NINA MYKHAILIVNA MARCHENKO

An Interview with Nina Mykhailivna MARCHENKO.

Without her corrections. Final version dated July 27, 2007.

V.V. Ovsiienko: We are speaking on June 16, 1998, at the home of Nina Mykhailivna Marchenko, at 15 Chelyabinsk Street, apartment 71. The interviewer is Vasyl Ovsiienko. Later, we will be joined by Anatoliy Pylypovych Kysliy, a journalist and a friend of Valeriy Marchenko.

Nina Mykhailivna, since June of this year, I have been working with the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, headed by Yevhen Zakharov. The group is participating in the creation of an International Dictionary of Dissidents. The center is in Poland, and it will be published in Polish, Russian, and English. Ukraine has been allotted 120 entries, that is, names. In addition, we are collecting materials for an archive—we are conducting audio and video recordings of autobiographical stories from participants of the resistance movement. After finishing our work on the International Dictionary, we will begin working on a Ukrainian one, which will include around 800 to 1,000 names. So the more recordings we collect, the better. They will serve as material for future work.

I recently had a four-and-a-half-hour conversation with Petro Sichko. And do you think he told me everything? Not even close! He’s a unique individual! I would like you, Nina Mykhailivna, to tell your story as well. It should be an autobiographical narrative with an emphasis on resistance and repression. Of course, we will also speak about Valeriy.

N.M. Marchenko: My biography is very ordinary, like that of all Soviet people. I was born on February 7, 1929, in the village of Hatne in the Kyiv-Sviatoshynskyi district. My Valera is buried there, as are my father and mother. I also brought my husband there in 1992 after he passed away (Vasyl Smuzhanitsya. – Ed.), and a plot is reserved for me there as well. I spent my childhood in Hatne until 1934.

In thirty-four, my mother and I left my older sister Lesia with our grandmother and went to Kharkiv. My father, Mykhailo Ivanovych Marchenko, was studying there at the Institute of Red Professoriate. His life story is similar to that of Pavka Korchagin. He joined the revolution at an early age; by sixteen, he had already been made secretary of the revolutionary village council in Hatne. He was literate, an erudite boy with a gift from God. He was respected in the village; everyone always listened to him eagerly because Mishko always had something interesting to say. He was born in 1902. He said he fought against Denikin's forces. He didn’t fight against Petliura's forces, apparently due to circumstances rather than conviction. Later, he was an organizer of communes. That must have been after he served in the army. He was a senior non-commissioned officer of some sort in the Red Army. He was a deputy of the Kharkiv City Council, because he served in that region. He organized communes somewhere in the Kyiv region. After that (I’m just not sure if it was after the communes or after the army), he was sent to the Institute of Red Professoriate. This, I think, was a branch of the large Moscow institute, where Soviet, “red” professors were being trained to replace the old bourgeois professoriate.

He studied at the history department and was one of the best students. He was kept on for postgraduate studies. We lived in Kharkiv until 1935, and when Kyiv was made the capital, we moved here and lived on Chervonoarmiyska Street. Then we settled in a building that was a dormitory for the Institute of Red Professoriate. We were given a room on the second floor with institute furniture. It had a corridor-style layout. We had a huge room on the second floor. Now, Kravchuk lives next to this building, and further on lives Kuchma. The street is called Desyatynna and it runs into St. Andrew’s Church and the Andriyivskyy Descent. It begins at St. Michael's Square, and Trokhsviatytelska Street leads to the square. It used to all be called Victims of the Revolution Street. So we lived on Victims of the Revolution Street in building No. 12. Then they started changing the names, and it became Heroes of the Revolution Street, and only much later was the name Desyatynna restored to it. I think it’s now 4 or 2 Desyatynna Street. My childhood was spent in that building.

My mother was from Tarasivka. She married my father and moved to Hatne. When they started organizing communes, she traveled with my father, but since he was moving around many villages, he told her to stay in Hatne, and he would visit. She managed the household and worked on the kolkhoz. My mother's maiden name was Ivanchuk, Oksana Larionivna. It's such a beautiful name that later, when Valera worked at “Literaturna Ukrayina,” he would sometimes use Ivanchuk as a pseudonym. She was born in 1906. She married very young. In 1924, she gave birth to my older sister, Larysa; in 1929, to me; in 1927, we had a brother who died; and in 1939, she had Alla.

In 1939, my father was sent as a commissar to Western Ukraine. That was the time of the unification, annexation, or occupation of Western Ukraine. A month later, he was made rector of Lviv University. It was called the Ivan Franko Lviv State Ukrainian University. It was called “Ukrainian” because before that, instruction had been in Polish, and there was severe discrimination against Ukrainians—few were admitted. My father pursued a national policy there. He was aware that the Soviet government hadn’t sent him there for nothing, but to make this university truly Ukrainian. He met professors with nationalist leanings there and gained access to wonderful literature that he previously had no chance to read. In short, my father underwent immense changes in his national consciousness of his role as a historian of Ukraine. This high civic sense became dominant in him. He returned a very changed man, even in his attitude toward the family. He had developed a certain special aristocratism. Even before, he had been a very decent man—this isn't just a daughter's memory, but his acquaintances, friends, and students, our entire family circle, recognized him as a highly cultured man, despite the Soviet education he received. Here, as a decent man, he realized that the famine of 1933 was man-made, that the Ukrainian intelligentsia was being destroyed according to a plan. He was still a young man—37 years old. By the way, a student at Lviv University, Yaroslava Tomych, wrote about this very well. She now lives in New York. She was my father’s student. In her memoirs about Lviv University, she mentions its first rector. What a distinct impression the arrival of a man from the East made on her, a Galician. They had their own attitude towards the Bolsheviks—and here she saw that he would attend services at St. George’s Cathedral. My father had several meetings with Metropolitan Sheptytsky. All of this left its mark on him. It’s no wonder they didn't keep him there long—he became rector in late 1939, in November or December, and he returned around the autumn of 1940.

He didn’t bring us to Lviv—he knew he wouldn't be there for long. We were in Kyiv. My older sister Larysa and I would visit him. In the summer, he arranged for me to go to a camp there, while my older sister stayed with him longer; she even attended school in Lviv. And then he returned here to the Institute of History, where he had been appointed after completing his postgraduate studies around 1937.

In 1937–38, there were terrible arrests. I felt them myself, though I was still very young. In that long corridor, we had neighbors. We all knew each other. There were a lot of children in the building. And every morning, I would see a family sitting on their bundles. My friend is sitting there, her mother is sitting there... They had already been evicted, the room sealed, because their father had been arrested. And so it was, every other door or two. Later, my mother and father recalled how they trembled every night—at any moment, they would come to their door. Well, by chance, my father wasn't arrested in 1937, but on the very first night of the war in 1941, he was arrested. Those were extremely hard times. Imagine, during the war, it was difficult for all Soviet citizens, but for the repressed... They were marched in a prisoner convoy somewhere far away, beyond Kharkiv, then sent to Siberia in cattle cars. He was in the Novosibirsk prison until the winter of 1944. Well, although this is a different part of the story—about my father—since our fate is connected to my father's, it is also my biography.

My mother, my little sister Alla, born in 1939, my older sister Larysa, born in 1924, and I were left behind. So there were four of us—three children and my mother—and in Hatne, there was my mother’s mother and my aunt Tetyana. My mother's mother was Halia, Halyna Ivanivna Marchenko. She took my grandfather's surname; I've forgotten what her maiden name was. And aunt Tetyana, who married an airfield worker in 1937—he was a pilot, Dihtiarenko. He died of tuberculosis, of consumption, during the war. She is my mother’s own sister, and she’s still alive in Hatne, though very old now. These are my relatives.

We were left behind during the occupation. What influenced me during the occupation? I was a Pioneer, a Soviet child, raised in kindergarten, in school—just like every other child in the East. What influenced me was my stay in Lviv, which lasted for two months, I think. It was purely everyday phenomena. I liked how the girls carried themselves, how proud they were. They wouldn't start a conversation with just anyone, and they were well-dressed—even though it was wartime and under occupation. That proud bearing and the ability to present oneself among women—that really influenced me. But what impressed me most was their Galician language! I saw that it was used everywhere. We spoke Ukrainian at home, and I had two or three friends who came from a village—I spoke Ukrainian with them. But for the most part, Russian was all around us. As a child, I didn't attach any importance to it; there was no such difference for me.

So Galicia made a great impression on me. My father made new friends there, even professors whose names I can't recall now. But I remember how we went to Truskavets, where a writer's family was vacationing. This Galician woman was such an aristocrat, and her son was about sixteen. I watched how he behaved. For me, it was such a contrast—in behavior, in the way he carried himself, spoke, and acted at the table. My mother used to embroider, and she dressed my sister and me very beautifully in embroidered blouses. I remember it as if it were yesterday; I was wearing a dress of a style called a “coupon.” It was a linen dress, embroidered with light blue thread. This woman couldn’t take her eyes off my dress. She said: “Oh, how beautiful! How lovely this hand-embroidered blouse is on a girl!” And the boy said (he studied at a Ukrainian gymnasium, and next to it was a Polish one): “It's very beautiful, but under the Poles, Polish boys, and girls too, would attack our embroidered blouses and tear them right off!” This made such an impression on me; I thought: how lucky we are, because we don’t have that, no one tears our dresses. But that language! When I returned to Kyiv, my mother said: “Well, you've become Polonized—your language is so pure now!” And I told her: “Father asked me to watch over your language and my own—so we don't use words like ‘kharasho’ and others like it. Watch your language—it truly adorns a person.” The desire for the language to sound as beautiful as possible must have been passed on to Valeriy. He used to say: “Good clothes, reinforced by beautiful language, are very intriguing. It immediately establishes us not as *khokhly*.” This language from Galicia, the desire to be reserved, cultured... And my mother also had an influence: don’t show off, don’t be proud, don’t judge.

We remained under occupation... There were many apartments locked with small padlocks. There was so much looting... And that looting could be justified to some extent, because people were hungry and needed something to live on. Someone would break into someone else’s home, take two or three pots, go to the market, and exchange them for at least a handful of peas... But my mother said: “Don't take anything; what belongs to others will never bring you good.” And despite the fact that we had almost nothing, we somehow survived, we didn’t swell from hunger. Because my mother never coveted what belonged to others. And my grandmother used to say so too—she was still alive during the occupation: “See? That's why God provides for us.” We traded for a cow—my mother took two sheets, my aunt took her old coat, we traded them for a cow, and so with my grandmother's help (there were quite a few children, after all—the three of us and my aunt's child) we survived. Because there was that Christian morality: do not take what belongs to others. Although I never saw my mother pray—she only went to church to have the Easter bread blessed, and even then, quietly, because my father was a teacher, it wasn’t allowed. But that morality, it seems, was so deeply ingrained—do not take what belongs to others... I remembered that well. At the time, they would say: “She went and robbed them”—meaning, she went looting—“because Jews lived there anyway. They always lived so well, and I’ve been poor my whole life. I went there and took their sheets and everything, everything, everything.” And I’d say to my mother: “Maybe we should do that too?” “Don’t you even dare think it!” And this has a particular effect on a child.

What else I had during the occupation—there was “Slovo,” “Ukrainske Slovo,” “Nove Ukrainske Slovo.” These newspapers were published in stages during the occupation. The paper, it seems, was even distributed for free. It was printed on yellow paper, then blue, then yellow, then blue. It contained such a debunking of the entire Soviet system, such caricatures of Lenin, of Stalin, there was humor, and articles about the repressions, naming the people who were destroyed... Well, I was twelve years old already—no matter how you look at it, fifth grade, already a literate girl—I read voraciously! I generally loved to do that—just as children today are glued to the television, we loved to read. And the amount of literature I read in my childhood—I never had that much time later. I devoured it, and it made an exceptional impression on me.

Many Galicians appeared in Kyiv. They were very different from our people. They wore hats. Some wore trousers. Some wore nice shoes, others athletic ones. In breeches—those trousers that end below the knee—they wore plaid gaiters. They wore hats or distinctive leather caps. Or some other kinds of jackets. Well, they were different both in appearance and in their use of “proshu” [please], “pereproshuyu” [excuse me], “dyakuyu” [thank you]. As soon as you heard that, you knew it was a Galician. And some inflections in their voices also set them apart.

A shell fell in our courtyard. Our windows were blown out. Replacing the frames and windows—that was a problem! And since there were plenty of empty apartments, we moved to Volodymyrska Street, which is next to the so-called Victims of the Revolution Street. On the corner of Zhytomyrska and Volodymyrska, on the second floor. Where there are now many memorial plaques—Buchma lived there, Uzhviy... So we settled in that building on the second floor. Moreover, my mother immediately invited the building manager and said: “Take everything out of here. We need two rooms.” There were five rooms in the apartment. So three rooms were locked, and they gave us two. We brought some wardrobes, our things, some small rug we had from our apartment.

That was under the German authorities. They let the Galicians in then. Olena Teliha arrived, Olhych. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists arrived here, in Kyiv, literally a couple of weeks after the German army. By the way, the editorial office of the magazine “Lytavry,” which Olena Teliha published, was right across from our house, on Desyatynna Street (Victims of the Revolution), only our building number was 12, and that one was 7 or 9, opposite us. Recently, I was walking there with Yevhen Sverstiuk and his wife Lilia, and I was showing them where in the courtyard “Lytavry” was. I read about it somewhere and imagined where it was. Now the British Embassy is there, with a small courtyard. The street is very nice and clean now, of course. But back then, it was the Kyiv backwoods, and during the war, no one was cleaning it. And that's where we settled.

People who belonged to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists often walked past our building. Several times, right under our windows—I would lean on the windowsill and watch them—a very beautiful, elegantly dressed woman stood, with four or five men around her. They listened to her attentively. This made an impression on me, a little girl. For men to gather around a woman—she must have interested them as a beauty, an actress. So they had to be some kind of suitors. I was surprised by how seriously they listened to her, while she was telling them something interesting. Sometimes they would laugh, but you could feel it was some kind of business relationship.

Then they opened a canteen there and gave us a ration ticket for our Alla. Because the city authorities gave ration tickets to small children so they wouldn't die. I used that ticket to go get lunch. They gave some kind of soup or kasha, drizzled with some machine oil. One day I went in and saw: six people were sitting at a table. I remember it like it was yesterday: five men and in the middle, this beautiful woman. They were discussing their problems and, in my opinion, eating that kasha in a very mannered way. They were eating that wretched kasha, not showing that they were hungry. Maybe they were hungry, but they knew how to carry themselves. I didn't know who they were; I just listened to their language. They were all Galicians, speaking beautifully. I didn't understand their topics, but this group, this company, made an impression on me.

Many years passed—and when I saw her portrait in the Olena Teliha Society, I realized it was her. I recognized her... With her, apparently, were those people who, in early 1942, went to Babyn Yar... They organized and greatly energized the Ukrainians here. In those two or three months, there was such a push for national life—all of Kyiv started speaking Ukrainian. It was half-empty, but it started speaking Ukrainian. Even in the Chapayev cinema, where we used to run, it was written in big letters: “In a Ukrainian establishment—only in Ukrainian!” Or a poster like this: a little girl in an embroidered shirt stands, and it says: *"Українка я маленька, українцi батько й ненька. Коли виросту велика, не злякаюсь труда й лиха, буду браттям помагати Україну визволяти."* Does this affect a twelve-year-old girl? It does. It was all so unfamiliar, so interesting, if you consider...

I’ll show you a photo. This is a photo from my childhood. This is the Institute of Red Professoriate. At the age of five, they send me to Crimea. I came from the village, always spoke Ukrainian, but there I find myself—in a Russian-speaking environment. It's frightening. I want to show you a large photo of me. This is at school, in a children's group, participating in a concert, against the backdrop of a huge portrait of Stalin. This was my upbringing, here I am standing here. Everyone in sun hats. They gave us shorts, t-shirts, sun hats, slippers, socks—all of this was done for the students of the Institute of Red Professoriate and their children.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Is this you in front of Father Stalin?

N.M. Marchenko: In front of Stalin, yes, this is me. And here we were dancing. This is school No. 6, on St. Michael's Square. It was a Ukrainian school. This was in 1938. In Ukrainian dress—he still allowed these theatricals, this was permissible. Here's my mother standing, here's my father—so young, yet worn out, because it was 1934, the time of the famine, although they had a canteen then. But in the canteen, as I recall, it was constantly that cabbage and some kind of millet. The food was very meager, but still, they didn't let them perish.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And where are you here?

N.M. Marchenko: And here, this is me, the one in the embroidered shirt, third in the second row. And do you see the portrait of Stalin? And of course, all the songs were—“Let’s start the day with a song about Stalin.” So you can imagine what a contrast it was for me. And so, as a five-year-old girl, my father brings me to Kharkiv and places me in that environment. Well, there were some children who spoke a little Ukrainian, but mostly it was just me who spoke Ukrainian. The children didn't laugh at me, but after being in that group (we were traveling to Yevpatoria), I started speaking only Russian. When my mother brought me to Hatne in the summer, the children would point their fingers at me, calling me a "barina" [a little lady], because I spoke Russian. I had forgotten how to speak Ukrainian. But then we started speaking Ukrainian again anyway. I came to Kyiv—there it was Russian and Ukrainian. That's how we lived. And here—here was this revelation that there is a Ukrainian language, there is a state. At 12 years old, that somehow opens up the world to you.

Columns of prisoners of war being herded to Babyn Yar... Columns of Jews being led and transported to Babyn Yar... And then they started shooting Ukrainians too.

My father's own brother, Stepan Ivanovych Marchenko, returned from encirclement. This was in late 1941, around November. He immediately joined the Ukrainian nationalists, he was in the city duma. For a short time, probably two months, the city duma was headed by Oleksandr Petrovych Ohloblin. (He was an opponent at my father's dissertation defense. And my father's topic, by the way, was very interesting. In 1940, he defended his dissertation “Ukraine’s Struggle Against Poland and Russia.” Can you imagine, such a topic in 1940?). Ohloblin greatly respected my father. When the Germans entered, it was he who helped—he issued a ration coupon for Alla. I could take a little from that food too, a couple of spoonfuls. He himself was also in great need—from where would he get anything, it was the occupation! At that time, he was the head of the city Duma—I think that’s what it was called. Or the city Council. No, it was the Duma. He was made its head then. He was there for a couple of months, but all those Galician-Ukrainians gathered around him, and then many more Ukrainians appeared here—the intelligentsia that hadn’t been shot came here. There were many of them. And the Germans, obviously, got scared. No, they didn't get scared, but the underground Chekists provoked the Germans against the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians began to actively fight back.

