tell it—maybe something will remain for history.

V.V. Ovsienko: We will definitely transcribe these texts onto paper, and I will bring them to you to read and correct any mistakes.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Write whatever you want.

I.P. Kovalenko: And so Mykhailo Kutynsky gave Ivan Yukhymovych such a push that he started to write. Throughout his life, he had written like this: every now and then, from time to time, maybe two poems a year—and then he would lose them. But here he felt that he could do something, that someone was interested. He wrote quite a few poems then.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I bought a typewriter and typed and compiled two collections myself. One collection was called *Perlyny* (Pearls)—138 poems, and the second was “Nedokoshenyi luh” (The Unmown Meadow)—60 poems. Two collections. These collections circulated among people. They were found as far away as Moscow. I typed these collections myself... But they found everything anyway.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, they were just sitting there, next to the samvydav, neatly bound, signed.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, I didn't have them here.

I.P. Kovalenko: What do you mean you didn't have them?

I.Y. Kovalenko: The collections weren't here.

I.B. Kotlyarevska: Were they all gone, had people already taken them all?

I.Y. Kovalenko: They weren't here. They showed me the ones they took from Kutynsky.

I.P. Kovalenko: The investigator went to Kutynsky, interrogated him in Moscow. They went to Chernihiv, questioned the entire street there: whether he had compromised himself in any way during the occupation. They found nothing, no harvest there.

V.V. Ovsienko: How did you endure the investigation? What were the living conditions like? How did you experience it psychologically?

I.Y. Kovalenko: It was hard, of course. Extremely hard.

V.V. Ovsienko: Were you psychologically prepared for the arrest?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. He was psychologically prepared, but...

V.V. Ovsienko: But legally, you probably weren't prepared?

I.P. Kovalenko: He didn't know how he was supposed to behave.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I wasn't physiologically prepared, physically unprepared. Because no one had distributed any kind of memo on how to behave.

I.P. Kovalenko: Later, Hluzman wrote one with Bukovsky...

V.V. Ovsienko: That was later, in prison. But before that... I also didn't know how to behave.

I.Y. Kovalenko: I didn't know how to behave. That's why I was a bit scared there. But I didn't say anything about anyone to anyone—I denied everything. The only thing I couldn't deny was Kutynsky.

I.P. Kovalenko: The correspondence, it was Kutynsky's correspondence...

I.Y. Kovalenko: They took all my correspondence, they took all the correspondence from my friends, everything. And most importantly, the letters that hadn't arrived—they opened them and showed them to me: “Here you write: ‘...and life is hard enough as it is, and now this centenary is a pain in the neck...’”

I.P. Kovalenko: Lenin's... Or another one: “I read Shtemenko—it was like being smeared with shit.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Is that about the book by that Chief of the General Staff?

I.Y. Kovalenko: That was in one letter. The prosecutor even mentioned it in his speech: “How can he say such a thing about our distinguished general?!”

N.B. Kotlyarevska: The letters didn't reach their addressees. They intercepted them along the way.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, how did you feel at first? Koval told me: “And your husband says: ‘I'm resting here with you, because I was so tired: taking care of my mother, giving lessons, supporting the family...’”

V.V. Ovsienko: And distributing samvydav on top of that.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. And typing everything, staying up at night. Staying up at night.

I.P. Kovalenko: “...At least I'll get some rest with you,”—well, that was just said for effect. What kind of rest is it when your heart aches for your family?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Well, you know yourself how it is to sleep there. The lamp is on all night, and you can't turn on your side, only lie straight.

V.V. Ovsienko: They only allowed you to cover your eyes with a handkerchief.

I.Y. Kovalenko: That's all, they only allowed you to cover your eyes with a handkerchief. And your hands had to be on top of the blanket...

I.P. Kovalenko: So you wouldn't suffocate...

V.V. Ovsienko: Some people don't talk about these everyday things... And you can't go out, there's no toilet. There's that bucket standing there... And they're constantly looking in, constantly. There's a peephole in the door, and someone is always walking by, always looking in. Sometimes women were on duty there too. And if you needed to use that bucket, you had to hide somehow in a corner. And you couldn't ask to be taken out.

I.P. Kovalenko: It's horrible!

