Interview with H. L. Hordasevych
V.V. Ovsiyenko: February 3, 2001, in Kyiv at 1A Romen Rollan Street, apartment No. 39, we are speaking with Mrs. Halyna Hordasevych. Vasyl Ovsiyenko is recording.
H.L. Hordasevych: The hardest question for me is when I’m asked where I’m from. Because I’m a collection of little pieces from all over Ukraine. My maternal grandfather, Pavlo Oksentiyovych Khomchuk, was the son of a former serf from the village of Horopayi in the Zhytomyr region. Despite this, and despite the fact that his father had twelve children, he graduated from the Hlukhiv Pedagogical Institute back in the tsarist era and never once said, “I am grateful to the Tsar-Father for giving me a higher education.” My maternal grandmother, Maria Moyseyivna Hryshchenko, was a Cossack woman from the village of Tulyholove near Hlukhiv. She also had some education—I don’t know what kind, because women were not admitted to the Hlukhiv Institute at that time—she probably graduated from a gymnasium or something similar. My mother, Olena Khomchuk, was born in Hlukhiv, and in 1916 they moved to work in Kremenets, in the Ternopil region. My grandmother died in 1918. And when Polish rule began, since my grandfather refused to sign an oath of allegiance to the new government, he was not allowed to work as a teacher, so he moved to the village of Velyki Zahaitsi in the Ternopil region. He was a cantor there and organized the best “Prosvita” choir in Podillia. He was so unlucky with his wives—he was married four times, and they all died—his fourth wife was the sister of the famous composer Vasyl Verkhovynets, who was executed by firing squad in 1937 or 1938.
Next, regarding my parents. On my father’s side, I am from the Rivne region. My grandfather, Oleksandr Hordasevych, was born in Ostroh. He was a participant in the First World War, then worked as a teacher and organized the best “Prosvita” choir in Volyn, and later he was ordained and became a priest. In 1940, he was arrested by the Soviet authorities; he never returned home and died in a camp, but I don’t know where exactly. My grandmother, Iryna Hryhorivna Rybchynska, was from Korets—that’s also in the Rivne region, and I don’t know anything else about her. My father was born in the Rivne region. He studied at the theological seminary in Kremenets. And my mother studied at the teacher’s seminary in Kremenets. They met there, and then, after finishing their studies, they got married. And I was born there, but I was born there by chance, really, because they no longer lived there. It was just that my mother, a young woman, was afraid to have a village midwife deliver the baby, so she went to Kremenets, and I was born in the hospital there. But the first time I saw Kremenets was when I was already 50 years old.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: But still, please state your date of birth.
H.L. Hordasevych: I was born on March 31, 1935. It was a Sunday, at eight o’clock in the morning, as my mother told me.
Then my father entered Warsaw University to study in the theology department, but he had already been ordained. So that we would have a place to live, he was given a parish.
I remember myself from a very early age, from two years old, and the very first thing I remember was the village of Yazvenky near Luninets, now in Belarus. My father was constantly in opposition to the authorities. Although I wouldn’t say he was particularly interested in politics, he was sincerely devoted to his cause; he was a deeply religious priest, and it was for this, ultimately, that he ended up in prison. The Poles persecuted him, saying, “The priest is engaging in Ukrainization” (“Ksyondz zaymuyetsya ukrayinizatsiyev”). And my father would say, “What language am I supposed to speak with my parishioners, who speak neither Ukrainian nor Belarusian?” This area now belongs to Belarus. “The priest must speak Polish in his family and with his parishioners.” My father did not agree with this, so they transferred him from there to a worse parish, in the village of Parokhonsk near Pinsk. And they transferred him somewhere else, but we didn’t even have time to move there before he was transferred to the town of Dubrovytsia in the Rivne region. My father told me he was already expecting to be sent to Bereza Kartuzka—he had been given an assignment to write a report on how he assessed Polish national policy, so he was already expecting that once he wrote it, he would be sent to Bereza Kartuzka. But then the war began, the first Soviets arrived, and so my father was spared Bereza Kartuzka.
When the first Soviets came, they really wanted some priest to renounce his holy orders, say that “God does not exist” (“Boga nyet”), and call on all his parishioners to do the same. But not just any priest; they needed someone who commanded respect. My father was young, but he didn’t drink or smoke, he was a good family man, he delivered very beautiful sermons, and he never haggled over fees for rites—he took whatever people gave him. He never refused to go somewhere to hear a confession or to baptize someone.
They started summoning him. I don’t know the correct name of the institution where he was summoned. I was four years old, and my mother sometimes made my father take me with him. For some reason, she hoped that if he came with a child, he wouldn’t be arrested. For some reason, I remember it being called the “samodel,” but I don’t know what its real name was.
And then, in 1940, my grandfather was arrested, so my father was already expecting that he would probably be arrested too. But the war began, and the Soviet authorities fled Dubrovytsia so quickly that the Germans only arrived on the third day, and for three days there was no government at all.
Then a “Prosvita” society was organized in our town of Dubrovytsia. My mother played Halya in “Nazar Stodolia” and was preparing for the role in “The Hapless One.” My father was elected deputy mayor for financial affairs. They needed someone who was respected, and besides, the Germans were not interested in the life of the population; the population had to organize some kind of order, some kind of life for themselves. They had to live somehow. Of course, the mayor’s office was organized under German supervision, but it was self-organized. It was a local initiative, it was self-government. For some time, my father was this deputy mayor for financial affairs, which doesn’t mean he wasn’t a priest—he continued to perform his duties.
And then the Germans started arresting such respected people as hostages. As soon as the famous Kuznetsov killed someone, they would shoot hundreds of people. And when they came to arrest my father, he happened not to be at home, and as he was returning, girls from the church choir intercepted him and said, “Batiushka, don’t go home, the Germans are waiting there and want to arrest you.” My father went to the village of Horodets, and then he took us out as well. I had a younger sister, and people led my mother and me out of the town, and we went to the village of Horodets—that’s also in the Rivne region, Volodymyrets district. We lived there, and then we had to flee that village too, and we lived in the village of Krychylisk. I just recently had “Noah’s Ark” published in “Berezil” (“Berezil,” a journal published in Kharkiv. – Ed.)—it’s roughly about that winter of 1944, how we lived in Krychylisk and how we hid from the Germans.
Finally, when the second Soviets, as they say in Western Ukraine, arrived, my father was simply given this task: “Batiushka, people are supposed to tell you the truth, and you must tell us what interests us.” My father valued his holy orders very highly and said, “No, I will not do that. When I took my priestly vows, I swore an oath that I could reveal the secret of confession only to God, and only on Judgment Day.” They told him, “Well, then we’ll imprison you—think about your children.” “It is your will—imprison me, and God will take care of my children.” He was arrested just a few days before the feast of Ivan Kupala in 1946; I don’t remember the exact date. He was tried under Article 54-1(a) and given 10 years. They sent him to Tayshet, then he was in Bratsk, in AncharLag. He got such severe frostbite on his hands there that they were going to amputate both of them, but one doctor told him not to agree because he could be cured. He didn’t agree, and indeed his hands were healed, and then they sent him to the gold mines of Kolyma, in Susuman. But there he organized the best choir of political prisoners in the Primorye region—it ran in our family. And that, I think, is what saved him. Because the authorities also needed to show cultural work. They took him out of the mine. Because he was a priest, and priests were to be kept only on the hardest labor. For example, there was an incident where he was working as an orderly in the hospital after being a patient there. He was there for a while, and then they looked into it: “What’s this—a priest? Send him to the logging site!” (“Akh, kak – eto pop? Otpravit yego na lesopoval!”)