When the arrests began, my uncle Stepan said: "You, Oksana, don't be afraid of anything, just wait. The war will resolve itself somehow. But I have to flee." I remember this as if it were yesterday, because I even thought: why is he fleeing, where is he fleeing to? He left for Germany. The Germans shot him there somewhere around 1944. They were catching Ukrainians wherever they could and shooting them. A girl from Hatne, who worked at a factory in Germany, said this. She said she had heard somewhere, or maybe even saw it herself, two Germans leading my uncle, and he was shouting: "If anyone is from the Kyiv region, from Hatne—tell them that I, Stepan Marchenko, was shot by the Germans!" He shouted this... He was so energetic and brave... He was a lieutenant before the war, got caught in an encirclement. This same uncle of mine, Stepan, somewhere around 1938, in the company of the students from the Institute of Red Professoriate, sang loudly, for the whole building to hear: *"Ще не вмерла Україна!"* [Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished!]. My father was terrified: "Get out of here," he says, "what are you starting here!" But it passed without incident.

That was the kind of environment I was in. Then we waited for the return of our people as if for manna from heaven. We waited so eagerly. We wanted the Red Army to return so badly, for our own people to come back! The Germans were so disgusting, so cruel... They treated our people like cattle. In the summer, I was living in Hatne, herding my grandmother’s cow—and two or three Germans jump into the garden. Every little onion was planted by my old grandmother; my mother wasn't there, my aunt wasn't there, they were out somewhere trying to trade a rag for some food because there were many children who needed to be fed, we were poor, hungry, had nothing to wear, we were barefoot—and they jump into the garden and pull up all the onions. In front of the children, in front of the old grandmother... All of it was so irritating, so repulsive... We hated them. We feared them and hated them. And we dreamed of when our people would return. God willing, our father would return too—then life would be different. And indeed, in 1943 the Soviet Army entered, and in 1944, my father wrote a letter.

My father spent several months in frosty Novosibirsk in a large cell, where there were two or three informants planted. They reported on him, saying that he was conducting Ukrainian nationalist propaganda, that he spoke Ukrainian with his cellmates and told them the history of Ukraine in Ukrainian. A new case was opened against my father, and they wanted to try him. Maybe they didn't, because it was wartime, or perhaps the investigators got tired—two investigators... All of this was discovered by a historian—the academic secretary of the Institute of History of Ukraine—I’ve forgotten his last name... For the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Institute of History of Ukraine, which was celebrated last year, he published this very interesting material in the third and fourth issues of the "Ukrainian Historical Journal" of 1997. The Institute of History of Ukraine was founded in 1937; my father was the head of the department of feudalism there. That historian found these materials in the KGB archives. The interrogation of my father, the questions and answers. What erudition, what a keen mind... I get the impression that by the end of that dialogue, the investigator must have been moved by something. You can feel the questions becoming softer and softer. So-and-so, a cellmate, writes that you were engaged in agitation and propaganda. And he says: well, if it's agitation and propaganda that out of boredom (he uses a different phrase there) I gave a lecture (as I am a teacher) on the history of Ukraine, about the struggle of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, in Ukrainian, then I was speaking the language of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This is our republic, and the history of Ukraine is taught in this language. These were the answers of an erudite, educated man. So they relented and issued a verdict: "Not confirmed." The charge was dropped.

As for his imprisonment, he had no official charge. There was a denunciation by Bilous—the director of the Institute of History, and by Petrovsky—the deputy or the party organizer. Or vice versa. Their denunciations, starting from 1940, were the reason. As soon as he arrived from Lviv, they wrote denunciations. Based on these denunciations, my father was arrested in 1941. But he was never formally charged with anything. My father wrote to the Directorate, probably to the GULAG, demanding a trial, because he was imprisoned without investigation. He was arrested on the first night of the war. He had memories that when he was arrested on the night of June 22-23, they came for us at half-past two in the morning, searched the place until about seven, and then took him away. He was sitting in that “voronok” [paddy wagon] and counted off that they were taking him to 33 Korolenko Street. It wasn’t a long way, so he realized they were taking him there. When they arrived, the courtyard was already full, packed with intelligentsia. And what struck him most—there were many intelligent-looking women in hats, the kind he hadn't seemed to meet on the streets. A full courtyard... They stood there for a certain time, and then they were taken to their cells. The cells were packed. He was being led somewhere, and at that moment the guard said: “Halt! Hands behind your back!” He says he turned to the wall, but with one eye he saw them leading Hryhoriy Donets, the famous singer from the opera theater, with his hands behind his back. He was being taken somewhere for questioning. That, he said, was the encounter I had. I understood that they had arrested probably the entire intelligentsia of Kyiv, and maybe even brought some from nearby cities. That was on the first day of the war.

When the Reds returned, I went to school No. 6, to the 6th grade, at the end of 1943.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And did you go to school during the German occupation?

N.M. Marchenko: I did, there was a school. The Germans entered in 1941, on September 18-19, and by October, a school had already been opened. Not far from us, one opened up where school No. 13 had been before the war. It was nearby, right across from the fire station. Our teachers came back. It was cold in the school. They gave us a piece of bread and taught us something. Thanks to that, I learned some German. We had German class almost every day. Our teacher taught quite well. I think she later became a Volksdeutsch. But we were in great poverty. The school was open for a very short time, just two months. I don't know if it was still open in forty-two. Many children didn't go because it was cold and they were hungry. Well, I went for a little while. That was when I entered the sixth grade.

Then our forces, the Soviet Army, entered. That was also a terrible blow to the psyche... We waited for them so eagerly, we hid from the Germans, because they were already demoralized. They were retreating. In some, a kind of pity was awakening, but in many—cruelty. What did it matter to shoot these children or shove a woman? But somehow we survived this retreat. They would retreat, then re-enter the village, then retreat again, then re-enter. Finally, we heard: "Ours, ours!" We all ran out of our houses and saw our men. They were so tattered, so hungry, they were wrapped in torn blankets... These were the suicide soldiers, sent in first. It was already cold, it was November—the fifth or sixth of November. The nights were cold, but they had on their side caps, pulled over their ears, some blankets, and they were saying: “Mat’ [mother], khleba, khleba, dai kusochek khleba!” [Mother, bread, bread, give us a piece of bread!] And my grandmother brought some out. She had stored up flour, knowing these transitions would happen. She had begged it from the Germans. She baked what she could. She brought out flatbreads, because baking proper bread was already a problem. So she baked these flatbreads and brought them out. We had a cow that she desperately hid from the Germans. She milked the cow, brought out two jars, and poured it for them. I remember it as if it were yesterday: they held out their dented mugs: "Spasibo, mat’, spasibo!" [Thank you, mother, thank you!] They were hungry... Their smiles were like those, you know, of a person emerging from a terrible confinement, who doesn’t know how to look at the world. It was something like that with these men I saw at the crossroads. I can still see that road now, the one that goes to the so-called Shvarnovka—the road we take to Hatne.

We rushed to them as if to our saviors, but we saw tormented, morally crushed people. Life was barely flickering in them. I don't know if any of those people who endured such horror survived. They were the death-squad soldiers, thrown straight into the line of fire. Later, of course, the tanks began to roll in. The tank crews sitting there were armed, in clean uniforms, showered with flowers. Because we too had come out with flowers. I don't remember who told us that our troops would be coming and that we should greet them with flowers. I recall gathering marigolds, the last little flowers, and going out. So, handsome, armed soldiers were riding by then. But that was later. After those suicide soldiers, we were bombed and bombed—both by the Germans and the Soviets—I can't understand if they couldn't get their bearings, or if it was to sow fear, or if they were separating the first units from the second. But I know that planes with red stars flew over us, shooting, causing so much fear, and at night "Katyushas" fired over our heads... It was war... But I don't know how interesting this is for you...

When I went back to school, they began to actively recruit for the Komsomol. But I refused on principle. This I remember well, that I refused to join the Komsomol on principle. Something influenced me—I can't say it was some special national consciousness. No, but for some reason, I just didn't want to join that organization. I must have matured a lot during the war—I was 15, but I felt like I was twenty. Maybe because my mother often left me alone with my little sister, because we were hungry, looking for ways to get food, there was no soap to wash or clean with, we had to carry water from a ravine far away... War makes people grow up. That’s how it was.

My father returned in 1945. The war ended in May, and he returned sometime in the summer, perhaps in July. He had already been working at the Novosibirsk Pedagogical Institute for over a year. They hired him without any documents, only a certificate of rehabilitation. They hired him as a lecturer—not as a full-time faculty member, but a lecturer. After hearing his lectures, they invited him to some officer's school. He taught the history of the USSR there as well. But to return to Ukraine, he needed an official summons. I approached my father's acquaintances, the Ministry of Education, and the university, but no one would issue a summons—they were afraid, as he was a repressed person. And he needed an invitation from an official institution. Relatives couldn't help. He went to Moscow from Novosibirsk and somehow managed to arrange some kind of certificate for himself and came back with it. Or maybe they arranged a deployment or some sort of official trip for him. The main thing was that he needed to get here. A work-related trip, most likely. He went to the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute, and they hired him based on the documents that, apparently, had been preserved. Or someone vouched for him. But he spent many years after that restoring his documents—this document is missing, that one is missing, another one too. To restore his status as a teacher, a Candidate of Sciences, he had to overcome all these bureaucratic barriers. But God willing, everything worked out, and he was even made pro-rector for academic affairs at the pedagogical institute. The rehabilitation allowed him to be reinstated in the Party. Andriy was just sitting here with you... Ah, no, you weren't in the 35th zone. I forgot his last name... He used to listen to my father's lectures. Whenever he would come to visit me, and he visited here for a long time...

V.V. Ovsiienko: Perhaps Andriy Koroban?

N.M. Marchenko: Koroban. Yes, he was enthralled by my father's lectures. Later, the history department at the pedagogical institute was disbanded, and my father was transferred to Kyiv University. It might have been in 1957, because in fifty-six, when Khrushchev was denouncing the cult of personality of Stalin, after the 20th Congress, my father spoke at an open party meeting. It was a huge meeting at the pedagogical institute. He said something that was not to Khrushchev's liking. He said that Stalin had covered the entire country with gallows—so where was Khrushchev, who is now denouncing him? And something else in that vein. It was such a shock—not stress, but a shock—like a volcanic eruption, that the incident is still remembered today. It resounded not only throughout Ukraine, but it was talked about abroad as well. My father was summoned to the Central Committee. When he went in, they took his party card and put it in a drawer. It was a sign of new repressions. My father, of course, understood that it was starting all over again. But somehow, it worked out. They tormented him for a long, long time, summoning him to the Central Committee. He continued to work, and outwardly, he showed no signs of anxiety. He didn't share this with us; only my mother knew. He didn't tell us anything. And then—I don't know how he got out of it, but it seems to me that the Central Committee Secretary for Ideology, Chervonenko, intervened. My father had a good relationship with him because he had helped him write his dissertation. Maybe it was before the war, or after the war when he returned.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Could that be the same Chervonenko who later worked in diplomacy? An ambassador, a well-known name?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, probably, probably. A famous name, he held a strong position. He, it seems, acted out of pure human sympathy... My father remained in teaching until Valeriy's arrest, until 1984. He was branded for life—a nationalist. Speaks Ukrainian... And my father spoke Ukrainian on the street. People were drawn to him. His friends included Maksym Rylsky and Sosiura, and there were fine actors from the Franko Theater—my older sister Lesia knows all their names and all of my father's contacts. They used to meet in a small cellar across from the Opera Theater. In that cellar, over a glass of wine, they could speak frankly. Maksym Rylsky was very fond of my father because he had an encyclopedic memory. The entire history of Ukraine was in his head. So it was a pleasure for all of them to talk with him.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Was that perhaps the cellar “Transcarpathian Rose,” where a huge building now stands opposite the National Opera?

N.M. Marchenko: Let me try to remember. Yes, but a little closer this way. There was a pharmacy on the corner, and next to it... It was probably in that building. But that building wasn't there then; it was laid out differently.

He adored Kyiv. He knew Ukraine perfectly. He had traveled all over Ukraine. Now they have restored—or rather, rebuilt—St. Michael's Square, and he used to go to that St. Michael's bell tower.

One day I am standing there—and my heart just stops. I think: My God, they built a monument to my father! Firstly, his whole life, until 1964, he lived here, on St. Michael's Square. But most importantly—when they were gathering historians in 1934-35, my father refused to sign the document stating that St. Michael's Monastery, the cathedral, the church, the entire St. Michael's complex, had no historical value. My father refused. And several people were shot for such a refusal—there was an architect... Forgive me, my memory is not what it used to be...

V.V. Ovsiienko: The one for whom a memorial plaque was installed there?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, there is a memorial plaque there (for archaeologist Mykola Makarenko. – Ed.). When I look at it... I studied at school No. 6 there too, and Valeriy's childhood was spent there. Because he was constantly running over to his grandpa and grandma. And our whole family lived there. One day I came out of the church, looking at the restored square, which was still completely empty, they hadn't opened the bell tower yet. A woman was standing there, her lips pursed, shrugging her shoulders. I approached her and said, “It's so beautiful, this square!” And she says to me in Russian: “There are so many shortages, the miners are on strike, there are no pensions, and here we have such extravagances, they've built such an expensive square!” And I say: “Let me take another side of it. I am a Kyivan and I believe that if Kyiv is becoming beautiful, then honor and praise to those who want it to be beautiful!” I grew up on this square, and for as long as I can remember, it was in ruins. When we arrived here, they destroyed St. Michael's Cathedral. Then right here, next to our building, they destroyed the Church of the Three Saints. They began building the regional party committee building on its site. Although they built it at a rapid pace, we were constantly playing in the ruins. All that broken brick, construction fences standing around... Then the war. Our side planted mines under the new regional party committee building. They were going to blow it up. We started fleeing to Podil, because if the regional committee building blew up, so would our house. Then came the roar of German vehicles, pulling out those mines. Ruins again—the Germans started taking valuable frames, marble stairs, doors from the regional party committee building—all of it was being taken out. Ruins again. Then Kyiv is being rebuilt—ruins. As I said, for as long as I can remember—it was all ruins. We had a tiny little spot to ride our bicycles. All of that was smoothed over by youth, we didn’t notice it—and suddenly this square and our Desyatynna Street, and everything is so beautiful, so luxurious... The chime of the St. Sophia bell tower and the St. Michael's bell tower... You stand by the St. Michael's bell tower and you see the entire St. Michael's Square, you see Bohdan Khmelnytsky, you see St. Sophia—what could be more precious? I’m ready, I say, to not eat for three days just to see this beauty! And she said: “Navernoe, vy pravy, vy pravy.” [Perhaps you are right, you are right]. I say, only a person who does not love Kyiv, who is indifferent to it, could object to its restoration.

And everything else—well, what can you do if the power is in the hands of the wrong people, not those who care about our nation? Because there is poverty and misery for many. But, on the other hand, there is also luxury. At least, I see here—even our pensioners somehow manage, they find a way out. You know, when a person is clothed—and people are clothed now, just look: at the markets, that junk is pennies. Can you imagine a T-shirt costing 25 kopecks? 25 kopecks for a T-shirt... My Alla went to the market and said: "Look at this: I bought two T-shirts for 50 kopecks." Such things also happen. When a person is dressed, you can somehow manage with food. And if a person is not lazy, they will find a way out of the situation. There's a need for hands in the villages. One can find something for oneself. Well, we've digressed.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Let's return to the 1950s.

N.M. Marchenko: In 1946, I got married and moved to Kiyanivskyi Lane. That's if you walk along Zhytomyrska Street... I wasn't even 18 years old. In forty-seven, in September, Valera was born. He was finishing school No. 25, I was finishing school No. 6, we knew each other, Valera's father and I. He was an ordinary, average Kyiv boy, just like me, and by nationality, he was Russian. But he grew up in occupied Kyiv, and he had not the slightest prejudice about the fact that I speak Ukrainian, that we speak Ukrainian at home—he would switch. His parents had moved here from distant Siberia in the first years of Soviet power, sometime around 1918. A large family, his father was a shoemaker, his mother was a seamstress—simple people like that. I never met his father, but his mother was a very kind-hearted Russian-Katsapka woman, a simple woman. She treated me very well, very well. Now, when I arrange a memorial service, when I pray, I always remember her. They welcomed me very nicely, a large family, and: “Nevestochka, zarya vechernyaya”... [Little bride, evening star...] All the kind words they said to me! They loved me. But he had a number of character flaws that were impossible to put up with. But this is so personal that I wouldn't want to talk about it.

V.V. Ovsiienko: His name was Veniamin—and his last name?

N.M. Marchenko: Veniamin Umrilov. They came from Russia, my mother-in-law had ten children. He was the second to last, there was still a Tamara. It was like this: the eldest daughter, Olga, was the same age as my father, then she had Zoya—the same age as my mother, Mykola, Oleksandr, Nina, Valya—well, ten children, and he was the second to last, born in 1926. And he lived through the occupation here, so he knew the price of everything, he knew that hardship. And because of that, when I sent Valera to a Ukrainian school, there were no objections. He loved my Ukrainian songs, he loved my stories. In principle, things would have been good if it weren't for some “Asiatic blood” raging in him. There was a certain kind of petty tyranny, you know, that Russian thing, that Russian cruelty and not just a coarse, but a dismissive attitude towards a woman: a woman is an appendage. Well, and one character against another...

V.V. Ovsiienko: You have an independent character.

N.M. Marchenko: Independent. And Valera always talked about that. He said that with mother's character, one could get out of a situation where it's hard to imagine doing so.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And did you study anywhere?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, after I got married, I enrolled in the teacher-training institute. That was in 1950. He desperately didn't want me to study. He wanted his wife to be by his side. He graduated from the hydro-melioration institute and the forestry institute; he had two degrees. But the wife must be by his side and have no education! I studied anyway.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What is your field?

N.M. Marchenko: Ukrainian philology. Then, after the teacher-training institute, I immediately enrolled in the pedagogical institute. There was such a keen desire to learn—you know, that feeling of being undereducated, of having missed something—I want, I want, I want! Such a keen desire that it gave me an education. Basically, I was taking an education—it wasn't being given to me, I was taking it.