I.Y. Kovalenko: The hardest part wasn't during the investigation, but during the *etap* [prisoner transit].

V.V. Ovsienko: And who were you in a cell with during the investigation? Not alone, were you? Was there a suspicious person?

I.Y. Kovalenko: A suspicious person—a stool pigeon.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, of course.

I.Y. Kovalenko: We were two to a cell.

I.P. Kovalenko: But you were alone most of the time.

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, after I found out that my cellmate was trying to pump me for information, I demanded to be left alone. “But that's not allowed.” I said: “Let it not be allowed. Or I'll kill him.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Was Sapozhnikov the head of the pre-trial detention center there?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Sapozhnikov.

V.V. Ovsienko: Yanovsky was Sapozhnikov's deputy.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They left me alone. I was alone for the last two months.

V.V. Ovsienko: During the investigation or after?

I.Y. Kovalenko: After the investigation.

V.V. Ovsienko: And when was your trial? How long did it last, how did the process go? And you, Iryna Pavlivna, were you at the trial?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. Well, they only...

I.Y. Kovalenko: First of all, for some reason, they gave me a closed trial. Why?

V.V. Ovsienko: And is it written in the verdict that it was closed?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Closed.

V.V. Ovsienko: Mine at least says “open.”

I.Y. Kovalenko: It didn't matter, only KGB agents were sitting there anyway.

I.P. Kovalenko: Closed, because many students could have come to the trial. And the students... by the way, they fired me from my job too. They did fire me. Well, they were counting on the students turning away from me. But the opposite happened. I was surrounded by such attention from the students... They fired me, but allowed me to finish the school year. This was 1973. I had a graduating tenth-grade class. They let me finish. They fired me sometime in the spring, before the exams. So they let me administer the exams for another month. And that was it.

And one day I was late for work, because it's quite a walk to that first school. And the students... It was my class. The head teacher had already come and hinted that Iryna Pavlivna was probably detained, that she hadn't shown up for work. And I, all out of breath, burst into the classroom. The students stood up and gave me such an ovation. I felt so...

I.Y. Kovalenko: That you weren't arrested.

I.P. Kovalenko: And there was a lot of everything: they sent people to check on the political education of my children, they arranged exams. They were all so united, so concerned, so eager to support me. And then, at the graduation party, on the last night, as the three classes were sitting there (I happened to be teaching in three classes)... I stood up to say a few farewell words, not hinting at anything. Nothing, just, go into life... And as soon as I stood up—all three classes stood up, you understand? I told Kutynsky about it, and he said it was a very good sign. Our society was no longer what it used to be, when the slightest suspicion was enough for everyone to turn away from you and believe it, and be afraid. But all three classes stood up—and the parents, and everyone. And they gave such an ovation!

So I want to say that the persecution was on two fronts—not just you, but me as well. And later they said: “We would have imprisoned her, but we felt sorry for the children and the mothers.” And his mother died right away.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: Yukhymovych's mother.

V.V. Ovsienko: And how long did the trial last?

I.P. Kovalenko: It was... it began on July 6, 1972, and ended on the 11th.

V.V. Ovsienko: So you were one of the first to be convicted?

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, I was the second.

I.P. Kovalenko: After Stus. I was standing outside the building when Stus's wife came out crying that he had received such a long sentence. But among the first. Serhiyenko had already been convicted, because I was there with Oksana Yakivna. And in the Supreme Court, when the appeal was filed, Serhiyenko and Kovalenko were considered together.

V.V. Ovsienko: Did you write a cassation appeal?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes, the lawyer wrote it. Well, we understood that it wouldn't change anything.

V.V. Ovsienko: The sentence remained as it was?

I.P. Kovalenko: It remained as it was. They said: “We would have, so to speak, acquitted him. But he read it to his wife and to his son.”

I.Y. Kovalenko: That's not the point. I wouldn't have been imprisoned. When the trial began, they brought me to the court early, the prosecutor came and brought a newspaper with Mykola Kholodny's repentance, “Na terezy sovisti” (On the Scales of Conscience): “Read this, write it just as it is, and the trial won't happen. We'll let you go.” I read it and returned the newspaper to him. And I said: “If he were repenting for what he himself did, this or that, I might have forgiven him. But he poured so much dirt on good people: on Ivan Honchar, on Hontovy...”