He told me about an incident when the *bytoviki* (common criminals) were working in the kitchen and cooked something that poisoned the entire camp. So they dispersed them and started looking for a replacement—it turned out that our intelligentsia didn't know how to cook, but my father had learned to cook from his mother. Besides, he was good at mathematics, so he sat down and calculated how much of each ingredient was needed, how much water, everything. And for a while, he worked as a cook, but then they caught on again: “How can this be—a priest in the kitchen?” He finished his term as the choir director and then remained there in Susuman. He was released at the beginning of 1954, I think, yes, because I was released at the end of 1954. He stayed there and worked until 1969, earning money. In fact, my mother and sister went to join him in 1955 and lived there, and my sister stayed there permanently. They saved up money, my father earned his pension, and in 1969 they came to Ukraine, bought a house in Cherkasy, and my father lived there. In Cherkasy, there was only one church left, and it had three priests, but he still went to that church, substituting for someone, and again, leading the choir. And when new churches began to open during perestroika, Metropolitan Filaret asked him to serve in a village, in Mykhailivka. There was no point in moving there—they had their own house in Cherkasy—so my father would travel there. He died on a bus from a heart attack, on his way to conduct a service. I know exactly when it was—it was September 15, 1990. I wasn’t at his funeral because the First International Ukrainian Poetry Festival was happening right here in Kyiv, and I was here with my son. When we returned home, I found a telegram saying my father had died, the funeral was on the seventeenth, and it was already the eighteenth when we got back. He is buried there by the church—priests are always buried by the church where they serve. He is buried in that village of Mykhailivka.
In addition, I must say this. There is a village called Zolotolyn—I don’t know which district it’s in, it’s also in the Rivne region—where Anton Oliynyk, a relative of ours, was the school principal back in the Polish era. His wife and my paternal grandmother were first cousins. They had five children, two sons and three daughters, and the sons and one daughter joined the UPA. Leonid and Vasyl died in the same battle. A few years ago, I was in Rivne, speaking to some audience, and I told them our family legend says that when Leonid saw that Vasyl was killed and that he himself couldn't escape, he shot himself. And someone from the audience shouted at me, “That’s no legend—that’s how it was!” And Aunt Valya was captured sometime in 1946 and sentenced to 25 years. And then the rest of them were deported to Siberia—Uncle Anton, his wife, and their two youngest daughters. They later returned, and now, I think, those who survived live in Khmilnyk.
So that is my family. Oh, one more thing I should mention—about my grandfather, Pavlo Khomchuk. First, the Poles wouldn’t let him work as a teacher. Second, they later deported him. He worked in Velyki Zahaitsi, which is not far from the Soviet border. They deported him because he was an *osoba niepożądana na Wschodnich Kresach* (an undesirable person in the Eastern Borderlands). And when the Germans came, they sent him to Buchenwald, but he came out of there alive. He was very thin, he had asthma, but he lived for another 50 years after that and died when he was 96. So, my relatives were persecuted by all the regimes that existed in Ukraine in this century.
And now, may I begin to talk about myself?
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, yes, please do.
H.L. Hordasevych: What happened to me. I finished the seventh grade in 1950—and where was I to go, what was I to do?
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And where did you finish it?
H.L. Hordasevych: We were living in the village of Horodets—my father was arrested from there, and my mother and I stayed on. They gave my mother one small room in the church house. True, I wasn’t living with them by then, because Horodets only had four grades. I finished the fourth grade and had to go to the fifth, so my mother sent me to the neighboring village of Krychylsk—the same one where we had once hidden from the Germans. I lived there with strangers in a rented room and finished seven grades. That was in 1950.
And what was I to do next? I graduated with honors, so I didn’t have to take entrance exams. My mother said, “Let’s try the pedagogical school in Ostroh.” I went to Ostroh, submitted my documents, and they told me, “That’s it, you’re enrolled.” I even went to visit my grandfather Pavlo—he was living in his village of Horopayi at the time. I stayed with them for about two months and then came back to start my studies.
But in Ostroh that summer, some students had been arrested—whether there was some student organization or not, I don’t know. I had never laid eyes on those boys, as I had just enrolled. But they started monitoring and checking documents there. I wrote my autobiography and, of course, didn’t write that my father was a priest and was currently in prison. I just wrote that I, Halyna Leonidivna Hordasevych, was born on such-and-such a date, in such-and-such a place, my father’s name is this, my mother’s name is that, I finished the seventh grade, and that was all. They contacted Volodymyrets and found out that my father was a priest and had been convicted.
After I had been studying for two or three weeks and had already managed to prove myself—because I always earned top marks—the school director summoned me and asked me who my father was. Well, what could I do? I told him then that my father was a convicted prisoner. “And why didn’t you write about this in your autobiography?” “I was afraid you wouldn’t accept me.” “Well, you see, if you had written it, we might have accepted you, but now you’ll have to take your documents back.” I sat there, so scared, thinking, “My God, what am I going to do now? Well, I’ll go back, and there’s Mom with my younger sister, just scraping by—they gave her a small plot of land, she plants potatoes and lives on that.” And he looked at me and said, “Well, I asked the teachers—you’re such a good student. Alright then, go on and study, just be careful.” And that was the end of that conversation, and so I studied.
So I studied, but I was constantly being watched. For example, a girl, Nila Nikolayevich—she was in the same year as me and even in the same group, because we had five groups in the first year—approaches me. And suddenly, out of the blue, she comes up to me: “Halya, maybe you don’t have any money? Let me lend you some.” Then another time she comes up again: “Halya, are you hungry by any chance? Here, have some bread.” And I really was hungry. She lived in a rented room and one day she says, “Listen, move in with me, we’ll live together—it’s better than the dormitory.” I move in with her. And then, after I was imprisoned, it turned out that she had been taking all my papers, and they were making copies of them.
Then I had this incident. Nila and I lived in that apartment for two or three months, and then it turned out that it wasn’t practical for us, that the dormitory was better after all, and we both moved back. Everyone was going home for the winter holidays, but I didn’t want to go home—I had a very difficult relationship with my mother... My mother was a very talented person. I think if her fate had been different, she would have been like Olena Teliha—she wrote poetry, was published, but life turned out so that she married my father, lived in villages, weeded the garden, milked the cow, and probably because of that she had a bad, difficult temper, and for some reason, she didn't treat me very well. So I didn't want to go home. I thought I would stay here alone. But when everyone was packing up and leaving, at the last minute I thought: what—the dormitory will be empty and I’ll be here all alone? And right at that moment, I pack my things and go with everyone else. And the KGB immediately decides: aha, so she must have received some assignment and is going to carry it out. They were convinced I was connected to the Banderites.
We arrive at the Ostroh station and then wait a very, very long time for the train. I didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket to Antonivka, where I needed to go, so I bought a ticket to Rivne, thinking I would somehow ride the rest of the way “as a hare” (without a ticket).
So there we were, sitting on the floor, because there weren’t even any benches. A girl comes up to me, one I didn’t really even know, I just knew she was in the first year—everyone knew her because she was missing her right hand. When a girl is missing her right hand, of course, everyone knows her. She comes up and suddenly asks me for some reason, “Halya, where are you going?” I look at her and think to myself: if I tell her I’m going to Antonivka, and what if there’s some girl sitting next to me who saw me buy a ticket to Rivne, she might ask why I bought a ticket to Rivne. So I tell her I’m going to Rivne. And that was it, she walked away.
We arrive in Rivne, it was late afternoon. I’m thinking, what should I do now—because some of the girls saw me buy a ticket to Rivne, so they’ll ask why I’m not getting off. I think: I’ll get off now, and when the train starts moving, I’ll get into another car. Back then, there were no passages between the cars. And if there’s a ticket check, I’ll say my ticket is with my friend in the other car, and I’ll manage to get there somehow. It was already getting dark—it was around the end of January. I’ve just stepped off the train when a policeman comes up to me and says, “What are you doing here?” I say, “I’m from Ostroh, from the pedagogical school, going home for the holidays.” “And where do you live?” I immediately start thinking about what to say. If I tell him I live in Horodets, he’ll say, “Let’s see your ticket.” And I don’t have a ticket. What if they report it to the school—they’ll expel me from school for riding without a ticket. I tell him, “I live in Rivne.” We had an acquaintance in Rivne where we used to stay when my father was in prison and my mother was bringing him parcels. And I give him her exact Rivne address, not a made-up one. And he says, “Come with me—maybe you’re carrying Banderite leaflets?” And he takes me to the police room at the station. Well, I go—what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to run. The train left, of course, but what could I do?