V.V. Ovsiienko: The teacher-training institute—that must have been two years, right?

N.M. Marchenko: The teacher-training institute, full-time—two years; the pedagogical institute, by correspondence—I think four years. I don't remember when I enrolled, but I graduated in 1957. Then there was also the University of Marxism-Leninism, where I was sent as a teacher, and I went three times a week in the evenings. They taught history there, I wanted it, I wanted all of it! Then there were year-long advanced qualification courses. In short, I started studying in 1950 and just kept going—I was sitting and telling Maksym* *(the son of Mariana, the daughter of Vasyl Smuzhanitsya. - V.O.) this: see, your grandmother studied for so, so, so long!

But working at the school was incredibly difficult. I started working in 1952 at school No. 70, in Lukianivka. There is a street there called Pugachova. I worked on that street from 1952 to 1961. Then I worked one more year—in short, I worked at the school for ten years. It was very difficult for me to work there. Why? Because the school was next to KVIRTU (Kyiv Higher Engineering Radio-Technical College of Air Defense. – V.O.). The children of military personnel studied there, it was initially a boys' school, with a complete disregard for the Ukrainian language. The head of studies was a chauvinist who had come from Russia and would say that it was not needed by anyone: “Chto—dvoika? Da komu ona nuzhna!” [What, a D-grade? Who needs it anyway!] Those were roughly the conversations. Instead of protecting me or my subject, she, on the contrary, at meetings and everywhere else, would emphasize: “Eto ne vazhno.” [It's not important.] Children get exemptions from studying Ukrainian—let them.

So it was very difficult, and to reinforce my own consciousness: why? Why—this is the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, isn't it? So why such contempt? And why must I speak Russian? This is also interconnected, although at home my environment was Russian-speaking. I spoke Russian, but I would switch to Ukrainian. And even my mother-in-law was calm about me speaking Ukrainian. And no one looked down on me, no one called me a `Hapka` [a rustic name], a village girl—no, it was normal, probably my own behavior didn't give any reason for that. But at school, it was very difficult. Although the children treated me well. And there were many hooligans who would skip classes, but they would come to my lessons because I would find something interesting. But it was very hard to work there—that general atmosphere.

So, I taught until 1961. My older sister Larysa also worked as a Ukrainian language teacher, and then she was hired as an editor at the "Radyanska Shkola" publishing house. One day I went there, and there were such intelligent, lovely girls, translators, editors. It was their lunch break, they were sitting around, joking. I sat down with them and said: "Oh, it's so nice to be with you! The whole publishing house speaks Ukrainian here—while at my school it's endless torment, you never know what to expect tomorrow. You give an objective grade—they rap you on the knuckles; you start making concessions—your conscience torments you." And Lesia says: "Oh! The Institute of Pedagogy needs a researcher—leave that godforsaken school and go work at the UNRIP [Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Pedagogy]!" I say: "Oh, how can I go? That's academic work, I don't feel like it."

And so I struggled on for about another year, and then—it was the end of my tenth year of teaching—I thought: well, I have no more strength, I don't see the cherry blossoms, the summer passes, and I have to be buried in that literature. There were its own difficulties, but on top of that, there was the moral aspect—no one in the school supported the Ukrainian language. And so I went to that Institute of Pedagogy. My sister had already put in a word for me, and they hired me quickly. I went to the Institute of Pedagogy as an acting junior research fellow. At school, I earned up to 150 rubles, but here the salary was paltry—83. But they promised me the opportunity to work at the school as well. In the very first week, I started going to the library. And I thought: My God, I'm sitting here gaining knowledge for myself, and they're even paying me for it—how wonderful! I switched to this meager salary.

By that time, things with my husband were very... In fact, after about five years I felt we wouldn't last long, but I lived with him for seventeen years. Then I left him, I "ran around" to get this apartment in Nyvky, and Valeriy was about thirteen years old when he said: "Mom, let's leave him!" Valera was so insistent, because I had hesitated, in part, because of him, thinking: how will a child be without a father?

I "ran around" to get that apartment in Nyvky. There was an interesting situation then—in the district executive committee, there was a man named Kuts, the head of the committee, who even back then, in the late 50s, was speculating in apartments, selling them. They would allocate those Khrushchev-era apartments, and he would sell them. Some struggle began there, back and forth and then bam!—this Kuts was exposed for taking "large-scale bribes," and he was shot. They sent some former secretary or instructor from the Central Committee of the Komsomol there, I don't remember him. He took it upon himself to distribute apartments fairly, primarily among doctors and teachers. Well, I fell into that category, and I wasn't on the waiting list for long. I think I got on the list in '60, because I didn't have my own apartment—I lived with my husband in Kiyanivskyi Lane, they had a small apartment above the entrance. True, everyone got a tiny room. And so I... I would rather not have this recorded in such detail...

V.V. Ovsiienko: Well, look—it will be recorded as you say.

N.M. Marchenko: Then, perhaps, turn it off, because this is such a trivial matter... (Dictaphone is turned off).

While we lived in Kiyanivskyi Lane, my son went to school No. 155. He was a very good student. There were no problems at all—everything that needed to be done was done. Besides, he was so active; he started getting into sports from about the second grade. Well, a city boy in the best sense. I never heard him swear; I had no problems with him. A certain independence developed early, and a great respect and pride for me—that his mom could stand up for herself, that his mom both studies and works, that his mom is a good teacher, that children come running to his mom. On any holiday, they bring me flowers and talk with me, and he had a kind of pride in me. And when he said, "Mom, let's leave him," I started to persistently pursue this apartment. The situation helped me, and I got a two-room apartment in Nyvky, at 72 Shcherbakova Street, on the fourth floor.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What year was that?

N.M. Marchenko: That was in 1963. The two of us left together. There were some conflicts, as always happens with divorces, but it all worked out. My son and I started living together in this apartment. Valeriy was almost 16 years old then. He went to school No. 175 in Nyvky. He started tenth grade there and finished eleventh. Everything was fine, except for chemistry. He had problems with chemistry, and he happened to have a very confrontational, very unpleasant teacher. Because of that chemistry, and also mathematics... In short, you focus on one thing and let another slip, so he didn't get a medal. But I wasn't really pushing for it. He finished 11 grades well enough, the two of us were together, and it was very good.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So he graduated from school in 1965?

N.M. Marchenko: He graduated in 1965. And once we started living together, and I no longer had that distraction—because these family conflicts, dissatisfaction, your mood, you pay less attention to the child. But then it was just the two of us, and I felt how close we were. We had such a good time—he would stay out late, play soccer (I have photos of him playing soccer right in the yard in Nyvky, and volleyball). And when he came home in the evening, we’d have a snack, drink some tea, and we could sit in the kitchen until three in the morning: “Want some more tea?” — “Sure, let’s.” We’d just talk and talk. He was interested in everything—he was interested in everyday problems, he was interested in the problem of women: “What was it that hindered you so much: you married early, there was love—and what did your life turn into? Why did that happen?” Well, I told him what a woman needs from a man, what a man should be like, how much respect there must be, and then the most important thing—faithfulness. If there is even a small betrayal in a relationship, that person will never be decent in life. I’d say, a man is tested by his relationships with women.

These were the kinds of conversations I had with him. I found it very interesting to talk with him. First and foremost, interesting because he was the closest person to me—he wouldn't betray you, no matter what you said, whether it was right or not. Once he told me, "You told me something different last time." "Well, I said that then—people change. Then you start to think—maybe this is what's right."

There were various situations, you know. We lived poorly, my salary was small, I had refused alimony. To constantly go to my parents with an outstretched hand, my conscience somehow wouldn't allow it—how long could I do that, I was already thirty-six myself, or however old I was. Times were tough, and one time they built this huge factory in Nyvky—that vegetable factory is still operating—and in early spring, the cabbage ripened there. And Valera was running around somewhere—I trusted him a lot and knew he wouldn't get into trouble—and so one morning I get up, go to the kitchen to prepare something to eat, and there on my table lie two magnificent fresh heads of cabbage. Oh! I started to think: maybe I was drunk yesterday? Where did this come from? What is this? I say, "Valera!" And he comes out so proud, and I ask, "Where did we get cabbage from?" "Oh, the guys and I pulled off such a stunt yesterday! We went to the vegetable factory." "How did you get in?" And my head starts throbbing: if I let this theft slide, it will lead to what I saw in Kiyanivka. And there was a lot of lumpen there, a lot of thieves, those endless curse words, that foul language—it was terrible! Fights. And there were thieves. It's not far, between the Hay Market and Podil—there were all kinds of riffraff there. I think, if I let this go, something will click, what he saw will work its way out, it's in his head, and he could become a thief, and then I won't be able to handle him.

And so this is going through my head... I mean, what are two heads of cabbage, who saw them? Just eat these two heads of cabbage, there's nothing at home, fry them up—this is the internal struggle, because I'm still young myself, it's not like I had any experience. "How did you get in there?" "Oh, you know, there was even a guard, but it was so exciting for us! We crawled under the wires so they wouldn't be prickly. We laughed so hard!" Valera is in a humorous mood, telling me about it, because we're friends, we're used to sharing things like this. I say, "You will go now, and you will take those cabbages back." He got so scared! So scared! "What?!" "Just like that, you'll take these two heads of cabbage, take them back and say—whatever you want, make something up, but those cabbages must be returned." He stood there like that: "I won't do it." I say, "Then I will." I grab those cabbages—swoosh, swoosh!—and into the trash can: "See? Now I'm taking out the bucket." He: "Mom, don't do that—it's cabbage, I won't do it again, we'll eat them." "No, we will not eat them." I went and threw them in the trash—I wrapped them up so people wouldn't see. Fresh heads of cabbage—I threw them in the trash, and that was that. That example, just as our mother taught us, I told him: "Valera, never reach for what isn't yours! Well, I understand that these were just boys' tricks and stunts, but they pull you in—at first it seems like a joke, and then... You shouldn't do it. You have such prospects, you must be the most intelligent boy among those around us."

Then there was a fight. Some punk at school was bugging him, bugging and bugging him—and there was a huge fight in the Nyvky forest. So for that, we had the same kind of conversation: "Valera, a human is born a human. That's what distinguishes you from those stag beetles that lock horns and can't get untangled—you need to think. Outwit him with a word so that everyone laughs, and he doesn't know where to hide. Don't fight, or you'll end up maimed." They broke his nose—he had a broken nose—and he broke the other boy's leg. That boy was left crippled for life, with a broken leg. He whacked him with something, and the other boy broke his nose—that's what happened. I tell him: "There's a difference, isn't there? The next time, you'll lose an eye, and the time after that you'll become an invalid. Don't do it, don't do this! It's not the way to defend your opinion."

V.V. Ovsiienko: And was he a big, strong boy? Because in the photo, he looks so thin.

N.M. Marchenko: No, since childhood, he was small and thin. He didn't eat anything—that was a problem for us. He ate nothing—it's so strange: a child could go a day, two, three without eating. My mother-in-law used to tell me: if he doesn't eat, he doesn't eat, eventually he'll want to. No, he wouldn't. Then somehow my father got him a voucher to a Pioneer camp in Odesa, he spent two months there by the sea, and then I immediately took him to the village for a month for fresh milk—and he started growing, he got an appetite, he started to eat. And then he started to get very actively involved in sports and with God's help, he became strong. But, apparently, it was my son's fate that he... He was already in the 11th grade, and when they started calling him to the military enlistment office, they discovered he had nephritis.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And how did that happen?

N.M. Marchenko: Who knows. He was an athlete—he could have fallen asleep on the sand somewhere and caught a chill. We racked our brains trying to figure out where it could have come from—I'm sure it was on the Dnipro. He loved the water, swam a lot, he even did underwater swimming and canoed. He'd come out in his wet swimming trunks and lie on the sand—you know how it is. Something happened somewhere, and I didn't pay attention to it right away. That was our life with Valeriy.

Well, what about the Institute of Pedagogy? Just like in all academic institutions—everyone struggles on their own, however it turns out for them. These constant meetings—if not party meetings, then trade union ones. There were academic councils. You listen and listen—well, maybe you pick up a crumb for yourself, but mostly you work on your own, you go to the library, you do something. At first, what you produce is completely illiterate, then little by little you improve. I started to work: a publication in a joint collection, we published a textbook for teachers, "Studying Pronouns and Numerals in School." Then I took on the topic "Maintaining Continuity and Prospectiveness in Ukrainian Language Lessons in Secondary School." This is the link between elementary school and secondary school, then between the different levels of secondary school. It was a very complex topic, and I got bogged down in it. It would have been interesting as a methodical guide, but I didn't realize that at first. But as an academic work, a dissertation, there are certain difficulties.

I had teachers who helped me, conducted an experiment, and finally, in 1968, I defended my dissertation on the topic "Maintaining Continuity and Prospectiveness in Ukrainian Language Lessons in Secondary School." I have the abstract and articles here. A book was prepared, but I never managed to publish it. Valera and Abas were at my defense—there is a translator, Abdula Abas in Azerbaijan—they were at my defense, listening. Well, then things got much better for Valera and me financially, because I started earning more. But by then I had already moved from the Institute of Pedagogy to the pedagogical institute.

A laboratory for educational television broadcasts was created at the pedagogical institute. I was hired for this laboratory as a senior lecturer of Ukrainian language and literature. And I prepared the first lessons in Ukrainian language and literature with our republican television studio. That was from 1967. These were the first lessons—mine, but I wasn't the only one making them, I also involved teachers, editors, and there was directing at the TV studio. But again, as soon as we touched upon the problem of Ukrainian language and literature on television, a host of obstacles began to appear. I suffered so much! As long as I worked on my own—I wrote a little manual, an editor corrected something, they threw something out—you agree. But as soon as it goes on screen—it has to be the best, because I understand what a teacher needs in the classroom—they start cutting things, demanding only ideology, only the image of Lenin, the leading role of the Party, that "cap" had to be there. No matter what lesson you prepare for television—no, you have to cut it down. But it doesn't fit here! "Phraseology in language lessons"—that was one lesson. No, all the examples must be from Lenin, from the Program of the Communist Party. This drove me crazy. On top of that, there was a chauvinist editor, a woman named Zhukova, Inna, so nasty, she knew nothing about schools, but she would interfere, she would dictate to me. Well, it was very difficult, and I would come home and complain to Valeriy. It was, you know, like adding fuel to the fire—a young soul, already knows a lot, has read a lot, and then his mother comes home with her problems...

V.V. Ovsiienko: And tells you real-life examples?

N.M. Marchenko: And tells me real-life examples—this and that. Well, look at it with a fresh eye, you're a philologist—this was 1968, he had already been at the university for three years—see, which way is better? "Mom, of course, there can be no two opinions about it." —Well, there can be no two opinions, but here there is a third opinion—her opinion, and that's it, and she won't let it on the screen. What am I supposed to do?" These were the kinds of conversations we had.

In 1969... I had known Vasyl Ivanovych Smuzhanitsya for a long time, he was a very good school principal in the Precarpathian region and was a correspondent for the Institute of Pedagogy. I had known him for a long time. He used to come to our institute, a very decent man, very reserved, cultured, so neat, always trim. One time, the republican television, our educational television laboratory at the pedagogical institute, the local institute for teacher development in Ivano-Frankivsk, organized a republican off-site meeting, to which principals and vice-principals of many schools in Ukraine were invited, to discuss the problems of educational television. It was a very interesting conference. I gave a speech there, and Vasyl Ivanovych also spoke as a practitioner, as a school principal, because he was a correspondent for our institute and somehow became interested in this problem. He gave a very good speech. And somehow we got to talking, because we were already acquainted, and then they arranged lunch for us. We were walking, talking and talking, and he started telling me about his daughter, that he was a widower, that he had a big problem with his wife. Things like that. He told me that his girl was practically an orphan because she was neglected, the girl was 9 years old.

So we got to talking, and I said: “Come visit, call me, because I no longer work at the Institute of Pedagogy.” He started calling me from there. And even before that, I had been the head of the state commission at the Mukachevo pedagogical school, so we saw each other there, because he wasn't in Mukachevo itself, but was a school principal near Mukachevo. We saw each other in Mukachevo, and then we met here and got to talking—in short, we had known each other for about eight years by 1970, since I had come to that Institute of Pedagogy, and then in 1970 we got married.

He brought this little girl, 10 years old. But she was supposed to be going into the 5th grade. I started testing her in the summer and said: “You know what, go to the fifth grade again.” She was supposed to go to the sixth grade, but I said she should study one more year. She studied for one more year, and Valera and I took her under our wing. He taught her English jokingly, got her used to writing essays. She got along very well with Valera. She is 13 years younger than Valera. He, when he was already working at "Literaturna Ukrayina," there would be evening events or he would go to the theater somewhere (as a correspondent he ran around everywhere), he would come back late, and she would be sleeping, and there was always a nightstand or a chair next to her. He would come in at night, bring a pack of candy or something else, put it down—“This is for Marianka.” He treated her very well and warmly, and she loved him very much, and she was very grateful to him for everything. They would go to the garden...

This is about Valera's relationship with Mariana—that she was both grateful to him and loved him, and was proud to have such an intelligent, handsome brother. When we would go to Mukachevo, all the relatives there were absolutely delighted that such a journalist treated Mariana so simply and kindly. Valera was a very soulful boy in general. I look now, many young men are around me these days, for one reason or another. Someone's son, just some acquaintances—they seem so wild, so coarse. There's nothing to talk about—you come to visit relatives, and he's just silent. Well, you're a boy, you're over 20—you have no topic for conversation and you don't want to talk about anything, you're not interested in anything. So I sit there and start to prod him, you know, like you'd jingle a rattle in front of a grown boy—just talk, just laugh, say something! And then it becomes so distasteful.

Valera always had the initiative in his hands. He knew how to get along with people so well, and even the seemingly uninteresting Mariana (she was so fat, so round), he would find a way to get to her, make her do exercises: “Why are you letting your belly go?” But he never insulted her, never. If she got a bad grade, he would be so ironic about that D-grade that she would have tears in her eyes. She was, to be honest, a bit of a fibber as a child, so he was always teaching her: “You know, Mariana, as soon as a person lies, their intellect is also inferior—that’s a sign of something... Because a smart person has no need to lie. It’s better to just say nothing, but a person shouldn't lie.”