V.V. Ovsienko: On Oksana Meshko...

I.Y. Kovalenko: “...on Oksana Meshko, that you won't get anything like that from me. Go on and try me.” And so it went. But if I had written...

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, of course...

I.P. Kovalenko: They really valued those people who...

V.V. Ovsienko: Zinovia Franko came out with a repentance then, Mykola Kholodny, Seleznenko...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Well, I said I wouldn't be a hypocrite: “I can only write three words: I promise to have nothing to do with samvydav. That's all. If that suits you, take my repentance.”

N.B. Kotlyarevska: That wasn't enough for them?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Not enough.

V.V. Ovsienko: That wouldn't have worked in the press.

I.Y. Kovalenko: And they, such scoundrels...

I.P. Kovalenko: Honchar also played a big role in your life.

V.V. Ovsienko: Ivan Makarovych Honchar.

I.P. Kovalenko: He visited Honchar several times, wrote him letters.

I.Y. Kovalenko: He wrote poems to him, reviews, wrote about his museum...

I.P. Kovalenko: And he encouraged young people to visit there. And then several of those young people had big problems. Why did they visit Honchar's museum, you see? (((One of our students even... Her father went to great lengths to prevent her from being expelled from the institute.)))

V.V. Ovsienko: You said the *etap* was very difficult. When did you go on the *etap*?

I.Y. Kovalenko: It was at the beginning of September. You've been through these *etaps*—they don't take you directly, but through four or five prisons.

V.V. Ovsienko: Kharkiv first, probably?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Kharkiv. There I was lucky enough to meet Vasyl Romanyuk, the future Patriarch Volodymyr. They put me in the basement. The windows were broken, it was cold, so terrible.

V.V. Ovsienko: And probably those iron bunks?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes, made of sheet iron.

V.V. Ovsienko: Those are the death row cells.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Death row cells. I thought I was going to die right there.

I.P. Kovalenko: He was the oldest of the dissidents...

I.Y. Kovalenko: And then the door opens and the prison warden himself comes in: “So you're a political?” “Political.” “And why did you get in?” “I wrote poems.” “And they imprison people for that?” And I said: “They do.” “Well, I'll help you.” “What can you do to help?” “I have one free cell for pregnant women. I'll put you there.” So, he moved me to this cell for pregnant women. I lived there for two days. It was a completely different matter there: a soft bed. I asked: “Are there any other Ukrainians here?” He said: “They brought another Ukrainian here, he's sitting alone.” I said: “Transfer me to him.” And he said: “But it'll be such that you...” And I said: “Transfer me.” He transferred me there—and I ended up with Romanyuk. And we lived there together for about a week. I got so much talking done! I had been in solitary for two months, so we talked and talked as much as we wanted. And then we traveled together, on the road, where they turn off for Mordovia...

V.V. Ovsienko: Ruzayevka.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. They took him off there, and they took me to Perm. They took me to Sverdlovsk, and then to Perm.

V.V. Ovsienko: And Romanyuk to Mordovia, to Sosnovka, to the special regime.

I.Y. Kovalenko: It's horrible in those transit prisons. In a cell that's supposed to hold twenty or thirty, they cram in sixty. Everyone smokes. Until I started smoking, because one person advised me: “If you want to survive, learn to smoke.” Because the heart can't take it if it's not prepared. So I hadn't smoked for fifty-five years, but then I bought cigarettes and started to get used to it. And that saved my life. They don't take you for walks, there's no ventilation, everyone smokes, and they even boil tea with newspapers. But you've been through all this yourself.

V.V. Ovsienko: So they transported you with criminals like that?

I.Y. Kovalenko: With criminals.

V.V. Ovsienko: For some reason, they almost always separated me from them.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They transported me with criminals.

I.P. Kovalenko: Maybe you're more dangerous? And they stole his hat on the way. So he arrived bareheaded like that.

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, it was already autumn. How many days were you on the *etap*?

I.P. Kovalenko: You were already there in October.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes, in October. About twenty or thirty days.

V.V. Ovsienko: In 1981, they transported me from Zhytomyr to the Urals, to Kuchino, for thirty-six days.