I arrived at the police station. I had a small wooden suitcase. There was basically nothing in it but a change of underwear. He looked inside—and they let me go. I walked out and thought, what do I do now—the next train isn’t for another 24 hours. I go to our acquaintance’s house. I’m surprised at myself, because we had traveled there back in 1946, and this was already 1951. And in the middle of the night, I still found this address, found this woman, knocked on her door—I don’t remember her name now, but I did then—and I say to her, “Do you remember me? I’m Halyna Hordasevych, we used to stay with you. I’m on my way home for the holidays and I missed my train.” I wasn’t going to tell her the whole story.
I spent the night at her place, and she gave me money for a ticket. I went and bought a ticket, but I felt uncomfortable staying at her place all day—what would I do, just sit there all day? I was very shy back then, almost feral. In any case, I bought the ticket and still had a little money left over. And for the first time in my life, I bought myself a packet of wafers, walked around the city, ate those wafers, and was very happy. And I just wandered around the city. I can imagine now how they were tailing me—you remember, like in “Seventeen Moments of Spring”: “There is nothing worse than dealing with amateurs—you never know what they’ll do.” They were 100% convinced that I was supposed to meet someone in Rivne, or pass something on, or pick something up—but I was just walking around, because it was winter and you couldn’t just sit somewhere.
Finally, that evening I got on the train—and that’s not the end of it. They were definitely watching me. I had forgotten about it, but a friend of mine reminded me a few years ago. I boarded the train in Rivne. The train goes through Kostopil. And there’s a pedagogical school in Kostopil too. And into my car, where I’m sitting, board some girls from that school. Among them is one I used to study with in the seventh grade. And we’re just sitting there, talking. I even remember clearly what book I was reading: I was reading a book of poems by Nikitin, a Russian poet. A young man sits down next to me. Nina reminded me of this, I had completely forgotten about it. She said, “Do you remember how some young man sat down next to you, he spoke very good Ukrainian, even with a Lviv accent. He started looking at the book you were reading and said, ‘Why are you reading a Russian book? We Ukrainians should read Ukrainian books.’ And you told him, ‘Well, why not, one should read Russian books too.’ And then he disappeared somewhere. He got up and was gone.” A year and a half later, when I was arrested, they summoned these girls to the KGB and reminded them of this incident. So that was also a plant. Maybe they thought I would take him for the person who was supposed to meet me, maybe I would pass something to him, or say something, or ask something. Especially since he spoke with a Lviv accent, he was obviously that kind of provocateur. That’s why I say that now I can recognize them immediately.
Well, that was that. I spent my holidays, returned to my studies. I finished the first year there, but for the second year, I transferred to that school in Kostopil. There were several reasons. First, I was terribly in love with a fourth-year student. He graduated from the school, and I thought, now I’ll have to live my life and never see him again, I’ll walk the same streets he walked, but he won’t be there—and I won’t be able to bear it. Second, I was truly starving. I lived exclusively on my stipend, which was 107 rubles. If you bought a ruble’s worth of bread a day—especially since there was no bread in the stores, you had to stand in line and maybe you’d get some, and at the market a quarter of a loaf of homemade bread cost five rubles. I couldn't even imagine that there were people who ate their fill every day. I was hungry all the time. But in Kostopil, my grandmother, my father’s mother, lived there, as did his sister, and I thought to myself that if I ever visited them, they would feed me. So I transferred to Kostopil.
And in Kostopil, another story happened. There was this young, energetic deputy director of administrative affairs, the commandant. He received me very kindly, settled me in. And since I was in the second year, and all the girls living there were first-years, he appointed me head of the room. And then literally two weeks later, something happened to him—they said he was connected with the Banderites and was about to be arrested—he tried to poison himself, but they managed to save him. In short, this commandant disappeared.
A whole year passes, I’m studying, I’m doing well, but even though everyone agrees that I’m the best student in the group, they don’t give me an increased stipend (we had increased stipends in Kostopil). Didkivska got one, another girl got one. Everyone knew that the director was inflating grades for one, the head of studies for the other. But they didn’t give me an increased stipend. And another thing. I participated in amateur arts. I sang quite well, I recited well. But it was like this: I’d sing in the choir, sing and sing, then the choir would go to Rivne—and my name wasn’t on the list. Halya Menkush told me the exact same thing happened to her, that there would be some state concert, she’d arrive, and her name wouldn’t be on the list, no pass had been issued for her.
And then this happened. It was March 13, 1952, a Sunday. I was no longer living in the dormitory by then, but with a girl I shared a desk with. Her mother had hanged herself, and her father had remarried and moved in with his new wife, so she was left alone. It was a room with a separate entrance, and she lived there alone. And she says, “Halya, come live with me, you’ll pay me half.” She paid 12 rubles for the apartment, I gave her six, and we lived there together. Well, the KGB didn’t send her, I know that for sure. But one time, on this March 13... First of all, I didn’t remember the girls who came to visit us. I know who came now, because she approached me recently, after I moved to Lviv and was speaking at a *viche* (public assembly), and an elderly woman came up to me and said, “Halya, you don’t recognize me?” Well, I looked: an older woman, who knows... “I’m Nina Serdychenko.” And then I remembered: my God, that’s Nina Serdychenko, she was the daughter of the head of studies. And it was she and her friend who came to our place on a Sunday and invited us somewhere. Where, I can’t remember now. The weather was bad, it was no fun to go for a walk. What they said that made me leave the house with them, I don’t remember. The four of us are walking down the street, laughing, talking, and suddenly a woman of about thirty approaches us and says in Russian, addressing me, “Young lady, may I have a word with you for a moment?” I thought she must be a visitor to the town and wanted to ask for directions, I was just a little surprised, thinking, why is she asking me and not all of us. Well, okay. The girls moved a few meters away and stood there, and she says to me, “Were you in the store near the market yesterday?” I say, “I was.”
And this was the story. I had gone into that store—I still have a terrible sweet tooth—I really wanted to buy some candy, I even remember what kind now, but the line was moving very, very slowly. I stood there, and stood, and stood, and thought, “Okay, well, if I buy candy now, I’ll somehow get through tomorrow without eating, we’re supposed to get our stipend on Monday, but if they don’t give it out on Monday, that will be two days plus Tuesday... And they’ll give out the stipend after classes, so I’ll have to go three days eating absolutely nothing?” No, I got a hold of myself, turned around, and left without buying the candy. The woman says, “You were standing in line behind me and you took my documents and passport—give them back.” Of course, I was terribly flustered. I don’t look at the girls to see if they can hear, because talk would spread in the school. I say, “I didn’t take anything from you.” “No, give them back, or I’ll call a policeman.” And right away, two policemen run up: “What happened? What’s going on?” She says, “This girl took my money and documents.” They say, “Did you take it? Give it back.” I say, “I didn’t take it.” “You’ll have to come with us.” Well, of course, I go.