Those were the kinds of conversations we had. We were very happy. We were fortunate. Every year we would go on vacation to Transcarpathia—either with a voucher or to visit relatives. Vasyl Ivanovych would organize trips for Valera all over Transcarpathia. He met interesting people there. Vasyl didn't know, but he would find nationalists—those who had participated back in 1938 in that Hutsul Revolution. He wouldn't tell Vasyl, but he would come to me and say: “You know, I met such an interesting old man, such an interesting old man!” And he would tell me stories, because Vasyl Ivanovych and his brother were somehow detached from those events—they were from Mukachevo, his brother studied in Hungary, and Vasyl studied later in Czechoslovakia. They were more inclined for Transcarpathia to become Soviet, rather than Ukrainian. Vasyl became a Ukrainian through his interactions with me and Valera. Yes, yes. Although he spoke the Transcarpathian dialect, he treated us with great attention and respect and became imbued with it. He told me as much: "I became this kind of Ukrainian and understand what's what, thanks to you. I was cut off from that." Well, the people of Transcarpathia are a special people, they are more materialistic.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And in the sixties—were you involved in any way in the national movement—with the Sixtiers? Did you attend any evening events, and what was Valeriy’s involvement in that? I know he entered Kyiv University in 1965, and then he was in Baku—from what year was that? In what form was it—did he study there full-time?

N.M. Marchenko: As for the Sixtiers, I began to know them from 1963. I was not part of any organization. In fact, there was no organization there.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What organization? Just people who were in close relationships with each other.

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, they were in close relationships. In 1963 I started working at the Institute of Pedagogy, and around that time, in 1962 or 1963, Nadiya Dmytrivna Kovalenko was made a methodologist for Ukrainian language and literature at the Ministry of Education.

V.V. Ovsiienko: I know Nadiya Dmytrivna! I did my practical training with her in 1971 at the Lesya Ukrainka School.

N.M. Marchenko: We became friends. She noticed me in the language department and started taking me on work trips, started enlightening me on national issues. And she was in very close contact with Vasyl Vasylyovych Yaremenko, with Vsevolod Yakovych Nedilko.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Nedilko—he was my professor at the university too.

N.M. Marchenko: The methodologists for Ukrainian language from all the regions—they were her friends; she knew Ivan Dziuba very well, she knew Ivan Svitlychnyi. She delved into every sphere of national life. She brought about a whole revolution in the printing of manuals for Ukrainian language teachers. Under the "School Library" series, she published works that had not been published anywhere before and were practically banned. She did a great deal, she is a brave woman. Her husband is an architect; they are both erudite, nationally conscious people, very conscious—both he and she. He knew artists, architects, Ukrainian nationalists, so to speak. It was in this way that Nadiya Dmytrivna Kovalenko introduced me to the world of the Sixtiers. I went to various evenings that they organized—I don't remember which ones specifically now.

She enlightened me in many ways. I was comfortable with her in the sense that she revealed many things to me that I didn't know, because my knowledge was superficial, Soviet. She had her own opinion. And for her, it was probably good to be with me purely on a personal, woman-to-woman level, because I didn't gossip, I showed interest in her, and my nature probably appealed to her, because she is a commanding, categorical woman. And where I didn't like something, I just kept quiet, thinking that she has much more that is positive than this categorical nature, which many people disliked. Some people could conflict with her, pin some labels on her. But I valued her for her mind. And if her categorical nature or something else was unpleasant for me at times, I didn't show it. I always judged people by their deeds, not their weaknesses, because every person has weaknesses.

I must have learned this in school. That's how I assessed children—if one is a hooligan but studies well, so be it: he’ll grow out of it and become better. At school, I liked the boys more, because they are very frank: when he's acting up, it's out in the open. But the girls—they were often deceitful: you never know where she might pinch you. She might watch you to notice some flaw, and then—hush-hush—she’ll talk about you. I learned such self-control at school. I now tell my younger female friends: judge people by their deeds, don't gossip.

But what I remember most from that time are the conversations with my son. They were very interesting. He was interested in national affairs even in the 10th-11th grades. But he wasn't just interested. He was very witty and smart in his behavior at school.

Let me give you a humorous episode. Khrushchev was removed. The teacher, their homeroom teacher, comes and tells Valeriy and two or three other boys that they need to take down the portraits of Khrushchev and "those who joined him" in their corridor. Well, Valera gets on the stepladder and says: "Alright then: take down Khrushchev... Oh, with pleasure!" He sets up the ladder and takes him down with pleasure. He then approaches Lenin's portrait and says: "Let's take this one down right away too!" — "What are you saying, Valera, what are you doing?!" She remembered that and said he was a humorist.

One time I go into the bathroom in the house and I see—a portrait of Lenin hanging above the toilet. I say: "Valera, what have you done?" And he says: "I'm following Mayakovsky—cleaning myself by Lenin's standards." Those were his kinds of jokes.

I remember, poems like this started appearing—for example, a collection by Dolmatovsky, where he talks about the cult of Stalin: how we believed in you, great Stalin, "kak, mozhet byt’, ne verili sebe" [perhaps more than we believed in ourselves]—do you know those words? And there were words like: "Kol’ my ne poteryali very – kak verit’ vy dolzhny teper’!" [If we did not lose faith—how you must believe now!] This was advice to a younger friend. I say: "Look what an interesting poem Dolmatovsky wrote." And Valera took it in his hands—this was still in the 10th grade—and says: "Well, what's so interesting here? 'If we did not lose faith—how you must believe now!' Believe in whom? Now we're supposed to believe in Khrushchev?" He was in the 10th grade. I thought: oh, this is starting to get scary.

Then he was finishing the 11th grade. For his final exams, he wrote an essay about the Great Patriotic War. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but he chose this epigraph: *“Рудi вiтрила пiдняла, пливе зловiща нiч на Україну, та поки серце в нас живе, нас не поставиш на колiна.”* [Red sails she raised, an ominous night sails upon Ukraine, but as long as a heart lives within us, you will not bring us to our knees]. Volodymyr Bulayenko. His small collection had just come out then. That's what I was buying. Dolmatovsky, Irina Snegova—Russian poets, they're on my shelf over there. He accepted some things and rejected others. It was then that I bought the small collection of Volodymyr Bulayenko. I tell him: "Look what interesting poems!" A lot was left unpublished there. But even those poems were genuinely good. And Valeriy liked them; he chose this epigraph himself. I have that essay of his—can you imagine how interesting that was for that time? When he brought me this draft, I looked at the epigraph Valera had chosen, and I thought: oh, my Valera is growing into a nationalist—“you will not bring us to our knees,” “an ominous night upon Ukraine.”

But I most clearly felt that Valera had already formed as an adult when he was eighteen. He had complications with his kidneys, and I got him into the Strazhesko Clinic. This was in 1965, during his first year. He had only studied for about three months. There were a lot of young people there from the Institute of Nuclear Physics, which had opened near Feofaniya. Apparently, this institute was flawed in terms of safety, because young employees—lab assistants, scientists—were being exposed to radiation. Several men with leukemia were there with Valera. A specialist of about 23-24 years old (and Valera said he was an exceptionally talented physicist) had received a large dose of radiation and was dying of leukemia. But he was dying somehow while still walking around. And he was so active. I visited Valera every day. He would say: “Look at this guy—he has terrible leukemia, they've already given him a full blood transfusion.” One day I came, and Valera said he had died: “Mom, you know, I can’t seem to calm down, I can’t come to terms with it—what is life for, why was he given so little time? And how must one live this life so that it amounts to something! How I don't want to die young—why is one person given 90 years to live, and another—just like that? Such a good guy, so smart!”

Apparently, these reflections on the essence of life made him an adult. He delved into some library there, found the works of Lenin, the works of Stalin, began to read them, began to analyze them, some objections began to appear in him. One day I came, and he was telling me about it... I looked—and before me was a completely grown man! And this man—was my son. That's how he matured, that's how he continued to mature.

In this book—“Letters to Mother from Captivity”* *(Valeriy Marchenko. Letters to Mother from Captivity. Compiled by Smuzhanitsya (Marchenko) N.M. K.: O. Olzhych Foundation. – 1994. – 500 p.)*—there is an article that I marked, "The Troubles of Editing," and a second article, "Life Around Literature." He wrote it so beautifully in the Urals, in 1976. He recalls his editorial work at "Literaturna Ukrayina." He got into the editorial office on the recommendation of Oles Honchar. It’s so interesting—his acquaintance Zoya Didenko, you know her. She was Valeriy’s friend. They were friends when they were students.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Did she study there too?

N.M. Marchenko: Of course—she graduated from Kyiv University, the Romano-Germanic faculty. They were friends, he respected her very much, loved her very much. She has a flexible mind, she is a very active girl. She was a friend of Liuda Honchar—Oles Terentiyovych's daughter. When Valera graduated from university, they gave him his diploma, but told him he absolutely had to go work in a school. He thought it was just talk and started looking for a job either in a publishing house or at a university. Zoya was talking with Liuda, and Liuda told Oles Terentiyovych Honchar about Valera. And Oles Terentiyovych knew my father. But my father didn't ask Honchar for help; he said: "Look for it yourself, Valera, I won't find a job for you." And Oles Terentiyovych found out that a correspondent or a literary worker was needed at "Literaturna Ukrayina," and he said: "Hire him—he's such a talented, capable boy, knows several languages, take him." He came—and they hired him right away.

He had just started working when suddenly an order comes from the university, threatening: “Your case will be handed over to the prosecutor's office if you do not present a certificate that you are working in a school.” He went and said: “I work at 'Literaturna Ukrayina.'” — “That doesn't matter, you must work in a school for at least two years.” So he quickly, through an acquaintance of mine, a school principal who knew Valera from the first grade—and she hired him at school No. 68, in Kurenivka, on Bilytska Street.

So Oles Terentiyovych was Valeriy's godfather at "Literaturna Ukrayina."

V.V. Ovsiienko: So he worked at the school and at "Literaturna Ukrayina" at the same time?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. I asked this Varfolomiyeva, and she gave him one seventh-grade class. He worked for a year, got the certificate, and they left him alone. So when I now read these "Troubles of Editing" and "Life Around Literature"—you know, it's as if he's telling me this right now. The events, his observations, what was happening at "Literaturna Ukrayina" and in the literary world in general—so clearly, so beautifully! Read a few lines—and you'll see: it's as if Valera himself is telling the story. This is what formed him. That's how his two and a half articles came about, the ones that were arrested—“Behind the Screen of Ideological Purity” and “Kyivan Dialogue.” They were written in 1972. It was through them that he became such a nationalist.

I was 44 when they arrested Valera. And everything went topsy-turvy, I didn't accomplish anything after that. I didn't care—whether they would publish me or not, whether I would write something or not. Although I wanted to work, because I had a salary of 250 rubles—that was a lot of money. I knew that if they fired me, I would hardly find a job anywhere, and they certainly wouldn't take me back at a school. And I needed to help Valeriy. I knew he would return, that he would be without a job. So I still valued my work, I did everything that was required. But when I went to those academic councils—I would sit as if in a fog. I'd think: what foolishness, what savagery, what are they talking about! How worthless all these councils, all these meetings are—they were completely devalued and became worth nothing. And especially when I'd go to visit him, travel through the Moscow GULAG, receive a pile of identical responses, and then arrive in Perm at that local prison administration or medical department!

One time I arrived, and they had taken him to the Perm hospital at 3 Klymenko Street. I was circling around that red, terrifying building, and they were leading a veritable flood of boys aged 14-16, who were being moved from one prison to another. I stood there, this hapless Soviet pedagogue from the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences with her problems—I stand there and watch as these kids are herded like a gray mass. Tied up—they are chained to each other, with handcuffs. They are led in a flood, four or six at a time, in handcuffs. All in gray. They are being transferred from one prison to another. One mother, like a madwoman, darts from one corner to another, trying to see her son, because she was told they would be led past. She wants to see her son, because they aren't given visits or anything. She begs me: “Oh, don't come out, or the guard will come and chase me away, and I need to see my son.” And she circles and circles, and I ask her what he was in for. And she says that he was fooling around with some kids and they grabbed a police motorcycle with a sidecar and went for a ride, then left it somewhere, and they were caught and he was given six years. A fourteen-year-old kid—six years, he ends up in this...

When I saw that—what Institute of Pedagogy! What Academy, what problems! There are millions of these educators, and millions of children being tormented in the camps... And from the age of forty-four, when I already had knowledge, when I could somehow realize this knowledge, pass it on to someone—I lost not only the desire to do anything, but even the thought was gone. I didn't want to do any of it. My Vasyl Ivanovych would try to persuade me... He brought me to the church, he brought me the “Our Father” and the “Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos,” he brought me two little icons and put them in my bookshelf. He said: “Get up in the morning and pray—five times the 'Our Father' and five times the 'Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos'…” You see—he was from Transcarpathia and was raised in the faith of God. I didn't know about this, he himself said: “I pray. When I walk past St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, I have just enough time for five times. Why five times—for all of Jesus' wounds: his hands, feet, and the spear in his right side. Pray, and God will help.” That's how he taught me to pray, both in church and when passing by churches. My Vasyl Ivanovych would walk past a church and discreetly take off his hat, walk past without his hat, then put it back on. He would walk and pray. And only later did he start going to church with me.

So at 44, I was lost as a specialist—I no longer needed it. I began to dream—another 11 years, and I'll retire—I won't work a single day. Truth be told, even after Valeriy’s second arrest, they didn't touch me, they didn't fire me from my job, and they never had any conversations with me. Once, when I was going to visit Valeriy in exile, the director called me into his office. I look—what's this? The director and the party organizer are sitting there, and the trade union organizer. I thought they were probably going to fire me. But he was so cheerful, our director Mykola... (Last name???) They all jumped up: “Nina Mykhailivna, how are you?” I say: “I'm alright. I came for you to sign, I'm going on vacation.” — “And where will you be spending your vacation?” And I know why they’ve gathered. I say: “I'm going to my son.” — “And where is your son?” — “In Kazakhstan, in exile.” — “Uh-huh. And where is that, what’s it like there?” — “In Kazakhstan, living in some kind of yurt. I'm going.” “What is this thing—a yurt? I’ve never seen one.” — “Well, I'll go have a look. Very interesting.” And I started to “agitate” them—why my son is in prison and why I'm going to him. And I say: “I will ask you to continue giving me leave in the future. I'll be taking leave in the middle of the year too, even if it’s unpaid.” — “Oh no, you are entitled to a vacation for two years, you can go.”

They were so kind. They were just as kind when I went to see Valeriy in 1976. They gave me a visit and said it was for three days. But they burst in after 18 hours—you probably know this story—how they conducted a loud, terrible search, and how only with the help of the Mother of God did I manage to save those little pills, 13 of them—it was the Lord's providence. You know, when they do a search, everything was turned upside down: the salt was ground up, the stuffed cabbages were picked apart, the soup was poured from one container to another! Everything I had prepared. Because I thought we would be there for three days. I was cooking there, next to Valeriy, and we were talking.

I prayed so hard when Ensign Rak took that cup where the little pills were packed (I was smuggling out information). I prayed so hard—my head was burning, and my legs and hands were cold. If I had been a little older (I wasn't even 50 yet—47 years old), if this had happened later, a stroke would have surely struck me down. But back then I must have still been physically healthy, and besides, the Lord's providence was over me. And he started to yawn—just as I started to pray, that Ensign Rak with the gold teeth started to yawn, when he had those “ksyvy” [coded messages] in the cup in his hands. Valera had already freed them up to pass to me. If I had known they were about to come in with a search, I would have hidden them too. But they burst in suddenly, even though they had said the visit was for three days. I put them in a cup and into the refrigerator—let them stay there. And that Rak held them in the cup—and started to yawn a lot. He just shook them like this—ha! That’s how the Most Holy Theotokos—I begged Her so much: “Mother of God, Righteous One, save us! Just as You suffered for Your Son—so I suffer for mine—save us!” Because that would mean a new sentence, it would be the sentence I feared most. And She saved me... I only lost one small packet, but the rest were put to use.

So they put me through this horrible ordeal—they interrupted the visit, they took Valeriy away, they threatened me that both he and I would get a prison term, but they found nothing... More precisely, they found money on me, and I caught them with that money. They created such a fuss over it!

But the next year, in 1977, they were exceptionally kind: they gave me a visit for as long as I wanted, and they didn't search me, and they didn't search Valeriy, it was so nice that I thought: this doesn't bode well. As soon as I left—a month later they put Valeriy on a transport and brought him to Kyiv. To show that they can be kind—look: we're not firing you from your job, here's a nice visit we gave you, here you go, just let him write a letter of repentance—and you'll be at home. Wouldn't that win someone over? My son will be by my side, my trips to that horror will end: when you travel there and back—you never know what awaits you each time. He'll be here, he'll get treatment, he'll live. So what if he doesn't work at the newspaper—he'll do translations, and there won't be these sufferings with the police. They knew what they were doing...

So, in 1977, they brought him here right on his birthday; on September 16, he was in Kyiv. Actually, they brought him around September 10, or maybe the 14th, but his guard—that Vasyl Vasylyovych was very punctual and rather pleasant—told me right on his birthday that “Valeriy is here, you can pass something along to him.” I started bringing him care packages. During his half-year stay here, they must have given me about ten visits—can you imagine? I could come and put honey, and cheese, and everything right in front of him. We sat facing each other, and someone was just pacing by—you could talk about whatever you wanted, as long as you were persuading him.

No, not half a year, only about four months. And once they were convinced that he would not repent—that was it, only letters. I’d write to Valeriy in a letter that I would ask for more visits—“Don’t, Mama, that’s enough.” But we did have about eight visits with him.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Was this what led to that famous letter to his mother?* *(From October 20, 1977. See: Valeriy Marchenko. *Letters to His Mother from Captivity*. Compiled by Smuzhanitsia (Marchenko) N.M.. Kyiv: Olhych Foundation, 1994, pp. 253-255).