I.Y. Kovalenko: You see, you've been through the same *etaps*.

V.V. Ovsienko: And then, in 1974, they brought me to Mordovia.

I.Y. Kovalenko: How old were you then?

V.V. Ovsienko: I was 24-25 then. And which zone did you end up in?

I.Y. Kovalenko: In VS-389/35. That was also a bit of luck for me.

V.V. Ovsienko: Is that Vsekhsvyatskaya station?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes. The settlement of Tsentralny. I ended up there. That was also a bit of luck for me, because there...

I.P. Kovalenko: And for the first time, he found himself among literary people.

I.Y. Kovalenko: The conversations about everything began there. At first, there were two hundred prisoners in the camp. 75 percent of them were Ukrainians. The rest were Lithuanians, Armenians, others...

I.P. Kovalenko: And there were Russians, Jews...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Russians—only a few. There were Jews, the hijackers.

V.V. Ovsienko: If they were Russian democrats, they were Jews, but if they were real Russians—they were great-power chauvinists. By then, there were probably almost none of them left. The Leningrad group of monarchists was imprisoned then.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Ogurtsov was imprisoned there with us. I was even very friendly with him.

I.P. Kovalenko: But you didn't agree on your views?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Not at all. But he was a cultured person, had two degrees, you could talk to him about anything, he knew foreign languages. Our Ukrainians hated him fiercely. Once they were beating him, and he said: “Ivan Yefimovich, don't lose heart. We will yet sit with you in the Duma.” I said: “We will sit, but only on different...”

V.V. Ovsienko: In different Dumas?

I.Y. Kovalenko: No, in different corners. But we were just joking.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: And were the Ukrainians from the east and the west?

I.Y. Kovalenko: Mostly from the UPA.

I.P. Kovalenko: Tell them about your relationship with the UPA.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They accepted me as one of their own, surrounded me with attention, care, helped in any way they could. How was I different from the other dissidents? The other dissidents were the high intelligentsia. They looked down on them. They would get books from the library and go to work. They would gather by themselves, talk about high-minded matters, about everything else. But I immediately got along with the common folk. I knew almost all of my poems by heart. So they asked me several times to read my poems, which they had heard. They said: “We've been finishing our sentences for twenty years and hoping that a new generation will come, that they'll tell us something, help us with something, enlighten us in some way. But they pay no attention to us.” But I read to them almost every evening—they would make tea, sit around, I would read my poems, and they would sit and cry.

V.V. Ovsienko: And who was there from the insurgents? Can you recall any names?

I.Y. Kovalenko: I'm telling you, there were two hundred insurgents there. If not more. Myroslav Symchych, who served 32 years...

I.P. Kovalenko: Pidhorodetsky...

I.Y. Kovalenko: Yes, Vasyl Pidhorodetsky—a man of a noble soul. He served 33 years.

V.V. Ovsienko: He's disabled. Is he still alive?

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes. He's still alive, thank God.

V.V. Ovsienko: I should go visit him sometime.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Verkholyak...

V.V. Ovsienko: There was one Verkholyak named Yevhen, and the other...

I.Y. Kovalenko: I don't know, I don't remember. But they were very attentive, friendly people. And what always distinguished the Ukrainians? Their clothes were always tailored, their boots always polished, they were trim, neat. And our intelligentsia immediately let themselves go, walked around all greasy.

I.P. Kovalenko: Including you.

I.Y. Kovalenko: Including me.

I.P. Kovalenko: Pidhorodetsky took him in hand right away: he cut his hair, tailored his uniform, did everything properly, and ordered him to always walk like that.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: To hold himself together, not to let himself go, not to lose heart.

I.P. Kovalenko: It's a certain challenge. For example, his good friend there, Mykola Kots. We correspond with him, we are friends. He's always so untidy. And no matter how they approached him, telling him he should be different, he would say: “I don't recognize this.”

I.Y. Kovalenko: “They threw me in here, and I'm supposed to walk around properly?” We had an “inspection of external appearance.” Did you have that?

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, yes.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They would line you up and walk around, looking.

I.P. Kovalenko: Some didn't give in. Well, they worked on Ivan Yukhymovych, who is generally a very neat person. That was the mood there.