Again, I wasn’t surprised by anything then, I thought it was just a mistake, but now I’ve learned my lesson, I immediately start comparing things. It’s Sunday. We arrive at the police station, we go inside. Well, who would be there on a Sunday? The officer on duty should be there. But the place is full of high-ranking officers. Secondly. Two women walk in, not bloody, not bruised, not disheveled, perfectly normal women accompanied by some policeman—what’s so special about that? We walk in—and all these officials rush towards us, surround us: “What happened, what’s going on?!” This woman starts explaining: “You know, yesterday I was standing in the store over there by the market, and when it was my turn, I reached into my pocket, and my money was gone, and they told me, ‘A little blonde girl was standing behind you, she was just standing there, and then she turned sharply and left.’” You see how they were watching? “And today I happened to meet her on the street.” So she hadn’t seen my face, I was standing behind her, and they told her “a little blonde girl”... I mean, if they had said a hunchback or a redhead, or blind in one eye, but “a little blonde girl”—and she recognized me today. And she adds, “You know, I could give her this money as a gift, but I need my passport because I’m here on a business trip.” And one of the chiefs asks, “And where was this money?” “In my pocket.” But her coat has no pockets. “I was wearing a different coat yesterday.” She’s on a business trip and brings a second coat with her!
They start trying to persuade me to return the money. I, of course, insist that I didn’t take it. They say, “Well then, we’ll have to conduct a search.” Nowadays I would ask if they had a prosecutor’s warrant, but back then I didn’t know any of that and said, “Well, okay, let’s go.” I thought, let them look—I don’t have a single kopek at home.
So two policemen come with me, I pull out my little wooden chest, they open it. And in there I have some of my diaries, I wrote poetry. They just glanced at it and said, “Eh, this is not our business—the MGB should handle this.” One stays, the other leaves, and five minutes later, MGB officers arrive, and the policemen disappear. They take me away... What they said to me right away—I don’t remember that at all. I only remember clearly that I then sat all night at the MGB headquarters surrounded by officials. I could even draw a picture of who sat where. They were trying to persuade me to admit that I was against the Soviet government. Well, of course, I’m not an idiot—why would I say I was against the Soviet government? “No, look, your father was arrested, so you developed anti-Soviet sentiments,” and so on, and so forth. I must have signed something—I won’t claim there aren’t some protocols somewhere in the archives in which I confess to being against the Soviet government. Because when ten men are sitting around you, you’re terrified, confused, and don’t know what’s happening, and you’re 16 years old, and then they give you something to sign, of course, you sign it. In short, they held me there until morning.
And in the morning, they brought me a very tasty lunch from a restaurant—meat broth, cutlets with mashed potatoes, fruit compote, and even a bag of candy. You see, I think they felt sorry for me. The man I was very much in love with—he saw me 33 years later and said, “My God, you were so small, so thin, with scraggly little braids, without any hint of a bust.” It seems even they felt sorry for me—I think they bought that candy because they saw a child. But they put me in a car and took me to Rivne.
They brought me to Rivne, to the regional department. As I understand it, I wasn't officially arrested yet, there was no warrant for my arrest, because they just held me there in the department for three days. They didn’t shout at me, they didn’t beat me, they brought me food from their own restaurant. I just had to sleep on a desk, and a policeman or an MGB agent sat next to me the whole time. They kept trying to persuade me to admit that I was against the Soviet government. But I wouldn’t admit it.
On the third day, they took me to the head of the department, and just then the first secretary of the regional committee arrived to see him. As I recall, it was the famous Begma. They had another “fatherly chat” with me, saying that the Soviet government had given me the opportunity to study, that I should, and so on: “Well, if you find anything out, will you report it?” I said, “Yes, of course, absolutely!” In short, they let me go. They gave me money for the road, I returned to the school, and I studied for another two months.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: So how long did they hold you?
H.L. Hordasevych: They held me for three days. As far as I know now, a few days before they detained me, a *kryyivka* (bunker) that housed a printing press had been discovered. That was when Nil Khasevych was killed. As I piece it together now, they probably thought that since I wrote poetry and walked in the woods—I just loved walking in the woods—they probably thought I was connected to Nil Khasevych, that I was writing something, that I was receiving leaflets from there. I think that after watching me for two years, the reason they grabbed me right then was that they thought I was connected to Nil Khasevych. They had absolutely no lead, not the slightest piece of evidence, but they thought I would get scared and confess everything. When I didn't, they decided to release me, thinking either I would run to the forest, or someone would contact me to find out what had happened to me and why I had been detained. Because it happened on the street—everyone saw it, the girls knew, it wasn’t a secret. They let me go, thinking they would still catch me.
On May 20, I was arrested “for real,” as they say—I’m sleeping in the middle of the night and I hear, “Hordasevych, wake up—you have visitors!” I open my eyes, and I see—the KGB agent’s last name was Andryushchenko. That time they took me, brought me to Rivne, and sent me to the internal prison. Then the investigation began.
My investigator’s name was Mykola Borysovych Shustov—there’s a famous “Shustov” cognac, but I don’t know if he had any relation to it. I must say, he was a good man—at least to me. He immediately understood that it was all “nonsense,” but he couldn’t release me anymore, because they had spent money on me for two years, they already had a file on me this thick. And there was another incident—that same Nila, who had lured me to her apartment and who had been assigned to me by the KGB, she starts having these conversations with me: you know, Ukraine should be independent, sovereign, etc. I didn't really think about why this girl from Eastern Ukraine was suddenly interested in Banderites and an independent Ukraine. I completely agree with her, yes, it should be. And so she writes me a note during class: “Well, Halya, how long are we going to have these Russian conversations? We need to establish contact.” And I write back to her, “When the time is right, there will be contact!” She brings this note to the MGB—can you imagine what happened there? And I just wrote it foolishly—I had no contact whatsoever.
But there was one incident, which I also don’t remember if she wrote about or not. We had written these short leaflets in block letters, and on our way to school in the morning, we tucked them in various places. A policeman found one leaflet, reported it accordingly, and then they did a handwriting analysis and determined that it was written in my hand. So that really happened. So the only thing the investigator could do for me was to charge me with 54-10, “anti-Soviet agitation,” instead of 54-1(a).
And then it also turned out that when I arrived in Kostopil, our group consisted of “30 girls and 1 boy.” That “boy” was also a girl, her last name was just Malchyk (Boy). And all “30 girls” were Komsomol members; I was the only non-Komsomol member.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Were you not accepted, or did you not want to join?
H.L. Hordasevych: I simply didn't apply, and they never offered—I don't know, ultimately, whether I would have agreed or not, but no one ever offered, in any case. The MGB immediately told our group leader that I needed to be watched, and she, accordingly, told all the girls. She would come and say, “We will now hold a Komsomol meeting.” I knew I had to leave—because it was a Komsomol meeting. And she would ask the girls what they had noticed about me, what I had said. For example, at the trial, Tanya Losyk testified against me, stating that when we were studying the geography of India, and there were cities like Bandar-Nakh, Bandar-Shahpur, Bandar-Abbas, I had said, “Oh, it turns out there are Banderas in India too.” So that was recorded. Then, supposedly, I told someone that if Ukraine were independent, I would be a minister. I have absolutely no memory of when or to whom I said such a thing. When Slavko Chornovil was running for President, I thought I would tell him, “Appoint me as a minister, even for one day.” Just so it would come true. (Laughs).
My investigator, as I said, was a good man. And he would summon me for interrogation, of course, in the evening—we’d talk about something, and it seemed more like he was courting me. Well, he’d talk, write up some protocol, and then say, “So, should I send you back to the cell?” I’d sit there, my nose proudly in the air. “Well, as you wish, but it’s better here with me—let’s sit here for a while.” And it really was better with him: there was a radio, across the way was a park, music was playing in the park, the linden trees were fragrant and blooming, and you weren’t sitting on the floor. The prison was clean—absolutely no bedbugs, no lice, no rats, but also no furniture. We slept, sat, and ate—all on the floor. But here, at least you could sit. “Well, sit for a while, listen to the radio.” So I would sit, and he would be writing something, maybe some notes from his political studies, and I would just sit there with him.