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, that letter was written then. The reason these visits and all my, so to speak, privileges came to an end was that they saw Valeriy trying to pass me a note about Kyselyk. In their presence. They had created these conditions for us, thinking, let’s see how you’ll persuade him. I was persuading him, and he was trying to shove this tiny folded note about Kyselyk at me. I gestured with my eyes toward them, but he was insistent: take it. I took it and pushed it into the honey. They had returned the honey to me, saying they wouldn’t accept it. So I put the note in the honey. But then they came and said they were taking the honey after all. And they confiscated it. A week later, they summoned me—this and that, I don’t remember the details, but then I glanced and saw my familiar jar of honey behind a little curtain. I thought: stop, they’re about to set me up… I denied everything—I don’t know anything. They started accusing me of wrapping the note in my handkerchief and putting it in the honey because I wanted to take it with me. Since they had refused to pass on the honey, they thought I was planning to take it back. I had already put it in my bag, but they said, “Did you want to pass on the honey? Let us take it.” I said, “Oh no, he doesn’t want honey anymore.” “No, no, let’s have it.” I pulled the bag toward me, they pulled it toward them, and they ended up taking the honey from me. How could I say, “No, I won’t give it to you”? “No, give us the honey.” They didn’t accuse me of anything then and didn’t say anything to Valeriy, but a week later they summoned me and said, “You were trying to pass a note.” “Nothing of the sort. You planted it.” After that, they stopped all their attempts at persuasion.

V.V. Ovsiienko: You didn’t leave them any hope?

N.M. Marchenko: That’s right, I didn’t do what they asked. And so it all came to an end.

What else can I tell you? After Valeriy’s release—I mean the release before his exile, because the exile was already a great relief—I was happy in Kazakhstan. First of all, Valeriy had plenty of fresh milk. He had a very good major—Derimkulov, a Kazakh. He had been through the front, through Ukraine, and was a very decent Kazakh man. You could come to an agreement with him about anything. He didn't establish such strict control over Valeriy, and Valeriy felt free there. There, in Kazakhstan, he wrote some very interesting essays—so interesting, you should read them. “Cologne in Vials”—oh, what a fascinating essay! It's about two homeless men and how they carry out construction in the Soviet Union. They were sent there for re-education, and they organized a construction project, building a boiler room for a hospital. His essays are very well written. And in general, he was so steadfast and at ease there that if he had stayed, maybe they wouldn't have bothered him anymore. Though who knows—they arrested Popadiuk there, in Saralzhyn.* (V. Marchenko was in exile in the village of Saralzhyn, Aktobe Oblast, from July 1979 to May 1981. In June 1981, his “cushy spot” was taken by Zorian Popadiuk. There, on September 2, 1982, he was arrested for a second time on charges of conducting “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” – Ed.)

I wanted Valeriy to stay there—it was peaceful. But he didn't want to. He said there was no peace anywhere—he would always be drawn to Ukraine. Look over there, on the table—those are all Valeriy’s translations. I’m currently preparing them with the help of Slava Gluzman—maybe we’ll manage to get them published. I found some of Valeriy's material that's so interesting, which wasn't included in the first book. It won't just be translations, but also unpublished works. There will be pieces about his time in Saralzhyn, and about how he yearned for Moscow, as a place through which it was possible to pass information.

You know, his appeals to the broadcasters of “Voice of America”—not even appeals, but informal letters, so warm, so friendly, with very interesting advice on how to make the “Voice of America” broadcasts in Ukrainian more engaging. Not “Radio Liberty,” but “Voice of America”—there was Savchuk and two others, he wrote to each one separately. Here, he says, I'm in Kazakhstan, in exile, and I listen to you all the time. There was this one broadcast—it would have been worthwhile to do this and that in it, and then followed his advice as a journalist. It's fascinating, I should include those letters here; I somehow couldn't find them back then.

That was what my life was like. So, I was left with Vasyl Ivanovych.

In 1981, Valeriy returned—it was the day after they unveiled that monument, the “Motherland”—you know the one? The one in Pechersk. And Valeriy got off the train—so handsome, so radiant. As I already said, he wasn't morally crushed in Kazakhstan; no one was hounding him there, no one was watching him. Although, as he writes in one of his essays, when he was in the hospital there, they stole his transistor radio—that’s how closely they hovered around him. It wasn't easy for him there either, but you can't compare it to Kyiv. From Kazakhstan, he went to Moscow—I think he spent two days there, met with dissidents, and then came to Kyiv. The first thing he said was, “Mama, why didn't you tell me they erected such a monstrous monument?” I said, “I didn't even know myself.” He says, “It was so funny—we were crossing the Dnipro, and I look…”

Here I want to read these beautiful words from Valeriy. Right here, where I put the bookmark. This is when he was in exile; he missed Kyiv so much, yearned so much for Ukraine: “That little Marchenko island with its eternal view of the Dnipro has become a great therapeutic remedy for me.” He longed for Kyiv so much, he loved the Dnipro so much! He said that as the train traveled through Ukraine, he never left the window.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And when did you move here, to Cheliabinska Street?

N.M. Marchenko: We were having this apartment built in 1983, and it was just about to be ready, so Valeriy said, “I’ll go with you.” But I said, “We won’t live here—we’ll trade this apartment and the one in Nyvky for a three-room and a single room for Mariana—either with neighbors or separate.” He only wanted to live with us. “I’ll be with you, Mama, I don’t need a separate place. I’m making my own plans—maybe I’ll go away somewhere?” He wasn't sure—or maybe he was sure that the road back there was fated for him again.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And how long did he stay here?

N.M. Marchenko: Two years and five months. We hadn’t even moved here yet when he was arrested for the second time. But they are such scum, so treacherous, so loathsome in every petty detail. You see, I had signed over the apartment in Nyvky to Valeriy. Vasyl Ivanovych had registered the co-op here in his name. And I had transferred the phone line in Nyvky to Valeriy’s name. And right then, I posted announcements on utility poles: “Trading two two-room apartments for a three-room and a single room, can be with neighbors.” I had just put them up on the poles—near the pedagogical institute, I think I had five or six of them, which I had written by hand because there was nowhere to type them up. And Valeriy didn't even know I was making these arrangements. I posted them—and then they arrested Valeriy. We hadn’t moved here yet, we were all still living there, and they arrested him. And I had already transferred the Shcherbakova apartment to him. Valeriy is being held at 33 Volodymyrska Street. A call comes: “We need Valeriy Marchenko.” “What do you need him for?” “You see, he violated the rules—he posted announcements on poles and walls.” Imagine, all over Kyiv, pasted on poles and walls! “We took them down—this is a violation, we are sending the case to court.” The violation was the announcement about exchanging an apartment. I said, “I’m the one who posted them.” “Yes, but the phone number is in his name!” I had already transferred the phone number on Shcherbakova, which I listed on the ad, to him. Ugh, it was so disgusting—I just couldn’t take it anymore! How despicable—not only did they follow his every step, not only did they install listening and spying devices in the apartment, not only did they give me no peace, harassing Vasyl Ivanovych and me at our jobs, going through every piece of paper we had—but now, while he’s in prison, they tear down the ads to do something nasty!

That’s what a vile state it was—and there’s no one to tell. “Your grandmother had troubles, your grandmother had such a fate—why is she agitating that we must not allow communists into power?” Well, there are no words—people are so corrupted that they don’t even want to understand what that Soviet state was worth and what that Communist Party was worth with all its villainous affairs! Oh, I don’t know—words can’t convey it. But the most important thing is that there are people like this: someone serves 10 years in the camps, gets out, and still praises Stalin! There were such people, and not one or two. What is it—does the Lord give some people a brain, and for others, he just airs it out, or what? It's true: God enters one person’s soul, and an evil spirit enters another’s. This evil spirit has taken over this country—and not only Ukraine, it’s everywhere—so many of these national minorities were overseers. It’s a thing that has become completely hardened, that torments a person simply because it’s been given that little crumb of power, that machine gun.

V.V. Ovsiienko: At the trial, you were only a witness?

N.M. Marchenko: Valeriy and I went to Zakarpattia for a vacation because he was given a two-week leave. I told him to arrange for another two weeks at his own expense. He said, “Alright, I’ve arranged it—a guy there will cover for me.” He was working as a guard in an arboretum—it was a scientific institution where they grow trees.

So we went. Relatives there got us a voucher, and we stayed at a sanatorium. He looked so much better, so rested! I would run out—I was getting my teeth treated and had some other procedures—I’d come out, and he’d be sitting by the lake. And his eyes were so blue, he would raise his eyes to the sky—and there was such sorrow on his face! He knew they were going to arrest him. It was as if he were looking at the sky for the last time...

A notebook and pencil were beside him, and a book. He was working on Lesia Ukrainka then—he wanted to determine for himself whether Lesia Ukrainka was an atheist. He just keeps looking up at the sky, his face is fresh; he was thin, as always, but not exhausted, his face was fresh. He rested there for three weeks. And he looked at that Transcarpathian beauty. We were at the “Sunny Zakarpattia” sanatorium there. He drank mineral water. Those were his last days. And then he said, “Let’s go home, Mama.” We didn’t stay until the end. We left Svaliava and came straight home.

We arrived very early. He immediately ran off to work, saying, “I’ll be back early tomorrow.” But I had a premonition that something bad would happen, because they didn’t leave us in peace there either—the head doctor was constantly coming to our room, the nurses were constantly visiting. They always needed something. I thought: in a sanatorium, you can’t get a hold of them, you can’t get anyone’s attention—and here, such attentiveness! Besides that, they were following us. Sometimes relatives would come with a car to show us Zakarpattia—they are so hospitable, they loved Vasyl so much—they would take us, and a whole escort of cars would follow us. And he would look in the rearview mirror: “Oh! Oh!” And when we visited Vasyl Ivanovych’s sister, they had already searched her place. She said, “Valeriy, they were here, asking who was living here without a residence permit. I told them no one was. They looked all around and even turned the place upside down a bit.” Valeriy said, “They’re after my soul.” Then, when we were saying goodbye to her, I said, “Lena, we won’t stop by, we’ll be heading home straight from Svaliava.” And he kissed her hand and said, “Forgive me, Olena Ivanivna, please forgive me.” “What for, Valeriy, what are you saying! I love you so much. What’s wrong, my child.” And he repeated a few more times, “Forgive me.” I thought that he was saying goodbye as if for the last time.

So, we arrived from Svaliava, he went to his shift in the morning, saying he would be back early the next day. But in the sanatorium, I had broken out in a terrible allergic rash—which is why we came back early—it was from stress. As soon as he left for work, I ran to the dermatologist. He prescribed me a bunch of things, and I was lying down, taking the medicine, because the doctor advised me to rest and not eat anything.

I was lying there when I heard a scratch, scratch at the door. I thought it was Valeriy with his key. I lifted my head: “Valerochko!” And there he stood, gray in the face—he knew this was the end, and he said, “I’m not alone, I’m with the KGB-ers.” And eight of them stormed in. And Vasyl hadn't even left for work yet. They barged in, started a search—such nonsense, God, such filth! It was all so worthless. They planted a volume of Chekhov’s works with a stamp from the USRIP (Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Pedagogy)—“What right do you have to keep this book? It’s not registered to you; we’ve already checked that it’s not in the library, but you have it here.” I said, “I don’t know, you must have planted it yourselves.” And they accused Vasyl Ivanovych of keeping Ministry of Education documents right here: “You gave them—you gave them to him, to your son, so he could send that Valuev Circular. You have it, here is the document!” And he said, “I didn’t have any documents here.” This was about that “Valuev Circular.”* *(This refers to a 1982 order by the Minister of Education of the Ukrainian SSR to intensify the study of the Russian language in Ukrainian schools. V. Marchenko sent it to the Ukrainian diaspora with the comment: “Sending you a fresh Valuev Circular…” – Ed.). They planted other documents, not about intensifying the study of the Russian language, but something about an inspection. He says, “Yes, those are my documents. They are from my office, but I didn’t take them home.” But they had taken them from his office and put them here in the cabinet we have under the TV. And just like that, they pull them out—“Oh! Documents!”

V.V. Ovsiienko: And they know just where to look.

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. And he looks at me so frightened—maybe I took them? I said, “God be with you, Vasyl, what are you thinking! You see they planted them in the cabinet under the TV and went straight for it.” “You gave him all this, these documents ended up abroad. You facilitated this!” They didn’t even know yet if they had ended up abroad, because other people were leading the investigation, but they were already saying the documents were abroad. And Valeriy told them, “Your work is very dirty. It has a stench to it. You’re talking nonsense: what does my mother or father have to do with this? Deal with me, what is it you need here?”

And so it started—it began to spin and turn...

They kept Valeriy in Kyiv for a very short time. They arrested him on October 22, 1983, and on April 1, 1984, they already sent him off on a prisoner transport.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That’s how they handled my second case under Article 62 as well: a slapdash job, they gathered “sufficient evidence”—and off to court.

N.M. Marchenko: Exactly—and 15 years, and off he went… And here—they lied until the very last minute.

I received one last gift from Valeriy—these little slippers, I still have them. Once Valeriy was at Semen Gluzman’s birthday party. And his wife, Ira, was sitting there in these slippers, the kind the Nenets and other northern peoples wear, warm, made of reindeer fur. Valeriy said, “Oh, what unique slippers! I’d love to give a pair like that to my mom for her birthday!” “We’ll get them!” And Ira, ever so helpful, said she would get them. Well, on March 29, the head of the KGB pre-trial detention center himself, a man named Shvets, calls me and says, “Nina Mykhailivna, we have prepared a surprise for you. You will be very pleased.” My God, my heart stopped: are they releasing Valeriy? You know, such deceit… “What? What is it?” “Come, come. When will you be here?” “I think around eleven.” “Come at twelve.” I used to go to Slava Gluzman for all my consultations. I run to him and say, “Slava, Shvets, the head of the pre-trial detention center, is summoning me, and with such joy in his voice! Slava, could it be that they’re releasing Valeriy?” “Nina Mykhailivna, you are so naive—he will never announce good news with joy in his voice. This is some kind of treachery, another nasty trick they are going to play on you. By the way, here are the slippers from Valeriy for your birthday.” This was in March, and my birthday is in February. “Oh! How did this happen?” “Well, we promised, and someone brought them for us, and we wanted Valeriy to give them to you.” I took those slippers, wrapped them up and put them in my bag, and said, “What should I do?” “Go. You made an appointment, so go and find out what it’s about, why they are calling you.”

And I don’t think I brought anything for him, because I didn’t know I was going to have a visit with him. I arrive, they open one door for me, then another, and there, they are already bringing Valeriy into the visiting room. “Oh, Valerochko, I didn’t know I would have a visit with you!” “They didn’t tell me anything either.” I think they decided to let me say goodbye to him before the prisoner transport. And all four of them are sitting close by. This time, they even allowed me to kiss Valeriy. Before, they’d give us a visit and wouldn't even let me get close. But this time I kissed him, and we sat there talking. “You can talk. Will two hours be enough for you?” Valeriy says that two hours is enough. I say we could go even longer—I’ll just look at him.

And so we sat there talking, he was making some ironic remarks, and then he says, “Oh! I didn’t even know, but it turns out Andropov died. You see, Mama—we survive, and we will survive more. We’ll survive even more than this! I had a very strange dream, and it wasn’t even a dream—it was a very strange vision, because I don’t believe in dreams—but it was a very prophetic dream. I will be home, don’t you worry. I’ll be home in a year. You know, even less than a year, I’ll be home.” I was so startled, thinking, what is he talking about? And they perked up and were watching. “You see—I didn’t even know, and here Andropov has died.” You know, he tied it all together like that. “I’ll be home in less than a year.” He said this to me, by the way, as he was leaving. But before that, I had reached for a handkerchief and said, “Oh, Valerochko, a gift from you to me!” And he goes, “What is it?” And they lunged forward—what could it be? I pull out a bag with the slippers. He shrugged his shoulder. I said, “You wanted to give me these slippers, right?” “I did! And how did it happen?” I told him the story, and we were both delighted.

That was his last gift to me. He always gave me something. He was so thoughtful, always coming up with something, hiding something. When he worked at *Literary Ukraine*, they brought in some hard-to-find goods, and he bought me this very unique German terrycloth robe and hid it for almost half a year to give it to me for my birthday. There was also a woman there, Zayets, their department head, and she said, “Well, what a wonderful son you are—imagine, saving a gift for his mother!” And I still have that gift.

This was at the end of March 1984. The trial was on March 13, and this last visit was on March 29. Then they sent me a notice that he was transported to Yavas on April 1.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That’s in Mordovia, right?

N.M. Marchenko: To Mordovia, to Yavas. Because I went there and asked the head of the pre-trial detention center. They called me to collect his belongings, they were giving me his things. And he said that he had left, everything was normal, in a week he would be there, here’s the address, contact them there.

And so my torments began, the anguish began—telegrams, phone calls, and no one answers. I went to Moscow, asked where they sent him, but no one would tell me anything. In short, no one could know where he was during the transport. They knew, of course, but no one wanted to say. Everything was done to destroy him on the road: 55 days in transit. After I had visited him in the pre-trial detention center, after he had told me, and as a professor from the Institute of Nephrology had said, that his condition was very bad, that his kidneys were already destroyed, that he had very little time left to live. And they didn't want him to die within the walls of the KGB. So, into the transport, let it be in the transport. And they waited for something to happen to him on the way.

V.V. Ovsiienko: They knew very well that the special regime was no longer in Mordovia—so they deliberately sent him there. Incidentally, the same thing happened to me in 1981. They also sent me to Mordovia, then a few more transit transfers—it took me 36 days to get to the Urals. And he took 55?

N.M. Marchenko: 55 days.

V.V. Ovsiienko: They deliberately tortured him.

N.M. Marchenko: Deliberately. He sent me a letter from Kazan. Return address—everything as it should be. And the very next day, I flew to Kazan and started looking for that Kazan prison. I went, and some captain came out and started growling at me like a dog, as always: “How did you find out he was here?” “I received a letter.” He then quickly opened a door—two women, employees, were sitting there. In my presence, he unleashed on them: “By what right did he write a letter?” “By legal right. He proved that he hadn't written for a month.” He had served his month, and it was already early May, even a bit later than that. So it was his legal right. “You should have asked!” he barked at them. “He’s not here, he’s not here!” And I thought that this man must have the “strictest” orders. “Then where is my son?” “He’s gone to his destination!” “What destination?” “I don’t know!”