I.Y. Kovalenko: They sent me to Kots to tell him that a Ukrainian must always be a Ukrainian, wherever he is. He must be clean, neat, and trim.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, look at our western Ukrainians. They always wear hats. Even the village old men or men—in hats, they don't wear caps or flat caps, because they respect themselves.

V.V. Ovsienko: And who was there from the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the 35th zone?

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, it must be said that at first there was this impression that they had sort of distanced themselves from those who had fought, and whose hands were covered in blood up to their elbows. But then they grew closer to the intelligentsia, they became friends.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: I was the liaison between the two groups.

V.V. Ovsienko: And you were closer to them in age.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, that was a different generation. Young, educated people. The information at the time was such that they didn't immediately understand the role of these UPA members. Not all of them did. They were strangers to them. But there, they all became equals.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Became equals.

V.V. Ovsienko: That's right. I know from my own experience that we grew very close and became like family. I knew several insurgents—they were the most radiant personalities I've ever known.

I.P. Kovalenko: Wonderful people. Later, they visited us here in Boyarka several times in large groups.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Vasyl Pidhorodetskyi was here, and Myroslav Symchych was here, but he missed us.

I.P. Kovalenko: Yes, and Ivan Kandyba, but he wasn't an insurgent. He was also imprisoned there.

V.V. Ovsienko: Who else from the group arrested in 1972 was with you in zone 35?

I.P. Kovalenko: Svitlychnyi from that same group, Valeriy Marchenko. Marchenko arrived a little later. Semen Gluzman, Ihor Kalynets, Vasyl Zakharchenko, Yevhen Proniuk, and later Zinoviy Antoniuk, Mykola Horbal. Horbal also visited us here.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: At first, they put me on snow removal because it started snowing right away. But then the doctors examined me and said I couldn't do that kind of work. So they sent me to sew bags.

V.V. Ovsienko: Did you meet the quota?

I.P. Kovalenko: No.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: I didn't meet it. When I couldn't, everyone helped me. Everyone helped.

I.P. Kovalenko: Comrades.

V.V. Ovsienko: Is your profession “sewing machine operator”?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Yes.

V.V. Ovsienko: I have that profession too.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: Did you stay in the same camp the whole time?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: In one. I was also in the hospital.

V.V. Ovsienko: The hospital there is just across the fence.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Have you been there?

V.V. Ovsienko: I was there too. But at a different time, in 1987 and 1988. They transferred us from Kuchino to zone 35 on December 8, 1987. We were assigned the southern part of the hospital.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, the hospital is a fond memory. He ended up there with Svitlychnyi. Go on, tell them how you spent your time in the hospital, how you relaxed, how you wrote poems about each other.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: We wrote poems about each other. To cheer ourselves up.

I.P. Kovalenko: So there would be some kind of relief.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Yes. Svitlychnyi was the head of everyone. People brought him everything they wrote. For review...

V.V. Ovsienko: You were released on the exact day, January 13, 1977, right? They brought you here to Kyiv, of course?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Of course. Symchych's wife and Iryna wanted to come get me. Because Kandyba was released from the camp and got to Moscow on his own, then lived in Moscow for a week. Then he went to Chernihiv. I was counting on doing the same. But no: a month in advance, they grabbed me in the terrible cold and took me through five prisons again, on many transports, through many transit points... I arrived, there was no medicine; I was a group II invalid due to blood pressure by the time I got there. I was completely overgrown with a beard, down to my waist. They brought me to the KGB in Kyiv.

I.P. Kovalenko: Tell them that at first, they allowed me to go and pick you up.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: But in reality, they carted me around prisons in that terrible cold, especially in the Kharkiv prison, where there was no mattress, nothing at all. I just sat in the clothes I was wearing.

When I got home, I wasn't myself because of the terrible blood pressure, the illness. At the KGB, the head of the Kyiv-Sviatoshynskyi district KGB spoke to me for two days. He gave me a “preventive talk.” I said: “But you won't give me a residence permit in Kyiv or the Kyiv region.” “We will, we will. Just sit quietly and don't do anything, don't have acquaintances visit you, don't prepare anything.”