Then his wife, who also worked there, would come in: “Kolya, let’s go home.” He’d say, “I can’t, I’m busy—I’m conducting an interrogation.” “Well, I’ll sit with you.” “You can’t sit here, my subject might refuse to answer in front of outsiders.” “Don’t worry, she’ll answer.” And she sits down. He then asks me a question—and looks at me with such eyes! And I proudly say, “I will not answer in front of outsiders.” He says, “See? Well, take my pistol and go.” “What do I need your pistol for!” I think she was jealous of him because of me. Then one time she comes in and pours out some candy for him. She left, and he gave the candy to me. Then, I also remember, he gave me a roll, and when he called the guard, he told him, “I gave her a roll, so don’t take it from her.”
But he couldn’t do anything for me, other than the 54-10 charge—ten years. There were no other sentences then—there was 54-1(a)—the full boat, 25 years, and 54-10—a “child’s sentence” of 10 years. I remember, there he sits, the poor man, trying to find something. He says, “Well, look here: how can you say you’re not against the Soviet government? Here’s a poem of yours...” I don’t remember the poem now, but it was something about spring, about how the Horyn River had flooded like a boundless blue sea, etc., and it ended like this: *“The new green shoots have appeared in the field, and I, smiling, go to meet an unknown fate.”* So he says, “What ‘unknown fate’ could a Soviet person have? A Soviet person’s fate is known—we are moving toward communism. This means you are confessing that you were against the Soviet government and didn't know what awaited you.” I don't know if he seriously believed that himself.
Then there was another incident. I don’t remember this—a woman from Ternopil told me about it. She wanted to make a television program about me, and her husband is some high-ranking official, so she managed to get my investigative file sent from Rivne. It was sent to her, though they didn’t let her take it home; she would go to the SBU and read it with an SBU officer. And later we talked. She said, “Mrs. Halyna, you know, we were reading the file, and at first it’s very calm, and then there’s a protocol or a poem where you were waiting for your beloved by a viburnum tree, and he didn’t come—and you confess that this was a coded message, that you were waiting for a liaison at a designated place. So we thought, maybe they started beating you and you were forced to confess?” If I really said that, I was probably just trying to make myself seem more important, to show that I wasn’t in prison for nothing, that yes, I was a liaison, but I wouldn’t tell them anything. And, by the way, I can boast about this, because it’s something to be proud of: other investigators would come to my investigator and have these conversations with me, and I would prove to them that an independent Ukraine could exist, that it absolutely would, and they would laugh. I imagine now that in their eyes I was like a little puppy. They would deliberately provoke it and laugh at it—oh, look how it snarls! That’s how they treated me.
Finally, on July 31, 1952, the regional court tried me. As was proper—10 years. When the verdict was read to me, I said, “Spasibo” (Thank you). The judge asked, “Did you understand? They gave you 10 years.” I said, “I understood, I understood, I thank you.” He became very embarrassed and said, “Well, there’s nothing to thank us for.” And he quickly fled. That’s how it was. By the way, my investigator was at the trial. Instead of worrying that I was being tried and given 10 years, I sat there and glanced sideways at the investigator, happy that he had come—I thought: aha, so you are interested in me after all.
What I wanted to say right away, though it happened later... When I was released—it was December 24, 1954—I was traveling to Rivne. I was traveling through Kyiv and was sitting at the station waiting for my train. Suddenly I hear, “Halya, is that you?” I raise my head—an elegantly dressed young woman is standing before me and says, “Halya, you don’t recognize me?” I have a terrible memory for faces, I don’t recognize anyone in the world, and I could meet you on the street and not recognize you, I swear to God. She says, “I’m Lida.” When she said she was Lida, I instinctively glanced at her right hand and saw that she now had a prosthesis—before, she didn’t have one. And she says, “Yes, yes, I’m that same Lida.” We talked a little about something. It turned out she was on her way—I don’t know how she managed it in that time, or if she had stopped studying at the pedagogical school—because she was on her way to a job in Sevastopol as a prosecutor. This was the same Lida who had approached me at the station in Ostroh and asked where I was going, and I had told her I was going to Rivne.
What else can I tell you?
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Tell us about your imprisonment.
H.L. Hordasevych: About my imprisonment? You know, my autobiographical novella, “Solo for a Maiden’s Voice,” is supposed to be published in issues 2 and 3 of the journal “Dzvin” this year. I described everything in great detail there.
In principle, I didn’t see anything terrible. I’m currently working on a book about female political prisoners—how they were abused, how hard their lives were in the camps—and I didn’t see anything like that. Why? First, in the Soviet era, the laws changed from time to time. There were periods when twelve-year-old children were executed by firing squad, but in 1952, if you were a minor, you were not sent outside of Ukraine. So they sent me to Chernihiv. There were two political camps in Chernihiv—one in the city itself (it’s still there, but now it holds female common criminals), which was for disabled men, and another outside Chernihiv, where the rubber goods factory is now, which was a camp for disabled women. There were also women with small children, up to one year old. And they gathered a few dozen of us girls there who were not yet 18. We were there for half a year.
That’s where I was when Stalin died. I remember it very well. I was learning to play the accordion. I’m sitting in the club with the director and learning. We had a good choir director, but no one to accompany us, no one could play. And then some woman comes in and says, “Stop playing—Stalin is ill.” This Olha Matviyivna waved her hands at her: “Stop it, what are you saying!” She said this in such a frightened tone, and the other woman says, “Yes, they just announced on the radio that Stalin is ill.” And I remember his funeral. We were working the night shift, and they dragged us out of bed, forced everyone to stand, and we all stood. No one cried, but no one rejoiced either—we were very afraid that someone would inform on us.
Then came the Beria amnesty. Under that Beria amnesty, practically all the *urki* (professional criminals) were released, and in Odesa, the sewing factory came to a halt because it was staffed entirely by female thieves. And that sewing factory produced underwear for soldiers, so it was a strategic production facility. So they took us, 100 girls (we had all turned 18 by then), and women whose children had been taken away, some sick women who had been treated—100 of us were brought to Odesa. They brought us to Odesa on April 29, and we had to clean up the territory before May 1st. So they selected a few of us, assigned a soldier with a submachine gun to each of us, to sweep and rake the “zapretka” (forbidden zone). Of course, before that, the soldiers had been properly briefed: “Comrades, criminals were held here, but they were our Soviet thieves. Now they are bringing us those who killed soldiers, so you must be highly vigilant!” So, I’m raking with a rake, and this boy is standing there—I’m 18 and he’s 18. He can’t stand not talking. And he asks me, “Listen, how many of our soldiers did you kill?” I looked at him and said, “You’ll be the twenty-third.” And he was so horrified: “Whoa, whoa, you be careful!”
But I have to say, the authorities quickly grew very fond of us and would say, “Good Lord, we’re getting a break with you! You are real people!” They treated us very well in Odesa. And when, after about three months, those thieves were all imprisoned again—because they were professional thieves—and we were being taken away, the authorities cried that we were leaving. And they took us away—the train I was on ended up in Kuybyshev. I served out the rest of my time in Kuybyshev. We arrived there sometime in September 1953. We worked there at a factory that made construction parts. It wasn’t hard, and most importantly, it was right next to the zone, so we didn’t have to go far—they just let us through the gates and that was it.
And then in 1954... The work there, of course, was already hard. They kept us on heavy labor. For example, when barges of cement arrived on the Volga, they would take us to unload them—nine hours, a 50 kg sack on your shoulder—and you haul it. That, of course, was hard. Many years later, I was working as an editor in the press department, editing safety instructions, and I would remember this every time I read the line: “Adolescents and women are prohibited from lifting weights exceeding 20 kg.” I thought: just like that, and I used to carry 50 kg.