Again I returned to Moscow, and that was the beginning of my “great journey’s stages,” as I started to demand to know where he was. They did it all just to kill him, to destroy him, and to keep me from knowing where. They wouldn’t tell me, until I said: “I am not leaving here, I will sit down on the stairs and tell everyone who passes by that my son is being murdered, and that it's being done by the prosecutor’s office that oversees the actions of the KGB. And I will tell how your institution, which is meant to ensure legality, is destroying my son.” “I don't know where your son is!” I said, “You will pick up the phone and find out. When it was time to arrest my son, it was done in ten minutes. Now you will find out, and I am not going anywhere.” “Well, alright, come in.” I went in. “I promise to tell you in three days.” “No, now. I won’t leave, that’s it.” That was the conversation we had. Then he told me, “Tomorrow and the day after are days off, and today, you see, it’s already late. Come see me on Monday.” I thought: what am I going to do for two days when I have no money? I rushed to the airport, took some money… And I really needed the money! The money had been set aside—as soon as they arrested Valeriy, I started saving. I was insuring myself, and then at that time my mother died, she had savings. She said, “This is for you, for Valeriy.” And so I kept that money. And what do you think? After all these upheavals, I still had eight thousand rubles in a bank account with Vasyl—can you imagine? That was a huge amount of money, you could buy a car with it. And it all went up in smoke, in my bank account. And I had saved every kopek! We had nothing, we lived very modestly and were unpretentious about everything. And we earned well—he had a good salary, I did too. That's how it was.

So I came, took the things I needed, and on Sunday evening, I was on the move again. Vasyl Ivanovych didn’t say anything to me anymore—he saw that I was mad and that nothing would stop me. And he was in the Kalinin hospital with a stroke—that’s near the zoo. And I was leaving my husband. His compatriot is here, they still visit me—she's Hungarian, and he’s from Zakarpattia. So I asked them to visit Vasyl Ivanovych because I had no time for him then. And they went, visited him and made arrangements with the doctors. I was chasing after my son, and they did everything. It was good that by then Mariana was married and had gone to live with her Fei Tiam in the dormitory, so at least they weren’t constantly shuffling around the apartment, otherwise everything would have been on Mariana, and she didn’t even visit her sick father—it was terrible.

And so I kept shuttling to that GULAG in Moscow. I went—he was telling me such stupid things, such nonsense! He's giving me a lecture on “what a mother should be and what a mother-son relationship should be like.” He sits there lecturing me, just to waste time. I say, “I came to you—where is my son?” And he doesn’t answer a single one of my questions. This was just trying to get into this prosecutor’s office for supervision! And then on Monday, when I came early in the morning, I was already sitting on the stairs at eight o’clock, thinking: let him think I’ve been sitting on these stairs the whole time. When people start arriving, they walk around me, no one says anything, and I’ve already forgotten his face, what he looks like. I don't remember him, I just look—and the doors are all closed and closed. So I started banging on one of them. “I don’t know anything!” And I say, “I’ve been sitting here since Friday—do you want me to hang a big sign around my neck? Watch out, so that they don’t later say that I’m slandering you.” Slandering—that means the radio stations will be talking. At that he kind of perked up—the word “slandering” was apparently not what he wanted to hear. And then they let me in. “Go to Perm—he is in the Perm hospital.”

This was already May 23, 1984, by the time I found out, and they had taken him away on April 1. That’s 55 days, I calculated it. It was only on the 56th day that I got to Kuchyno. I flew straight from Moscow to Perm, and then I needed to stash my bag somewhere. I think by then, when I was traveling for Valeriy, I wasn't taking any suitcases, nothing—just a tote bag to throw something in. And I went with this tote bag right there, to 3 Klimenko Street, to “Institution IS/1”—the hospital, the prison hospital in Perm. I went there, and there was Voloshchenko, the head of this prison hospital. He had known me since 1979, when Valeriy was there. And he says (this was in 1979), “Your son is a real character, a real character! Even I don’t have at home the products he listed in his request.” I look, and on his desk lies a request in Ukrainian: to citizen Voloshchenko. Since I am sick and in the hospital of your institution, I ask you to provide me with the following products: honey, caviar here, and this here. “A real character! But I spoke with him, he demands these products. From where? There are no such products in the Soviet Union!” I say, “Well, I brought some, let them accept it.” They then accepted the lemons, and everything, everything. That was in 1979. I don’t know what their reasoning was—they never explain their reasoning. But this was just before they sent him to exile.

And now, here I am, and I say to the woman at the window, “I need to find out if Valeriy Marchenko is here. He’s from a prisoner transport.” She looked: “He’s here!” She looked and looked, said he was there, and slammed the little window shut. I knock again—“I’ve already answered you!” “I’m asking you to let me meet with the chief.” “Who do you think is going to see you?!” And again, she slams it. I knock again: “He will see me, he’s a political prisoner, he’s been in transit for over 50 days. I must meet with him.” She sees that I’m determined, maybe she thinks I’m a political myself. After a while, she opens the window: “Is Marchenko here?” “Yes.” “Go outside, the chief will talk to you there.” He doesn’t see me in his office, but outside on the street. I go out—I recognized him at once: he was a colonel, in uniform, with a blue band on his cap. He says, “I recognized you, I remember. I sympathize with you very, very much. You are a mother-martyr. He was brought here so emaciated, so emaciated, that it’s terrifying to look at him.” Can you imagine, the chief came out and told me things like this. “He will stay here for a while, we will try, but I can’t tell you anything, because he is under the KGB’s authority. Go, the KGB is on such-and-such street…” I say, “Let me at least see him through the glass.” “I don’t have the right. If the KGB gives you permission, I’ll show you him.”

V.V. Ovsiienko: And who was he?

N.M. Marchenko: The head of the prison hospital, but not the chief physician. This is Perm, 3 Klimenko Street, institution IS/1, his last name is Voloshchenko. And he told me this, I thank him, and he looks at me like that—clearly, he is a human being after all, and I can see that he’s looking at me with compassion.

I rushed to that KGB building, but they were having some kind of meeting, they wouldn’t see me. Then some little fidgety fellow dashed out, and I’m explaining my story to him, and he tells me, “Yes, of course, go ahead. I’ll write you a note right now, they’ll give you a visit.” And he quickly wrote me a note, and then: “Oh! The chief needs to sign this. But where is the chief? Oh, he’s in a meeting! This will have to wait until tomorrow.” I come back the next day. “You know, no.” They made me wait for two days, and I’m going there, sitting there, but I finally got to the chief. And he put a carafe of water in front of me: “But your son isn't here anymore—we’ve sent him to his assigned destination.” I said, “How could you? I’m begging you: I don't need a visit, just let him stay here in the hospital. I don't want a visit—please, don't do this!” “No, we’ve already sent him. We don't have the right.” Such bastards! My God, how I begged them—I wasn’t asking for anything!

Then I rushed to the medical department, then I rushed to the Red Cross—everywhere they were very polite, everywhere they were so kind. There was a woman named Malinina at the Red Cross—the very picture of kindness: “Oh, how could they! They are scum, what are they doing! Our entire intelligentsia has been destroyed, what are they leaving us with? They’re leaving all the vile things…” She said something to me, on and on: yes-yes-yes. I still have a copy of the request I wrote to her… No matter how I begged them to put him back in the hospital—I am forgoing the visit, I beg you, keep him in Perm, let him stay in the hospital. “No, no, it’s all done. He is leaving by train today at 12 o’clock.”

I then rushed to the train station. The heat was terrible! It was around May 24 or 25, the heat was terrible. I'm standing under the blazing sun and I feel like I'm literally melting. And I see a prisoner van standing there, and the guards are hiding under their visors in the station square. And in the middle of the square stands the van, baking in the sun. And I imagine my Valeriy sitting there in that “glass,” in that cage, under the scorching sun, without water, without anything—and what water could there be, and what good would it do anyway? And I think: well, what if I rush over there—they’ll just push me away. I am trying to earn my “good behavior” so they’ll give me a visit. So what—they'll just throw me out and say I'm making a scene and give me a warning? And I’m determined to follow him. I want to get on that train where they’ll be loading him. The area is cordoned off, you can’t get through. I approach—I can't get a ticket from Perm to Chusovaya anywhere. It's not far—it’s a three-hour ride, I think. No tickets—is it a warning, or is someone standing right behind me and tipping them off? And I think in the evening I got on the Solikamsk train—I don’t remember how, but I got to Chusovaya, then I got to Kuchyno. I don’t remember how I got there either—I probably took a taxi. In Kuchyno, I saw that it had been renovated—when I visited in 1977-78, it was one camp, and now it looks so nice from the outside that it doesn't even look like a camp. Because there's a fence, and then a two-story building, well-equipped. And I go inside—carpets, cleanliness. And this pack, this gang, this national minority—tell me his name… A captain, I think he’s dead now…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Dolmatov?

N.M. Marchenko: Dolmatov, Dolmatov. Oh, what a disgusting person, what a boor, the way he spoke to me! Then they called a doctor, because I started insisting—Pchelnikov. Valeriy told me his name later, this Pchelnikov, when they brought him to Perm again. That was on the way, when they were taking him to his death. That's when I found out it was Pchelnikov. How vilely he spoke to me! I told him, “You are not a doctor!” “And what am I, in your opinion?” “He has nephritis, he's dying on the road, he is dying! Do you at least have water there?” “There’s a cup, a bucket.” “He needs to at least wet… he needs to take a… after the journey.” I don't remember what I said to him, but I was trying to appeal to his conscience as much as I could. “And it’s not my job to know what nephritis is!” That was the kind of conversation it was. He was smiling, I was telling him something about conscience, about a doctor’s duty—I don’t remember anymore. But I know I was so agitated and screaming at this Dolmatov: “Give me a visit! Give me 20 minutes, through the glass! I’m not asking for anything more.” Then I started trying to shove some blackcurrants at this doctor. They always took dried blackcurrants from me, and rosehips. I started thrusting them into his hands, but he waved them away, not wanting to take anything: “Not allowed!” Then Dolmatov picks up the phone right in front of me, dials somewhere, and I can hear an answer—there was a dial tone at first, then a response. “Yeah, yeah, right, she’s here, she’s here. So what—should I give her a visit?” And on the other end, probably: “Under no circumstances!” And he says, “They won’t allow it.” He was so pleased, as if they had covered him in gold. I thought: may you be damned, you cursed vermin, you’ve tortured my son to death! That's what I imagined…

But the main thing is how they do it: this hall where he’s talking to me, and the window—it’s draped in some way that you can’t see what’s going on out there. Later, when they were leading me out, I looked through a crack in the stairs somewhere—and the wires! And there were the barracks and wires! But here, in the “visitor area”—it’s all camouflaged.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So this was in the building of the strict-regime camp? Yes, yes, I know that two-story building.

N.M. Marchenko: It’s where the transport, the buses, pull up, and there’s this building, comfort, everything just like a hotel.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Yes, yes, I know that building. We, in the special-regime section, were a bit further away.

N.M. Marchenko: Well yes, but this is apparently their 36th division’s administration; they are in charge of both sections…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Yes, yes, it's one camp, they have two divisions there? Strict and special regimes.

N.M. Marchenko: Well, that's how it is. And I was looking, at those wires. My God, after so much torment, my child ends up there, and with these brutes! That’s how he talks to me, so what are they doing to him?! How are they throwing him around, and what have they done to him?

Well, then I immediately went to Moscow, to the medical administration… No, first I returned to Perm, again to this Manaeva, asking her to intervene. She said, “Yes, yes, yes, let’s go to the medical administration.” We went to that medical administration, she went with me. She was the head of the regional Red Cross, such a “luxurious woman.” We went to the medical administration, spoke with someone there: “Yes, yes, yes, we will give him medical assistance, we will.” This and that, and then I thought: no, you’re not enough, I’ll go to Moscow. I went to Moscow, to the medical administration, someone there saw me. I said I needed to see Romanov, the chief, General Romanov—the head of the MVD’s medical administration. “No, no, if I’ve spoken with you, then it’s not proper for Romanov to see you.” To get to Romanov, you had to go through two other levels—how was I supposed to do that? “Once a month.” That means I’ll wait three months to get to Romanov. And I had already received several replies from Romanov: “No such persons have arrived.” In short, a denial that the medical administration had anything to do with it yet, because they didn’t know where my son was.

I then started writing requests and telegrams in the name of Chernenko, who was the General Secretary then, and Shcholokov—the Minister of Internal Affairs, and to Romanov at the medical administration: I ask you to intervene, my son is in such a condition, I ask that he be transferred to the Gaaz Prison Hospital in Leningrad, because it was thought that they would really treat him there. Then I came, I think, to this GULAG or whatever it's called now, because it's not called the GULAG, but the regional administration of places of confinement in Perm. I was running back and forth, and in Perm they told me, “Well, your request to release him on health grounds has been denied, but your second request has been granted—we will transfer him to the Leningrad Prison Hospital.” I thought: that’s a relief. And I ask, “And when?” “Well, maybe today—or maybe tomorrow.”

I'm bustling about there. I don’t remember which channels I used, but I knew that they were going to transport him today… Oh, I met with two KGB agents: “When?” I think one of them said at one o’clock. I said, “Oh, so I’ll fly on that plane too!” “No, no, no! There are no seats, all the seats are already booked—no! And why would you—you should go to Kyiv. Why would you need to go?” I’m thinking: you’re going to tell me what to do! I went to the airport. And I might have flown on the same plane with him. But they were also circling around me, and I couldn't get a ticket. I got one for the next flight to Leningrad—I don’t know if it was a few hours later, or the next day, I’ve just forgotten.

I got a plane ticket and flew to Leningrad. I arrived at night and started looking for this Gaaz hospital. Oh, what an interesting situation—straight out of a novel! I arrived at the airport, it was already late, about ten o’clock. There was this little pavilion for the information bureau. Nobody was around, but there was a light on in the information bureau. I walk up. A young man is sitting there, “so cheerful, very friendly, sociable.” I say, “Excuse me, I need to find this hospital.” “No problem—you go there and there!” I say, “You know, it’s already nighttime—could you suggest which hotel would be best to stay in so I can be closer to it?” “Yes, I can. You know, I’m finishing work, and I’ll walk you there.” And he’s fussing around, he went off somewhere, made a call. “You wait here, just wait.” I waited for him for an hour and a half. Around eleven o’clock, he took me and brought me to a decent hotel. He talked to someone and said, “We need 25 rubles for a bribe.” “Oh, that’s so much, that’s a lot of money! Alright.” I give him 25 rubles. “It’s not for me, it’s for this girl. You will have a separate room.” They put me on the second floor, a very nice room, with all comforts. And under the window—a huge ledge, like a solarium, so they could walk out there and watch me, see what I’m doing—am I trying to blow up Leningrad? And he told me how to find the hospital—along Nevsky Prospekt, he named some cinema, then you go down this little alley, then you come out. But he deliberately confused me, so I would walk around for a long time. The next day I went, but I had booked the hotel for a week, I had the money.

I booked the room and trudged off to find it. I walked all over Nevsky Prospekt—no one knew. By various means, I was near a church—there is a large cathedral there, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral—I asked there too, but no one knew. Then I accidentally ran into some woman—it turns out I was going in the wrong direction, it was that way and that way. And somewhere towards the end of the day, I finally arrived and found this prison hospital. Oh, what suffering!

V.V. Ovsiienko: And where is that hospital in Leningrad? I thought it was somewhere outside Leningrad.

N.M. Marchenko: No, no, no, in Leningrad, along Nevsky Prospekt. You have to get off at the Alexander Nevsky station, then walk to Botkinsky Lane—I had worn a path there later, so I knew. Not far from the hospital is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a large one. And an old cemetery with ancient monuments. It's a cemetery for aristocrats. When I would come out, I’d sit and look—at the cemetery and at the church.

But what I’m getting at is this: this guardian of mine, from the information bureau, started coming to see me so often, such a young guy, he started imitating Brezhnev for me, putting his tongue behind his teeth to make me laugh, so that I would have fun, so that I would feel good, and I’m sitting there, looking at him and thinking, “When will you leave, what do you want, what do you want from me?” But that’s one side of it.

About half a year goes by, we were already living in this apartment, and either I or Vasyl turns on the TV—this was after Valeriy’s death. The Leningrad station is showing him, and he is branding dissidents with shame—“these are sellouts, these are scumbags,” he says he was involved with them since the seventies, he talks about who he met, how he went to Moscow with Sakharov, he tells all the dirty secrets about the dissidents and calls them the worst names: “I understood that these—these are scoundrels who don’t need a motherland.” That face is sitting there on the television—it's the one who was looking after me, sitting in the information booth! They must have put him there just to wait for me. Well, what kind of work is that!

A.P. Kisliy: They calculated everything correctly: if everywhere else is closed, a person will go where there’s a light on…

N.M. Marchenko: Well, yes. But did they need me that much? They are already destroying Valeriy, already destroying him—what more do you want from me?

A.P. Kisliy: So that you wouldn't have any unnecessary meetings with anyone else, so that you wouldn't, God forbid…

N.M. Marchenko: No, Tolik, there’s no explanation for it. Everything they do—it can’t be explained by anything… It was such a diabolical machine that had been set in motion. The devil gets inside, just to twist and turn and do all sorts of vile things.

There, in the Leningrad prison hospital, they gave me a visit with him on the second of October. And he died on the seventh or fifth. And I even told him: “Romanov has already given the order to release you on health grounds. ‘To be registered out on grounds of health.’ To be written off by an official act as unfit.” “That’s something they could do,” was his phrase.

I did, of course, finally get to see Romanov. I traveled to Moscow. He sat there, surrounded by Valeriy Marchenko’s papers. I saw them: Marchenko, Marchenko, Marchenko. For me, they were papers, that's how I understood it. “Everything is in order, go, he is being registered out on health grounds.” I reached for the papers, and he just went like this—and turned them over. And a lot of his assistants were sitting next to him. One colonel says, “Show her out.” I began to thank him profusely, and he said, “He has been registered out, go to Perm, pick him up in Leningrad. He is registered out, I am telling you this.” “So can you give me some kind of paper or something?” “No, no, they know everything there, go, he is registered out.” That was the response from the general, the head of the MVD medical administration.