Getting a pension? I had long since earned it and qualified for it. They wouldn't give it to me. Why? Because I hadn't been fired from my job. They arrested me but didn't fire me. For two years, I fought for them to fire me. So there would be a record that I was fired. And only after two years did I start receiving that measly pension.

I.P. Kovalenko: All of 57 rubles.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: I didn't receive any help from anywhere, I didn't apply for rehabilitation. It was the students, without me...

I.P. Kovalenko: Let's be more precise: a fund was helping—the Solzhenitsyn Fund. Through Yulia Oleksandrivna Pervova, he received 50 rubles from time to time. She was connected with Moscow, with the Solzhenitsyn Fund. We don't know through what channels the money came; it just arrived from time to time through her, 50 rubles.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: We don't know for sure. Not until they granted the pension. Then I refused any help at all. In the camp, when I was teaching English to many Jews, they told me: “We'll send you a package, a money transfer.” I refused. I knew that you have to pay for everything you receive from someone. That's why I refused and left completely clean. While others happily accepted their handouts, I did not. The KGB persecuted me badly there for communicating with Jews, for teaching them English. They were planning to go to Israel.

Gradually, I began to recover. It took me two years to get back on my feet, then I started doing some work around the house. Many of my fellow inmates came to visit me. Vasyl Pidhorodetskyi was here, Mykola Horbal was here, Rudenko's wife, Raisa, was here, and earlier, Proniuk's wife, Halyna Didkivska.

I.P. Kovalenko: Such a lovely woman!

V.V. Ovsienko: And did Vira Lisova visit?

I.P. Kovalenko: No. I used to visit her.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: Was Nina Marchenko here?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: She was. Nina Marchenko was here. Mykola Horbal, Perchyshyn...

I.P. Kovalenko: Wait, those other two were here... Marynovych and Matusevych. We really liked Myroslav Marynovych, but not Mykola Matusevych so much. Oksana Yakivna Meshko was here.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Andriy Koroban was here recently.

I.P. Kovalenko: Well, that one, the forester or whatever he is... The one who told the story about not showing up for work on the feast of the Forty Martyrs. The one who asked you to recite “Hopak”...

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Ah, that's Perchyshyn. My most popular poem in the camp was “Hopak.” And a few others. But those are profane. Although you said somewhere, why waste talent on such things. But Svitlychnyi said: “What do you understand? This is poetry of the highest order!” Maybe I should recite it?

I.P. Kovalenko: Absolutely not!

I.Yu. Kovalenko: But I'll just... mmm.

I.P. Kovalenko: Absolutely not! There's a woman here. If a woman weren't here...

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Whatever, it's in the book.

V.V. Ovsienko: So how did you manage to publish the little book? What is the first one called?

I.P. Kovalenko: “Nedokoshenyi Luh” [The Unmown Meadow], from 1996.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: And the second is “Dzherelo” [The Source], from 1999. Give me “Nedokoshenyi Luh”... One of my students earned 500 dollars for some academic work, got in touch with a company, and they printed this collection for her as a favor.

V.V. Ovsienko: It says here in the foreword that many of your poems were lost.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: Ninety-nine percent were lost. This is the one percent that's left. I'm ashamed of what's left.

V.V. Ovsienko: In many places, it's noted “from memory.” You have a phenomenal memory!

I.Yu. Kovalenko: I studied five foreign languages. And foreign languages develop one's memory. That's why I was very popular in the camp. Because all the others who wrote couldn't remember two lines. And I know dozens, hundreds of poems. I can recite and recite and recite from memory.

I.P. Kovalenko: Tell them that your lyrical poems were also a success there.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: The lyrical poems were also a great success. People wrote me letters later asking me to send them those poems. In recent years, I've been writing so-called “fierce” poems. I saw that what is needed now is not lyrical poetry, not even civic poetry, but satirical poetry. That's why I've accumulated up to a hundred satirical poems. Like the ones I recited for you.

V.V. Ovsienko: Are some of them in here?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: No. There are two about poets.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, and in the collection “Dzherelo,” you say the editors changed and cut a lot. So you're not satisfied with it?

I.Yu. Kovalenko: I'm satisfied, thank God, that it came out as it is.