And then 1954. There were two decrees that reduced sentences by one-third for good behavior, and by two-thirds for minors. This was done through a judicial review; the camp administration would submit a request for review, stating that the person works well, “she has realized her mistakes, she is one of us.” And they reduced my sentence by 3 years and 8 months. I had a few months left. And here’s what’s interesting. When I was first tried, I didn’t cry, I thanked the judge. Then they put me in a small holding cell, soldiers were sitting there waiting for the transport vehicle, but the vehicle wasn’t there. And the boys were young, they were curious. And I hear them saying to each other, “Well, you ask her.” “No, you ask!” And so they start talking to me through the door: “So, was it worth it for you to go against the Soviet government?” I answer, “Yes, I am for an independent Ukraine.” “And now they’ll send you to Chukotka!” “That’s fine, it’s not far from Chukotka to Alaska!” And I didn’t cry. But then, when they reduced my sentence by 8 years... wait—how many years was that?.. In short, they reduced it by 2/3, and I only had a few months left to serve. But the camp director treated me well, he must have felt sorry for me. And he submitted my case for another review, to have one-third of the remaining time taken off as well. But the prosecutor said that he believed the same decrees could not be applied twice. Something like, “all honor and praise to her for working so well, for being so re-educated, but I believe she must nevertheless serve out her time.” And how I cried then! I only had a few months left—and I sobbed and sobbed! I already knew what it was all about. At first, I couldn’t imagine any of it, but by then I knew.
In short, they released me on December 24, 1954. But I had nowhere to go, because my father had already been released and had stayed there, and my mother and sister were planning to go join him. In fact, while I was on trial and in prison, my mother had moved from that town of Dubrovytsia to Hlukhiv, because she had distant relatives there. She moved there and didn’t tell anyone that she had a daughter who was in prison. And she wrote to me that under no circumstances was I to come there if I was released.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: But you still corresponded, right?
H.L. Hordasevych: Yes, we corresponded. My father was only allowed to write two letters a year, but I didn’t have such a restriction at that time. Well, I had nowhere to go. And then it so happened that on my very last day, I was working the night shift, and there was a gas leak somewhere. They stationed me there to guard the spot, to make sure, God forbid, no one lit a match before the repair crew arrived. But before the repair crew, the deputy director of this factory rushed over. The factory was a civilian one, not part of the Gulag system—we just worked there. He struck up a conversation with me, and it turned out he was a Jew from Lviv. And when he found out that I was being released the next day and had nowhere to go, he said (speaking to me in Ukrainian), “Listen, why don’t you stay here? I’ll get you a place in the dormitory, there are jobs here—as a motor operator (by the way, I knew how to work as a motor operator), and you’ll work.” And when they call me into the special department and ask where to issue my travel papers and where I’m going, I say, “I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying here.” “But you’re not allowed to stay here.” “Why not?” Because our people were being released and staying to work at the same factory. “But their charges are not the same as yours.” “Well, in that case, I need to go to Kolyma to my father.” “You’re not allowed to go there either.” “Why? My father has a 54-1(a) and he’s there.” “Well, he was imprisoned there, so he stayed there, but you’re not allowed to go there.”
It turned out I had nowhere to go. I was still quite naive back then and thought that if I went to Rivne and went to the city council and said, look, I’ve conscientiously served my time and I have nowhere to go, they would find me a job somewhere, give me a place to live. But when I went, they told me, “Why do we need you? Did you ever live in Rivne? Where were you born—in Kremenets? Well then, go on to Kremenets.” And what was the point of me going to Kremenets when I had never been there at all? “And where did you live—in Horodets? Well then, go to Horodets!” And what was the point of me going to Horodets, when again, there was nothing there? Where and to whom would I go in that Horodets?
In the end, I went from Rivne to Kostopil, to my father’s mother. I stayed there for a few days, and as soon as the holidays were over, I went to the labor recruitment office, signed up, and went to the Donbas. That’s how I ended up in the Donbas.
Well, what happened next? What happened next... You know what, I won’t tell the rest for now. Although there were moments when I collected my poems... Oh, maybe I’ll tell you after all, how I met Slavko Chornovil.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, yes. And then—what dealings you had with the authorities throughout your life. And you knew many people. In particular, I know that you corresponded with Chornovil when he was imprisoned in Mordovia—that’s also an interesting point. So, please, let’s continue our conversation.
H.L. Hordasevych: How did it happen? First, when I arrived in the Donetsk region, I must have somehow attracted the attention of the KGB. It was no longer the MGB, but the KGB. By the way, in this book I’m working on (not writing, but compiling), I see that people often make mistakes and write “MGB” when it was still the NKVD, or write “KGB” when it was still the MGB, and so on. I decided I won’t correct this—let it be as people remember it. Because these are personal memories, not a textbook.
When I arrived in the Donetsk region, I worked as a general laborer on a construction site, lived in a dormitory, and went to night school. I enrolled in the 9th grade—I thought I would finish the 9th and 10th grades and then enter the university to study in the physics department. I had no intention of becoming a writer whatsoever.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: What year was this?
H.L. Hordasevych: This was 1955, I arrived there in January 1955. But my passport was issued “on the basis of a certificate of release,” and no one would accept me into a university with a passport like that. I write an application to the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine asking to have my criminal record expunged. And I received a letter stating that my record had, in fact, already been expunged earlier by the Supreme Court. I take this certificate and go to the passport office to get my passport changed, but they tell me I also need my birth certificate. And my birth certificate had been confiscated when I was arrested. So I write a letter to the KGB Department in Rivne asking for my documents back and receive a letter from them saying that my documents will be forwarded to Stalino (the city was still called Stalino then, not Donetsk), to the Stalino KGB, and that I would be notified. Actually, there was nothing to notify about—just that it would be forwarded to the Stalino KGB.
So I go to the KGB. There’s a small room there, a telephone, and you have to call, you don’t see any officer on duty, you have to call that officer on the phone. I call. They ask me, “What is your business?” I say, “My documents were supposed to be sent to you from Rivne.” “What, did you work there?” “No, I was imprisoned there.” And then there’s a long, long, confused silence on the line, and then they told me, “When we receive them, we will inform you. You may go.” Later they notified me, and I received a new passport, which no longer said “on the basis of a certificate of release.”
From time to time, these “comrades” would meet with me—asking how I was living, whether I was against the Soviet government, and so on. I, of course, answered them that I was not against the Soviet government, that everything was fine, that I was happy to have the opportunity to study. I was very interested in physics and really wanted to be a physicist, and I had absolutely no plans to become a writer.
And then this happened. I was living in Donetsk, working at a printing house, and my son was in a 24-hour kindergarten, since I worked shifts at the printing house. This was near the so-called experimental school (No. 5 in Donetsk. – V.O.), where the artist Hryhoriy Synytsia and his team were creating mosaic panels. And when I was passing by with Bohdan, Bohdan was curious about what it was, and he asked to have a look. We went closer and started talking. I always spoke only Ukrainian with him. From the moment he was born, I spoke Ukrainian with him, and it turned out that he would speak Russian all week at kindergarten, and when I picked him up on Saturday, he would still be speaking Russian. I would listen and then say, “Okay, good, now repeat that to me in Ukrainian.” He would say it in Ukrainian. And by Sunday evening, he would be speaking only Ukrainian. And on Monday, I would take him back to kindergarten. That’s how it was.
In short, we’re standing there, I’m explaining something to him about how it’s done. And then one of the artists asked me, also in Ukrainian, “And where did you come from?” I don’t remember who asked. I say, “From nowhere, we live here.” “Then why do you speak Ukrainian?” “My parents spoke Ukrainian with me, and I speak Ukrainian with my child.” That’s how I met them—it was Hryhoriy Synytsia, Alla Horska, Viktor Zaretsky, there was another man and another woman, but for some reason I don’t remember them at all. And Nadiyka Svitlychna.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: So what year was this already?