I’m on my way. My heart is pounding, I even called Alla, told her something and, I think, I called Slava Gluzman, told him something from Moscow, because the train was later, so I had the chance. I told them everything was in order, and Alla says, “Something isn't right. They didn't give you any paper: go, he's already been registered out.” And I arrive in Leningrad, and they know nothing. “We don't know anything, and we haven't received any instructions.” “But how, I was just at Romanov’s.” “It’s unknown to us, go away.” I tried to get through to the KGB—and they assigned me a young lieutenant to maintain contact with me. “You see, in Perm they met you halfway, and you immediately start slandering, you immediately gave false information abroad.” “I didn't give anything.” “Then you gave it to friends, friends… Nina Mykhailivna, we're going to have a quarrel—they won't give you a single visit with your son, because you let down the Perm administration, and now you could let us down. No, no, if you keep quiet, we'll give you one.” “I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet, just give me a visit.” I swear I’ll be quiet, and then I go straight away and tell Slava, I tell Irka, I tell Alla over the phone about the conditions. No, it wasn't like that. I said, “Under no circumstances.” “Give me your word of honor.” “I give you my word of honor—I will not speak.” I get to the hotel, Slava calls me, because I had given him the phone number. He calls: “Nina Mykhailivna, how are things?” “Slava, I’m not going to say anything.” “Tell me, how are things!” “Slava, I’m not going to say anything.” “Did they forbid you?” I am silent. “Did they forbid you?” “Yes.” The “voice” had already gone out: they forbid her to speak, he's in serious condition. And this same guy tells me, “You spoke again.” “I didn’t say anything! I’m begging you, give me a visit.”

So they delayed, they wouldn't give me a visit until the second of the month. The order to “register him out on grounds of health” was given on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth. And I was already planning how I would transport him. Oh… And that was it. So they dragged it out, and I can't get into the KGB, I’m begging this little lieutenant, and then I stopped begging him, I just burst into the Leningrad KGB building myself and shouted, “To the head of the KGB, to the head of the KGB—I’m asking, let him see me!” I go in, there are four of them sitting there. The head of the KGB is sitting there, with the face of a dyed-in-the-wool Chekist: “What are you coming to us with complaints for? Go to Ukraine, go to Kyiv, or else, you see, they'll be good and disciplined there, and we here have to clean up their messes!” He’s saying this in front of me. “Or they'll be all clean there, and we'll have to answer for them here! They're the only ones who give orders—your KGB there.” “There is no,” I say, “yours or ours, there is the KGB of the Soviet Union. I demand that you release my son, since there is an order from the head of the medical administration.” “We have no such order, we do not have the right.” And so they promised me nothing. It was probably because I was shouting there, because I was running around… Or maybe he was already dead. Or dying. That's why this chief didn't tell me anything. But he saw how agitated I was. Even the Leningrad taxi driver who drove me to the KGB said, “When are we going to shoot them, the scoundrels?”

V.V. Ovsiienko: So was that the city or the regional administration?

N.M. Marchenko: That was the regional. The regional KGB administration. But before that I had various meetings in Leningrad, although I was constantly standing by the gate and this very pedantic little lieutenant with a mustache would come up to me. I don't remember his name, he was two years younger than Valeriy, I figured that out, got acquainted with him. He kept promising me something, but he was just a pawn, what could he do. And to the KGB chief I say, “The order from the head of the medical administration Romanov is not being carried out, there is such an order—what’s the problem, why aren’t you releasing him?” But that's how I’m telling it now, what I screamed at them then, what I said—I don’t remember anymore, but I came out from seeing him, and that taxi driver was sitting there and waiting for me. I had already paid him. I said, “Are you still sitting here?” “Yes, I’ll take you back, I don’t need any money, no need, I’ll take you back…” Such a very soulful man. I say, “Oh, this is dangerous…” “I don't give a damn.” You know, when a person hasn’t dealt with it, they don’t give a damn. And he drove me back to that gate, and again I’m trying to get through, and again no one will see me. “There’s no one here anymore, this and that…”

No one wants to see me, no one tells me anything. Then Alla arrives, comes there—Dora Arkadiyivna told her where I was, because they had evicted me from the hotel, for some reason they didn't need me anymore. I offered her a bribe again—she didn't want it. And whatever hotel I go to—they won't take me. They wanted me to show some of my connections. I thought, well, whatever happens, happens, I’ll spend the night at the train station. But then a woman named Dora Arkadiyivna Kozachkova came to me at the gate. Have you heard of such a person—Kozachkov, who was in the Chistopol prison? He was there for a long time, about eighteen years, a Leningrad Jew. And Dora Arkadiyivna—such a nice woman, she has a huge room in a communal apartment, all hung with paintings, original paintings by great Russian artists at that. This, she says, is my treasure, acquired over my whole life. Andropov himself sent people to her, they confiscated some paintings, promised some relief for her son. She’s in America now. They say she’s still alive, but she’s much, much older than me, by about twenty years. She really pleaded with me—I so didn’t want to communicate with anyone, didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not because I was afraid—I just didn’t need extra conversations. I had one thing on my mind, why did I need all this… But she literally dragged me to her place. And so I lived with her, probably for ten days. Then Alla came straight to this Kozachkova’s place, and she directed her to me. And Alla was there with me. We were trying to find out, which window to ask at… There were criminals there, they were sending notes out the windows to their girls, their women. A little tube like this comes flying down…

V.V. Ovsiienko: A “horse,” they send a “horse.”

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. I’m thinking: God, if only this were from Valeriy for me! I’m asking this girl: “Ask about this one somehow.” But no one, of course, could ask anything. Alla and I started hanging around that prison to find out which window he was in.

A.P. Kisliy: Was Tereza there too?

N.M. Marchenko: Tereza came later, with Vasyl. They arrived after Valeriy had already died. But Alla and I are circling around there, when suddenly a man in plain clothes and a woman—such a vile, foul-mouthed, loathsome woman—come out to us: “What are you hanging around for, you thieves, huh? Want to rob someone?” Alla says, “Who? Are we going to steal a prisoner, or what?” She says, “Get out of here!” So it was only later that we realized he had died. They were no longer allowing even the slightest bit of information about him to leak out.

Apparently, he died on the fifth of October. And we kept circling, circling and couldn't find out anything. Then Alla brought ten packs of cigarettes and gave them to that guard at the entrance, and says, “Go and find out: Valeriy Marchenko, in such-and-such a ward.” I’ve already forgotten which ward he was in. This guard comes back so cheerful: “He’s already walking, he’s walking, he’s already doing well, he’s walking.” And for both of us, Alla and me, our tongues were tied: “How is he walking? That can’t be!” And I say, “Maybe it can. You know, I suddenly feel lighter. He said that—and I feel lighter.” I say, “Alla, let’s go to church.” She had some errand to run: “You go to church, and I’ll…” She went off on her errand. Oh, it was: “I’ll go make a call. You go to church, and I’ll go make a call.” She went, and I went to the church. I stood there, on these huge slabs, because it's an old church, from around the 18th century, I think, built with St. Petersburg. An ancient church, of Alexander Nevsky.

I stood there, frozen on those slabs and prayed. And I passed a note to the priest “For his health.” I gave him money “for his health.” He had several notes, but he only spoke of Valeriy: “For the health of the prisoner Valeriy.” I thought, “How beautifully he prays!” And I had a feeling as if a guardian angel were standing next to me, and I could feel Valeriy right there. I thought, “Whatever the case, something feels so light, so light! Maybe Valeriy has gotten better, maybe he’s doing better now.” Alla—she sensed with her mind that it couldn’t be, because his kidneys were already eaten away. But I refuse to entertain that thought, because why do I feel so light? It’s a feeling that Valerka is standing next to me. It’s impossible to describe. And all the faces of the saints around me are glowing, they’re all looking at me, and Valeriy is next to me, and I feel light, so light! Later, when I analyzed all this, I thought that he must have died, and his soul was so desperate to escape that prison, that filth, that he appeared right next to me…

It was only four days after this, on the ninth of the month, that they told me he had died on the seventh. But I began to analyze it, and I think he must have died on the fifth. They delayed, they lied, they let me in to see the chief doctor, the head of the prison hospital—a woman, and the doctor was a man, and they were so careful, so attentive, so good. They told me he had died. I said, “Show me him.” “Oh no, why show you, we’ve already done the autopsy, there are no kidneys, the kidneys are completely eaten away.” I shouted something there, cursed them all, cursed the KGB, I shouted something. I know that I cursed them… May they all be damned!

And then I called Finland. My Vasyl Ivanovych is sitting in the airport, Alla is sitting there, they are somewhere packing Valeriy into a zinc coffin for the plane. And I tell Vasyl not to worry, I’m just going to the restroom. I went—and in five minutes I had already called Finland, told them that I was bringing a coffin with Valeriy. I was shouting into the phone to this acquaintance of mine: “May they be damned!” I hear her crying: “They are damned, they are truly damned, they won’t get away with this, they won’t get away with Valeriy’s death! May they all be damned, it was not for nothing that I left this damned country,” that's how she was with me… I came back, and Vasyl didn’t even suspect how much I had shouted into the phone abroad. And it’s not far from Leningrad to Finland and the connection was so good. I just dialed—and got her right away.

And when the chief woman told me on the ninth, she said, “Well then, we will bury him here, because he died on the seventh, they will lay his mortal remains. We will bury him here.” “Under no circumstances! I’m taking him with me, and don’t even think about it, I’ll dig him right out of the grave!” Something along those lines was shouted. “What—you’re going to take him?” “There can be no talk of Leningrad! I’m taking him home!” “Well, then write a request.” I wrote a request, to where—I don't remember now, I think to the KGB in the name of the chief, asking for the release of my son's body, I’m taking him to Kyiv Oblast—Ukraine, Kyiv Oblast, the village of Hatne, I will bury him next to my parents.

And I started going every day. And not just come and go—I came and stood there, and waited for an answer, and stood again. And my wanderings continued! First, there was no zinc coffin, then there was no order yet, then this, then that. Finally, on the thirteenth, they allowed me to enter. I went in, with Alla and Vasyl, but they didn’t allow Tereza. I said, “Tereza, go home and organize the funeral, arrange for a priest at the Pokrovska Church in Kurenivka.” And she left, because they didn’t give her permission, but they allowed Aunt Alla, my father, and me. When we entered, Valeriy was almost bald, he had large bald patches, and his body was like the relics at Auschwitz. That’s what I told Romanov when I was at his office: “You go on excursions to Auschwitz, you can go see my son.”

V.V. Ovsiienko: Was he wearing any clothes?

N.M. Marchenko: They had already put that suit I sent on him, the embroidered shirt, they didn’t take the shoes, but some black, clumsy slippers. They weren’t my slippers—Alla bought something. Or maybe he was in socks, I don't recall anymore.

A.P. Kisliy: But they sent his things back later, right?

N.M. Marchenko: And his things were sent later, including the padded jacket. I gave that padded jacket to the historical museum. He was dressed in that new suit of his, and the embroidered shirt. Tereza brought all of that when she came with Vasyl, because when I called, I asked her to bring it. I was sure they would release him. Even though they refused me until the last minute, I had this feeling that they were delaying for a reason—that it was being decided, and just to get rid of me. And that's why I called every minute. I told Slava as much, I’d call and say, “Slava, talk more, talk more, because they won’t release him.” And so they, the Jews, were making calls everywhere.

A.P. Kisliy: Did they know Valeriy had died?

N.M. Marchenko: They knew, someone had informed them on the fifth.

A.P. Kisliy: I was listening to the radio and recording it on a tape recorder, I even still have those recordings. Do you remember? “Voice of America” was broadcasting it all the time…

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. Someone had already reported it on the fifth, obviously one of them, one of the employees, must have been connected somehow. Someone gave the information earlier, because I still thought he was alive. Because Alla and I called our Lesia. I’m standing there saying that Valeriy is very ill, I’ll probably only see the head doctor after the weekend. And I hear Lesia telling Alla something. Alla says, “Well, Nina doesn't know this.” I say, “What?” “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.” Later she confessed to me that Lesia had told her she had heard on the radio herself that Valeriy had died. And Alla says, “But we don’t know, we don’t know.” So they knew earlier. Probably on the fifth, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Officially, they wrote that it was on the seventh, from uremia.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And how was he transported?

N.M. Marchenko: He was in that prison hospital the whole time, while we were running around for a zinc coffin. But we wouldn’t have gotten that zinc coffin, because there was “no” zinc in Leningrad for the longest time, until I raised a big fuss. They assigned a KGB agent—a calm, balanced man, obviously of some rank—and he went with us to the place where they make zinc coffins, to the funeral service, and they made it very quickly and very cheaply. I even said, “Alla, scrape together whatever money you have, Vasyl borrowed some—let's scrape it together, because we won’t have enough money.” But it was very cheap, I think the coffin only cost 15 or 19 rubles. And nothing more—we only paid for the coffin, they did the rest. He was lying in a wooden crate when they let us see him. Alla brought 20 candles, and we placed all those candles around him, gave him a small candle to hold, but there were no flowers, I think—that came later. That’s how it was.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Then what—by plane?

N.M. Marchenko: Then they put the coffin into a wooden crate, covered it with a wooden lid, but didn't nail it shut. We rode in a bus to the place where it was supposed to be sealed. Because they didn’t seal him in the zinc coffin there, but somewhere near the airport. When they brought him there and were about to seal it, I said, “Boys, open the lid.” They opened it. Because I thought: you never know—what if they close it, and he’s no longer in there? You can expect anything from them, from these KGB agents. So they covered it with the wooden lid and nailed it shut in front of us. Then they started soldering the zinc coffin shut in front of us. And this KGB agent is sitting there… Oh, he was sitting there, this KGB agent, when we were saying our goodbyes. When I was crying, I glanced at him and thought: that face—how Valeriy hated you all! And he was sitting there crying. I almost immediately stopped crying myself, because I looked over and he was sitting there crying, this KGB agent. Such turn of events. He was so sympathetic to it all! And my Vasyl—you remember what state he was in—my Vasyl goes and shoves a three-ruble note at him—can you imagine? And he says, “What are you doing? What are you doing?” I say, “Vasyl, stop it!” And he turns to me, “Please!” And Vasyl says, “But I’m so grateful to you for accompanying us.” And gives him three rubles…

They started soldering it shut in front of us. And these guys say, “Look, we’re soldering it in front of you—see, see?” And Alla and I—I think Alla had a felt-tip pen, so we wrote on all the corners: Marchenko, Marchenko, Marchenko. And a cross at one end, and at the other. And I went up to them, “Boys,” I said, “I am so grateful to you.” I offer them money—“No, no.” And they looked like such sharks, you could tell they take big bribes, because there’s plenty of opportunity there. But when I offered, it was: “No, no. You’re from the KGB, we won’t take it. There he is, the KGB agent, standing right there.” So the coffin cost 19 rubles, and then we went to the plane. And the plane tickets were also inexpensive. The KGB agent brought us the tickets—for me, Alla, and Vasyl.

A.P. Kisliy: The one who was crying?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, the one who accompanied us. I asked, “Will you come with us?” “No.” I understood that they would be sitting somewhere “on the side.”

V.V. Ovsiienko: They were definitely there.

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, they were there. We arrived in Boryspil early, around half past three in the morning.

V.V. Ovsiienko: On what date?

N.M. Marchenko: On the fourteenth, on the Feast of the Intercession.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And you took him straight to the church?

N.M. Marchenko: I don’t remember the airport anymore. I only know that we were all dressed in black, all in black. Vasyl had a black coat, and Alla gave me a black shawl. I don’t remember how we arrived at the airport at half past three. I already told you that I called Finland from the Leningrad airport. I was carefully watching to see if they were following me—no, no one, they must have lost me. Well, in many things, God’s power is present, you know… Because I came back, sat down next to Vasyl, and then Alla says, “There they are, sitting there, they won’t let us go, they’ll be accompanying us.” Maybe some people from the Kyiv KGB came to accompany us as well.

We arrived at half past three in the morning. On the Feast of the Intercession, October 14, we were at the airport. We got out, and I wasn’t leaving until they brought out the coffin. And then I don’t remember how we watched. “There it is, standing there, you go on ahead, and we’ll bring it later.” Someone was in charge there. And then I look—a group of people is standing at the entrance: Proniuk, and Sverstiuk, and Lilia Sverstiukova with a huge wreath, she had made one resembling a crown of thorns, with viburnum berries; and Lesia, and our Oksana. This was all at the airport. There weren’t many of them. I just hear, “There’s Nina, there’s Nina.” We are walking as if in a fog, I don’t remember anything. And then I see: a car is standing there, and in the car is the zinc coffin, we can see “Marchenko” written on the side. So, everything is fine. Then Alla took out a red cloth, which she had prepared in Leningrad—she had gone and bought a few meters of red silk. She went up and covered the coffin. And they immediately placed it in a bus. And we got on the bus, sat down—and behind us, a whole escort! Probably five or six cars following us, on and on.

We drove through Kyiv. We passed by his father’s house on Bastionna Street, and stopped. Then we stopped by the university. We drove by my house and stopped—the place where Valeriy had lived from 1963 to… We didn't go to Kyianivka, I think, but I don’t remember anymore—maybe we were in Kyianivka?

And then to the Pokrovska Church. There we stood—for as long as Valeriy wanted, we stood in the church. Somehow everything was so unusual. Yevhen described it in absolute detail—you know, he has that piece, “The Candle of His Faith,” about how we said goodbye to Valeriy in the church. And there, in the Pokrovska Church, is this large, straight Oranta—the “Intercession of the Mother of God.” She stands and looks at Valeriy. And they put up that portrait of his that’s in the literary museum—there he is in an open-collared shirt, and he’s looking and smiling at the Most Pure Mother of God. And his coffin… And it’s the Feast of the Intercession, the patronal feast day, full of people. Women come up and recognize him, because he used to go to this church, and they lay flowers, and a church server laid down bread, and a whole mountain of candles was laid, and the priest came and served a Panakhyda. And a KGB agent comes up to him and says, “Take it out, give the order and take it out.” And he says, “I have no right—if the family wishes, it can stay all night.”

So they fussed and fussed—but where to take it out, if there was no bus? But Lesia had arranged for a bus and said, “Go get some sleep, we’ll bury him around four o’clock.” And it probably came earlier, around three o’clock. And we had been there since the early morning—that was some work for the KGB agents! The bosses are calling—“When?!”—and these guys have no right to take it out. That's how it was. And at this time in Hatne, no one wants to dig the grave because there was no order from anyone. Lesia made the arrangements, but the head of the village council ran up: “No grave! I forbid burying him here, I forbid it!” That scumbag of ours—by the way, her last name is Marchenko, Halyna Petrivna, the head of the village council.

A.P. Kisliy: A relative of yours?

N.M. Marchenko: No, no, not a relative. She was sent from somewhere, and she was the head of the village council for a long time, a decade or so. Such a wretched woman. She said, no, no, I forbid it. And she scared those villagers so much. And people had heard on foreign radio, and the people of Hatne listened to the radio too, many came—so they came and cleared the area, said, “And what are you doing here? And what are you doing here?” People in plain clothes came and drove them away.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Were you there too?