I.P. Kovalenko: It was only thanks to friends. They contributed their own money to it.

V.V. Ovsienko: Thank God for friends. Who needs money when you have friends?

I.P. Kovalenko: Students. This first collection, our students published it.

V.V. Ovsienko: Who exactly?

I.P. Kovalenko: Olha Mykhailivna Rozhmanova. She herself has a Candidate of Sciences degree.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: When the poems were returned, I found a fragment of a long poem. It's a fragment of a poem about the UPA. There are two fragments here—one I found, and one I remembered. It was a long poem, 60 pages.

  УПА - і серце пломеніє,

  УПА на нашій Україні,

  Не казка й вигадка УПА -

  Нас Божа матір заступа.

  У день святий її Покрови

  З'явилися звитяжці нові.

  Через неволі триста літ

  УПА з'явилася на світ.

  УПА була, живе і буде,

  І не забудуть її люди.

  У кожнім лісі і криївці

  Встають з забою українці.

  Серед руїн, війни, розброду

  Ідуть сини свого народу,

  Хай їх ніхто не зачіпа -

  В серцях і душах йде УПА.

  Чи думав хто з часів Богдана,

  Що цей великий день настане?

  Де чобіт ворога ступа,

  Там наступатиме УПА.

  Цвітуть сади, біліють хати,

  А по селу ідуть солдати.

  Загони, чоти, курені

  І все насправді, не вві сні.

  Полки і чоти, і рої,

  Та все свої, свої, свої.

  Серед полів, лісів, садків

  Йде триста тисяч вояків.

  Усе як треба: і мундири,

  Ладунки, зброя, чином чин

  І, чуєш, друже командире -

  Ми всі готові йти на згин.

  "Героям слава!" - чуєш ти.

  Встигай лише відповісти:

  "Вкраїні слава!" - це одвіт,

  Нехай нас слуха увесь світ!

  Між трьох запеклих ворогів

  Ніхто б піднятись не посмів

  Без визнання і допомоги,

  Коли закриті всі дороги.

  А в них одна єдина путь:

  Вони ідуть, ідуть, ідуть.

  Не на Берлін чи на Варшаву,

  Щоб здобувать химерну славу.

  Вони не йдуть узять Москву,

  Бо правду всі несуть живу.

  Ти краще їх не зачіпай:

  Вони боронять рідний край!

Why did she put 1967 here? Masha put it. Oh, 1967, that's right.

V.V. Ovsienko: 1967, yes. Wow! To write something like that back then, in 1967!?

N.B. Kotlyarevska: Well, it's just a fragment. The whole poem was lost.

I.P. Kovalenko: He has the beginning of it there.

I.Yu. Kovalenko: They took the whole poem and destroyed it. But I wrote it in pencil and in code.

I.P. Kovalenko: They returned the poems that were relevant to the case.

V.V. Ovsienko: And the ones that weren't part of the case, did they destroy them?

I.P. Kovalenko: They destroyed them. When we were out for our walks, bits of burnt paper were always flying around—they were destroying everything, burning everything.

I.P. Kovalenko: Still, he wrote quite a lot after his release. For example, cycles like “Chernihiv Melodies” and “Boyarka Sonnets”—a large cycle. So he preserved his creative potential. But his health is failing him.

V.V. Ovsienko: And I've read your poems. Recently there was a selection in the newspaper “Nasha Vira” [Our Faith]. Very beautiful poems. Yevhen Sverstiuk rated them very highly. He doesn't publish just anything.

I.P. Kovalenko: There was a page for his eightieth birthday, and the poems there are good.

N.B. Kotlyarevska: Sverstiuk says: “I chose them myself. I printed the ones I liked.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Let's record your current address here. So, Iryna Pavlivna and Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko live in the city of Boyarka, Kyiv-Sviatoshynskyi district. The postal code is 255510 (new one 08154), 36 Chubaria Street. The telephone code from Kyiv is 298, number 43-709 (from other regions, the code is 04498).

Ivan Yukhymovych Kovalenko died on July 18, 2001, in Boyarka, where he is buried.

Photo by V. Ovsienko:

Kovalenko September 12, 1999, Boyarka. Ivan Yukhymovych and Iryna Pavlivna KOVALENKO.