H.L. Hordasevych: It was 1965, sometime in the summer of 1965. That’s how I met them, and for some reason Nadiyka and I became the closest friends. Nadiyka really liked my son. I have her letters from that time, and she wrote not so much to me as to my son, even though he was only four years old.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: What year was your son born?
H.L. Hordasevych: 1961, he was 4 years old then. I remember well, first, that we went to the philharmonic together—there was some concert of Ukrainian music. I remember this well because I noticed then that Alla Horska’s hands were very chapped—it was the cement, you see. When I passed by and sat with them, they were in their work clothes, and their hands were covered in cement, so you couldn’t see it, but when we came to the philharmonic, she was dressed up more or less and her hands were washed, and I could see that they were so chapped and cracked. I have a poem dedicated to Alla Horska—it mentions that.
Then they were at my place for my birthday on March 31, 1966. I remember this for sure because my book was just about to be published, and they told me that every time they passed a bookstore, they would go in and ask if the book by Halyna Hordasevych, “Rainbows on the Sidewalks,” was available.
And it was Nadiyka Svitlychna who introduced me to Slavko, and it was—I remember the date exactly—December 13, 1965. I received a telegram from Volodymyr Pidpalyi—he was the editor of the book—asking me to come to work with the editor. I arrive—I don’t remember now: I must have had Nadiyka’s work phone number, because I arrived and called her right away... I spent the night at their place, by the way, on that...
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Umanska Street?
H.L. Hordasevych: Yes, that little house, Oksana Meshko’s.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Oksana Meshko’s? That’s at 16 Verbolozna Street.
H.L. Hordasevych: Yes, 16 Verbolozna. Because Nadiyka was married to her son, Oles Serhiyenko, at the time, so I stayed the night with them, I remember that. In short, the first thing I do is rush to find Nadiyka and boast, “Nadiyka, my book is coming out!” She says, “Listen, I have a good friend who works at the newspaper ‘Friend of the Reader’—let’s go, I’ll introduce you now and he’ll run an announcement.” We go—and it’s Slavko Chornovil—and he says, “Oh, girls, you’ve come at just the right time! Yevhen Sverstyuk just called me—it’s his birthday today, he’s planning to come here. We were going to go out and have a glass of wine somewhere. Will you come with us?” Nadiyka says we’ll go, and I’m all for it—why not, it’s all interesting to me.
Yevhen arrived, and he came with Ivan. I had no idea who Chornovil was. I already knew who Sverstyuk was, because I had started going to a literary society... The thing is—I should probably have mentioned this—in September 1963, I happened to wander into the “Obriy” (Horizon) literary society—this was in Donetsk, associated with the newspaper “Komsomolets of Donbas.” This society was led by a man named Yosyp Kurlak. Vasyl Stus was there, but Vasyl Stus had just entered graduate school that year. But whenever he came home, he would definitely stop by. Vasyl Zakharchenko was there, Volodia Mishchenko was there, Lyonya Talalay was there. There was a large group of both Russians and Ukrainians. Many writers came out of that group. I found it very interesting, and then it was like a dam broke—I started writing poetry. For example, in three years in prison, I didn’t write a single poem, and now I was writing a poem almost every day! I started going there. They did literary pages in the youth newspaper, they published me there, they did radio programs, then we would go on performance tours on behalf of the regional Komsomol committee—and I realized that I had to be a writer, that this was my calling, not physics.
Somehow, I was very quickly put on the publication plan of “Radyanskyi Pysmennyk” (Soviet Writer publishing house). There was an incident where Boryslav Stepaniuk, who was the deputy editor-in-chief at the time, came to Donetsk. I happened to walk into the Writers’ Union, and they were all a bit tipsy: “Oh, Halya, come in! Boryslav, meet our young, talented...” And so on. He asked, “Have you sent us your manuscript?” “Oh no, I haven’t even thought about publishing a book yet.” “What are you talking about! Send us the manuscript immediately!” The poet Viktor Sokolov helped me put the manuscript together, we sent it, and they published me outside the plan—six months later, my book came out.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: What year was that?
H.L. Hordasevych: That was in 1965—I sent them the manuscript and then went to Moscow to apply to the correspondence department of the Literary Institute. When I returned a month later, I already had a very good review from Hryhoriy Donets—that it was so talented, that it must be published—and a letter telling me to revise it immediately and send it back. But I didn’t know how to revise—I just had new poems, so I inserted the new poems, sent it, and by December I was in Kyiv to work with the editor.
And when I started going to the literary society, I also started going to the library, taking out all the Ukrainian newspapers and journals. I read very carefully what poems were there, what stories, what articles. I knew who Yevhen Sverstyuk was because he was published, I think, in the youth “Komsomolka”—it was called “Moloda Ukrayina” (Young Ukraine) or something like that.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: “Molod Ukrayiny” (Youth of Ukraine)?
H.L. Hordasevych: “Molod Ukrayiny”—he was published there. In short, I already knew who Sverstyuk was. He didn’t come alone; he came with a very handsome, dark-eyed young man. We were introduced—he said, “Ivan,” I said, “Halyna.” And then I took Nadiyka aside and asked, “Nadiyka, who is Ivan?” She said, “Dziuba.” And I already knew who Dziuba was, because he was also being published.
And so we’re walking. I remember very well that the editorial office was somewhere near the yellow building of the university, because we’re walking down Shevchenko Boulevard like this—walking and laughing, we’re so happy, laughing our heads off for some reason. One of the guys says, “Oh! They’ve already taken our picture!” And it doesn’t register with me who took our picture and who would be photographing us. They’re all laughing—so I’m laughing too. The “Transcarpathian Rose” tasting room had just opened, a sort of cellar. So we went in there, sat on these little barrels. But the guys were hungry—and it was a tasting room, there were no snacks, just wine for tasting. So one of the guys ran out and got a whole bag of fried pies. We drank wine, ate, and laughed a lot, we were in such a good mood for some reason. And a doorman with a gray mustache was hovering around us. We were speaking Ukrainian, and he said, “Speak Ukrainian! You know, boys, when I served with Kotovsky in the Civil War...” —he starts telling some story, but then he’s called away. And the guys say, “I wonder if he also served under Dzerzhinsky?”
So that was my introduction. Slavko and I immediately established a friendly relationship. I gave him my address, gave him my work phone number. I was already working then... No, no, I couldn’t have given him my work number, because I wasn’t working at the press department yet—I was still at the printing house. In short, about two months later, I somehow find out that Chornovil is coming to Donetsk and he’s asking if he can stay the night at my place, so I say, of course, he can. He arrives. Then—this happened two or three times, I don’t remember which time it was—he told me to gather some guys who, in my opinion, could be told something. I called Vasyl Zakharchenko, called Volodia Mishchenko. Volodia Mishchenko came, but Zakharchenko said he was sick and didn’t come. And Chornovil came and brought Ivan Dziuba’s work, “Internationalism or Russification?” He gave it to Volodia, and the KGB never found out about it. This Volodia Mishchenko was not put on trial, but they held two public sham trials for him at his workplace and fired him from his job, but they never brought up this incident.
Then, of course, the KGB became very interested in me. They tried very hard to persuade me and convince me how good things would be for me if I cooperated with them. I can even say that to show me what interesting work I would have, they sent me to Poland, where, supposedly, some contacts were supposed to reach out to me... Apparently, there was some Paris-Donetsk connection through Poland, and I was supposed to be brought into it...
I went to Poland and because of that, I got into a terribly stupid situation. They sent me with a group of miner-tourists. Well, okay, we’re going. And I’m constantly looking around, wondering who is supposed to make contact with me. It’s our last day, we’re leaving tomorrow. In the evening, I’m sitting in the lobby cafe, drinking coffee with Ostap Labskyi—he’s a Ukrainian poet in Warsaw, I had met him. Suddenly, I see two young men in brown suits standing there, staring intently at me and talking to each other. Well, I think, this must be them. When Labskyi left, I slowly walk away and hear someone following me, catching up to me. I stopped, and he says, “A chego pani tak vzdykha?” (And why are you sighing like that?). And I say that it’s a long way home. I speak Polish fluently. And we start talking, he finds out I’ve never been to a nightclub and invites me to one. And I’m thinking, this must be the agent who’s made contact with me, and I agree. And he says to me, “Just one thing, you know, I have a colleague—so maybe you could bring a friend of yours?” And just then, Valya from our group walks by. I say, “Valya, my friends here are inviting us to a nightclub.”
We get into their car, they drive us. When they drove us into the forest outside Warsaw, I got a little scared—I thought: who the hell knows what will happen. But they said they would first take us to the restaurant where Gomułka and all their top officials go. But when we got there (it was March), it turned out there was no dancing and nothing interesting. We had dinner there, then returned to Warsaw. Then we went to another restaurant, one with dancing. In the early morning, they took us home, we exchanged addresses. Valya had a blast, she said, “My God, you can’t even compare them to our miners! He kissed my hand goodbye!”
But no contacts were passed to me, and I returned with nothing. When I had my next meeting, I said that no one had contacted me. “They decided they could handle it themselves, they don’t want to pass those contacts to us.” But when they started... Well, at first, I really didn’t understand... You see, Vasyl, it seemed to me that being against the Soviet government was only something in the West, only the UPA. It never entered my head that now, in 1965, some Slavko Chornovil, who was from the Chernihiv region...
V.V. Ovsiyenko: The Cherkasy region.
H.L. Hordasevych: ...from the Cherkasy region, that Nadiyka Svitlychna, who was from the Luhansk region—that they could be against the Soviet government! On the one hand, I was already experienced and somewhat wary, but on the other hand, when it finally dawned on me, when I understood who they were and what they thought, then if I had initially spoken to the KGB in a way that was like, “well, if I find out, if something like that happens, I of course and undoubtedly will,” then later—this was around 1969—I told them, “No, I won’t tell you anything, because the truth is on their side.” You can’t imagine how furious they were with me! Now I myself wonder why Alla Horska died and not me. How they threatened me! “Watch out, you never know what might happen!” It really got to them because I had been leading them by the nose for about four years, I didn’t give them anything, in principle... Well, yes, Slavko Chornovil came, stayed the night with me—they knew that themselves: “And what did you talk about?” “We talked about literary topics, and that’s all—I read him my poems, I can show you.” I still have that notebook, where Slavko’s handwriting has all sorts of corrections. “Well, I read him my poems, he told me what was good and what was bad. We had no anti-Soviet conversations.” I didn’t tell them that Nadiyka had also given me Dziuba’s work to read when I stayed at their place on Verbolozna. And I didn’t tell them that Chornovil had given that work to Volodia Mishchenko, and they didn’t know that.
And somewhere around 1968 or 1969, when I told them to leave me alone, that I wouldn’t tell them anything, they threatened me severely. Then I took some of my poems, the ones I felt were worth saving, copied them, and gave them to Alla Horska, saying, “Alla, if anything happens to me, let these poems be with you.” But, you see, it turned out quite the opposite—something happened to Alla Horska. When Alla Horska was being buried, Nadiyka sent me a telegram, but that telegram was delivered to me… Actually, my son brought it to me at work at one o’clock on the day of the funeral.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: She was buried on December 7, 1970.
H.L. Hordasevych: I don’t remember. I just remember clearly that it was around noon break—and suddenly the door opens, my son comes into my workplace (I was already working at the press department then). I got a little scared and said, “Why did you come?” He says, “Mom, there’s a telegram for you.” I read the telegram—I have it somewhere—“Alla Horska has died, funeral on such-and-such date (I don’t remember the number) at 4 p.m.” And it was that very day, at one o’clock, so there was no way I could get there.
Slavko and I corresponded. Even after he moved from Kyiv to Lviv, I think we still corresponded. We had a kind of playful correspondence. He called me his *lyubaska* (sweetheart). It happened like this. When he was staying with me, we were sitting and drinking—I don’t remember, maybe it was wine, maybe tea. He says, “Halya, you know, you’re a pretty girl, I think I’ll take you as one of my sweethearts.” And I say, “Oh, Slavko, I’m always ready.” He was a handsome guy, so cheerful, and for some reason I felt very at ease with him, very free. And he says, “No, you know what, I’ll think about it.”
He left. And literally a week later, it was my birthday, 1966. I get a telegram: “In connection with this outstanding event, you are hereby promoted to candidate member. Chornovil.” I have that telegram too. That was the kind of correspondence we had, mostly playful. And then it broke off, I didn’t know, to tell you the truth... I corresponded with Nadiyka until her arrest, and lately, I had been writing to her at the main post office, “general delivery.” And a letter came back to me, marked “due to non-collection.” I didn’t know she had been arrested.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: She was arrested on May 18, 1972.
H.L. Hordasevych: I have all this in my book, but I don’t remember dates either. In short, I knew nothing about Oles Serhiyenko being arrested, nothing about Chornovil being arrested, no one wrote to me about anything. Maybe people thought I knew somehow, but I didn’t know any of it, and I didn’t even know that Nadiyka had been arrested. It was only later that I knew, when Chornovil was imprisoned for the third time, then I knew he was in prison.
It was the late 1970s when I met a man, he’s still alive, his name is Yaroslav Homza. Do you know him?
V.V. Ovsiyenko: I’ve not only heard the name, but I also know him.
H.L. Hordasevych: He is an intelligent, decent person, an honest man, I trust him completely. But, for example, the one who was elected as Lukyanenko’s deputy in the URP—that one was a provocateur.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Hryhoriy Hrebeniuk?
H.L. Hordasevych: Hrebeniuk. A provocateur.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: It’s interesting what Levko Lukyanenko said about him. Later, when we were in the Urals, he mentioned Hrebeniuk, that he had known him before. He was close to Oleksa Tykhyi.
H.L. Hordasevych: He was a witness in Oleksa Tykhyi’s case.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Levko said: so they didn’t imprison him, but he should have done some time. That’s what Levko said.
H.L. Hordasevych: They didn’t imprison him because he was... You see, he started, out of the blue... I didn’t know him, and suddenly I start receiving letters from a stranger. And the letters are such that if the KGB intercepted them, you could easily be imprisoned for them. I would read these letters and wonder if this was a fool or a provocateur who was deliberately writing such things. I write to him, saying, please, I would rather not receive such letters, and he writes to me again, something like, well, I wish you happiness, if Ukrainians can even have happiness in this world, something like that. You see, a letter like that.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: With such false pathos...
H.L. Hordasevych: Yes, yes. So, I met this Homza and we became friends, I liked him. Somehow we got to talking about Chornovil. I said that I would write to him if I knew where. And he says, “I have Chornovil’s address.” He gave me Chornovil’s address—this was when Slavko was serving his third sentence—and I wrote him a letter in Yakutia, received one back from him, and so we corresponded. That was from the early 1980s until his release.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: You didn’t write him letters in Mordovia?
H.L. Hordasevych: No, I didn’t write him letters in Mordovia. I think I only wrote to him in the Yakutian camp. That was from about 1980 onwards. I have all his letters. Just yesterday, Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska came up to me and asked if I had his letters, to give her either photocopies or typed copies, because she is collecting them. I keep all these letters, so I have them. Well, admittedly, we didn't... He wrote to me that he couldn't write often because he was only allowed two letters a month, and I wrote back to him, darling, don't get a big head, because my father was allowed two a year, so two a month isn't so bad. And then I would always send my letters with a notice of delivery, and he would write on it: “Happy New Year!,” “Happy Birthday!.” They got through. Although I do have a few notices that were signed for by...
Halyna Hordasevych. Photo by V. Ovsiyenko, February 3, 2001.
[The rest of the interview will be added]