A.P. Kisliy: They were sitting in the cemetery and taking pictures...

V.V. Ovsiienko: Are you in this picture somewhere?

N.M. Marchenko: That’s me, with my back to the camera.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What time was the funeral?

N.M. Marchenko: It must have been around three o’clock—right, Tolik?

V.V. Ovsiienko: So was it on the fourteenth or fifteenth?

N.M. Marchenko: The fourteenth, it was all on the fourteenth. We arrived very early, at half past three in the morning, and we did all this around Kyiv until about three o’clock. Well, the KGB agents had their work cut out for them! And she didn’t allow the grave to be dug—so who would show such initiative? There's no one around, everyone is scared. And then a colonel runs straight to the village council and says, “Have they dug the grave?” And she says, “No.” “Then what are you sitting around for?!” So she ran to my aunt’s place and said, “Why aren’t you digging the grave?” And my aunt says, “But what did you say—that we wouldn't be allowed to bury him here?” Well, then my brother Mykola went, and took a neighbor, there were three or four of them, and they dug the grave. And they’re photographed there too. Oh, Lord!..

V.V. Ovsiienko: I see Sverstiuk was there, and Proniuk?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, and Malazhenko, or whatever his name is—the one who was also in your camp zone…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Oleksiy Murzhenko? And where is he?

N.M. Marchenko: He's somewhere over there in the corner. And Gluzman, Lolia Svitlychna, then Olia Stokotelna, then Vira Lisova and Vasyl Lisovyi, Yevhen Proniuk, and Tolik's Valia was there, wasn't she? And Mariana is standing over there. This here is Tolik's Valia, this is Mariana, this is my Alla.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And this man with the mustache—who is he?

N.M. Marchenko: You know him—he lives in Obolon—Nina and...

V.V. Ovsiienko: Ah, is that Yevhen Obertas?

N.M. Marchenko: Obertas, and there’s Lolia Svitlychna in glasses, Halia Didkivska with Proniuk, and Oksana is somewhere… Our Oksanka is in a black headscarf, and this is Olia Stokotelna, this is Obertas, this is Tolik Kisliy, this is Halia Didkivska…

Yevhen just recited some quote from Lesia Ukrainka then, and that was all—no speeches…

A.P. Kisliy: They forbade it.

N.M. Marchenko: And Yevhen came up to me and said, “Well, Nina Mykhailivna, shall we hold a rally?” I said, “No need, boys, no need—let Valeriy go in peace, or they’ll start grabbing people here. We’ll gather later and talk as much as we want.”

This is my brother, this is Slava Gluzman, this is Proniuk, and this is my Aunt Tania, this is Mariana, and this is one woman of God’s will, a madwoman who wanders around. She still wanders around constantly. This is also a relative. This is me, this is Tolik’s Valia.

A.P. Kisliy: And is this Aunt Tania here?

N.M. Marchenko: No, no, here is Aunt Tania. And this is a later photo. Vasyl came.

V.V. Ovsiienko: This was in 1988, my hair hadn’t even grown back yet.

N.M. Marchenko: No, it was already gray.

V.V. Ovsiienko: But it hadn’t grown back yet. This was sometime in September. Isn't it written here?

N.M. Marchenko: “The Return of Friends. October 14, 1988. Gluzman, Ovsiienko, Horbal, Proniuk, Sokulskyi, Antoniuk, Sverstiuk, and Zissels.” Zissels has become so stout now, portly.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And when was the cross installed? Whose idea was it—to put up such a white cross?

N.M. Marchenko: Ah, the cross, I had that installed… Valeriy’s monument—it was based on a design by the sculptor Borys Stepanovych Dovhan. He gave me the dimensions for a very large white cross on a black base, on a black slab. But I couldn’t get the white marble for Dovhan’s design. We used what we could get. I called Borys Stepanovych, we went to Irpin, where we found some pieces. There was no white marble at all in Kyiv. And this in Irpin—I went to every single sculpture workshop and found remnants of marble in Irpin. I called Borys Stepanovych, we went, he measured everything: “Eh, boys, well find a piece that’s two centimeters larger! This one for here, this one for here…” He wanted it larger and more massive. And the black slab was easier to get—I had it made here at Berkovtsi, and then they polished it at the Baikove cemetery. Borys Stepanovych sent an artist, who engraved Valeriy’s years of birth and death and the words “Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness’ sake”—these are words from the Beatitudes prayer. Some said that I should have continued: “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” It could have been done that way, but I only wanted these words. Borys Stepanovych came when the cross was being installed.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And when was this cross installed?

N.M. Marchenko: I think it was 2 years later. Because you returned in 1988, and the cross was already there—right?

V.V. Ovsiienko: Yes, probably.

N.M. Marchenko: It was probably a little later, because Mariana left at the beginning of 1986, so I didn’t have any money. I was saving for the monument then. Since we did that maneuver with the apartment, I then had money for the monument. That was probably 1986-87. Or maybe 1987? That’s right, because Chornobyl was in 1986, so I remember going there, and people in Irpin were all wrapped up, because that was also in the zone. Yes, it was the end of 1986, it was cold. And Borys Stepanovych was there when we installed the monument. It’s in three parts. This is the lower part, this is the upper part, and this is the crossbeam.

V.V. Ovsiienko: It’s one solid piece, right?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, this crossbeam is a solid piece, and this is a piece and this is—what we had.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So they are somehow fastened together?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, it is fastened quite securely. But here's the thing—I need to go with Borys Stepanovych—cracks have appeared. He says marble is a very unreliable material. He’s going to treat it with some kind of resin because cracks have appeared—it’s frightening, I hope nothing happens.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Yes, it’s a good monument. But this—is also a monument.

N.M. Marchenko: The book, yes?

V.V. Ovsiienko: You put a lot of work into it. You signed this one for me, this is my copy.

N.M. Marchenko: Good, you see, that’s good. And I was wondering: where did I get a book with an inscription? Yes, this is a monument to Valeriy, that's true. But it’s not enough. I have so much material. When I sit down to it, I get lost, I don't know what to do. If only God helps me, then, I tell you, Slava has a very well-established publishing operation—none of these runarounds, where this one can, that one can't, this one starts to delay, and you could offer him a million, and it would still be the same. But I talked to one person, and he says he’ll give me, Nina Mykhailivna, two weeks. Give me the drafts, we’ll type up everything there is on the computer, and then you can choose what to include, I’ll come and help you. So I’m grateful at least for such a conversation. How things will go from there, I don’t know. And this will be a big deal—his translations. There are very interesting novellas and short stories there—I read them with such pleasure. You know, you can see Valeriy's character in the translations themselves. You think: why did you choose this particular theme for translation? Because it is his essence.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So there will be a whole volume?

N.M. Marchenko: There will be, there will be. Maybe it will be smaller—I don’t know. Because there are a lot of repetitions, a lot will have to be cut.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And there are probably different versions?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, there are. There’s one written by hand—“Dante’s Jubilee.” He translated this from Azerbaijani back around 1969. The signature was still “Umrilov,” but handwritten, in his schoolboyish script, you know.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So he was using the name “Umrilov” back then?

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. He did. His translations from Azerbaijani, the little book “Scary Stories,” it’s signed “Umrilov” there. But his play “The Dead” by Mammad Qulizadeh—he signed that one “Marchenko.” The translation of Azerbaijani songs was published by “Mystetstvo” publishing house—there it says “Umrilov.” His articles published in Azerbaijan—I have some Azerbaijani newspapers somewhere, they’re signed “Umrilov.” How happy his grandfather was when he wanted to become a Marchenko! He said, “Grandpa, what if I take your last name—I mean, what kind of Umrilov am I?” And he said, “I would only be proud, take it.”

V.V. Ovsiienko: And when did his grandfather pass away?

N.M. Marchenko: Right when Valeriy was at home, in 1983, in January. Valeriy was without him for another 9 months. And when Valeriy returned from exile, his grandfather was already seriously ill, he didn't recognize him anymore, but he would just hold his heart and say, “Joy, joy!” He saw Valeriy but couldn’t understand what was happening to him—he just kept saying, “Joy!” and held his heart like that. Valeriy would bathe him, joke with him. And he would laugh when Valeriy said something. Apparently, he felt joyful from Valeriy's touch. And Valeriy would run to see him every day.

V.V. Ovsiienko: You haven’t spoken about his grandmother.

N.M. Marchenko: Ah, my grandmother died when they brought him for “re-education.” In 1977, when he was in the KGB building, he had so many privileges then! They allowed him to be fed, they allowed me to bring Valeriy care packages—anything at all. And not just five kilograms, but they would take seven, even eight kilograms in a package. He even shared food with his cellmates there. They were still indulging him in December, but when I asked for permission to bring him to his grandmother's funeral, they refused, and grandmother died on December 4.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Please name the date when Vasyl Ivanovych passed away.

N.M. Marchenko: Grandma—that’s my mother, and Valeriy’s grandmother, whom he loved very much—died on December 4, 1977, grandpa Mykhailo Marchenko died on January 21, 1983, and Vasyl Ivanovych died on September 19, 1992, on my father’s birthday. These are the dates in our family.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Let all this be recorded, noted.

N.M. Marchenko: Yes. Try not to publicize this too much, because it’s such babbling…

V.V. Ovsiienko: No, it is very good that we have done this. I thank you very much.

N.M. Marchenko: But are you tired?

V.V. Ovsiienko: God knows if there will be another chance to talk… Someone has to do this. Take this, for example: we celebrated Oksana Yakivna Meshko’s 85th birthday. The Writers’ Union organized a tribute for her—it was the only time we gathered so freely, in 1990. And Vasyl Skrypka went to see Oksana Yakivna, he visited her for three days and recorded three cassettes of her autobiographical story. And thank God he did that! He partially published it in the Kryvyi Rih journal “Courier of Kryvbas.” When I saw it—it was a treasure! I found out where the cassette was, and he said he gave it to Nadiia Svitlychna. I got in touch with Nadiia Svitlychna, and Mykhailo Horyn brought me copies of those three cassettes from America. When I listened to them—Skrypka had only transcribed about half of it. I started transcribing everything—absolutely everything, and we published a small booklet. I called it “I Bear Witness.” That is true testimony, a brilliant narrative!

N.M. Marchenko: Well, she has an extraordinary biography, of course.

V.V. Ovsiienko: In the foreword, I wrote—it was done under the influence of the death of Patriarch Volodymyr… On his last day, he opened an exhibition of an artist at the Shevchenko Museum. I forgot his last name. The Patriarch said something there: “A spiritual feat does not perish in vain—someone will always be found to bear witness to it.” So the Lord sent Vasyl Skrypka to bear witness. He has also passed away now, may he rest in peace—but he did it. It is recorded. We do not have many such documents. We, Ukrainians, have sat in prisons and suffered a lot, but far from everyone had the opportunity to write and bear witness.

N.M. Marchenko: Tell me about yourself!

V.V. Ovsiienko: I have fulfilled that to some extent—I made that little book “The Light of People”—about Lytvyn, Oksana Meshko, and Stus. But many political prisoners did not do that, some have already passed away. And history is written based on what is recorded. And how many mistakes are made! I have often repeated that history, unfortunately, is not always what happened, but what was written down. So if people who know do not write it down, then other people will come and write it as they understand it, as they know it, or as they need it to be—and that will become history.

N.M. Marchenko: Yes, yes. And Soviet historiography is completely distorted in every way. In every way—it was done just as ideology directed science.

Much could be said about my father. So many interesting things could be said about him—well, maybe some other time.

V.V. Ovsiienko: You told the story well—about your father, about yourself, about Valeriy, and about the whole family.

N.M. Marchenko: And my mother’s life—wasn’t it a feat? A barely literate woman herself, and her husband—a candidate of sciences, a doctor of sciences, a professor; three daughters—all candidates of sciences; a son—a journalist. And what a witty, what a wise mother she was, and at the same time, she knew the topics of all our dissertations, she knew what each of us was working on. And at the same time, the entire kitchen was on her. And my father—I think he was the most elegant professor at the university. He had a sense of humor, he was such an optimist. How much the man endured! And to teach the history of Ukraine—the sword of Damocles is always over your head, always. And you still have to teach in such a way that you yourself get satisfaction, that you don’t lie, that you derive pleasure from what you express. He was always so neat, so put-together—all of that was my mother’s care. She had to keep that home at such a level.

And our windows overlooked the Dnipro. We lived here near the party's regional committee, on the fourth floor—the windows overlooked the Dnipro. When Valeriy recalls Kyiv, he sees the Dnipro from his grandparents’ windows. And what beautiful letters he wrote to his grandmother! That his grandmother's house was always the source of his life. And how he loved his grandfather and grandmother!

That is our family in the Kyiv context. Since 1934, you could say we are city dwellers. My poorly educated mother somehow fit into city life. My father was getting his education—and the family was considered intellectual. You observe it: people come from the village, and that fiery individualism, and often boorishness, is let loose in the city conditions. When I look at many of my neighbors—very few of them somehow fit into city life in a way that the city becomes a source of culture for them. On the contrary, egoism develops, that insatiability, that lack of breeding. This is especially evident in the suburban zone. Farther from the city—there is a peasant simplicity, more culture is preserved. But here, the closer to the city, the more it disappears.

Today for some reason I recalled lines by Leonid Pervomaisky in Russian. They once struck me deeply—I thought: a Jew, writing in Russian, and he became so imbued with Ukraine! Such words: “Того села вовек не позабуду, где у пруда стояли вербы в ряд, где первый раз увидел я, как чудо, на женщине украинский наряд.”

Anatoliy Pylypovych Kisliy, journalist, film director. I worked at “Ukrtelefilm,” at “ICTV,” at UT-1, and now I am waiting for work. I’ve known Valerochko for a long time, since about 1966, I think. We were good friends, comrades, we went on adventures together. During Valeriy's second return after his first exile, I helped him. Essentially, my job was to microfilm materials and pass them on to Valeriy. And Valeriy then passed them on further. Few people know about this, I didn't advertise it much. Nina Mykhailivna knows, and Valeriy knew about it.

N.M. Marchenko: The “Decree on strengthening the study of the Russian language in the schools of Ukraine.”

A.P. Kisliy: Both that Decree, and the petitions Valeriy wrote, and some articles that were written in his hand when he was released. And then Valeriy passed all of this on. We had, in principle, a clandestine operation. He would come to me at 18 Chervonoarmiiska Street, where I lived at the time. It was very, very difficult for him to come. A whole pack was always following him—those who were tailing him. But you could get to our place from where the Malyi Pasazh is, opposite the “Kyiv” cinema, where the commission shop is now. There you could enter one building entrance, go up to the top floor, walk through an attic-like corridor, and come down to my place. So that's how he would come down to me. He would call and say nothing. If there was such a call and they hung up, I already knew it was him. He managed to enter in such a way that no one was following him—he knew that for sure. And there were always a lot of them—four or three, or as many as you like could be following him. And then I would let him out through the back exit, because I also had a back exit. Then he would go down into the courtyard and come out onto Pushkinska Street, thus shaking his “tails.” But in general, it was a terrible time, it was all terrifying.

So I played that role in his life as well. I haven't seen Volodymyr Holoborodko for a long time, and since he has reappeared these past few years, I somehow thought he was an unfortunate man, so persecuted. But now I see that he is our chief fighter for human rights, as he presents himself. I don’t want to take on too much credit, but he is taking on too much. Because he is not a human rights defender. All of us, in principle, know what the human rights movement is and how it developed here. Holoborodko probably has less to do with it than someone else.

V.V. Ovsiienko: He left Ukraine and hid.

A.P. Kisliy: In those most terrible times, when other people stayed, he sat it out there and came back. In my opinion, his psyche is a little disturbed, when I look at him. I, for one, don't like that he tries to be everywhere now… For example, he used to say, “Nina Mykhailivna is angry at me because I drew Valeriy into the human rights movement.” Vasyl, what kind of human rights defender was that Volodymyr? I don't know, maybe somewhere on the side? He was a journalist, a decent journalist. Do you remember those times?

V.V. Ovsiienko: He is a capable man, but he is a peculiar man, and actually today's conversation is not about him.

A.P. Kisliy: No, I’m just saying this so you know: if you are going to create any materials, don't rush to believe what…

V.V. Ovsiienko: I know that gentleman well. There is a certain circle of people whom I must visit and record. That gentleman is not on the list. Did you study with Valeriy or how?

A.P. Kisliy: No, we studied in different faculties, but it so happened that after we were in a camp, we became friends.

V.V. Ovsiienko: I assume not a concentration camp?

A.P. Kisliy: No, and not a pioneer camp, but a recreation camp of Kyiv University. It's here at Kozynka.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what year was that?

A.P. Kisliy: It was in the summer of 1966.

V.V. Ovsiienko: You see, I am also a philologist, I also studied at Kyiv University from 1967-72, but Valeriy spent little time at Kyiv University—he spent a lot of time in Baku. So I only vaguely remembered him, what he looked like. And I saw him clearly already in the Urals.

A.P. Kisliy: No, we were friends. We went out together—we had this group with Zoya Didenko, Nadia Holodna, Serhiy Shulha…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Oh, I know Zoya.

A.P. Kisliy: Of course, you know Zoya. We were close. There are photographs here, Zoya Didenko is in them. And there are also good friends in Lviv—Volodia Ryabotytskyi. Oksana worked at the Lviv museum, and Volodia worked and now works as the director of some art school there. Life has scattered us, so we don't see each other very often. You see, Zoya is in Khmelnytskyi, Nadia is here, but also—we've grown up, have children, families now. But back then we were friends, went to plays together. We argued a lot.

Our relationship was more on a human level. When Valeriy was arrested for the first time, I was even a witness at his trial.

V.V. Ovsiienko: The first or second time?

A.P. Kisliy: The first time, I was a witness at the trial because for a long time I had a copy of the work “Internationalism or Russification?” Of course, I read it myself and gave it to others to read.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What form was it in?

A.P. Kisliy: It was a typescript, typed on a machine. We kept it in a folder. In fact, the reason they summoned me several times was because Valeriy had already said that he gave me this work, but I didn't admit that he had given it to me. Because I didn’t want them to “pile on” him even more. But then I found out that it would have been better for me to say that it had been with me. That's actually why they summoned me there and interrogated me. And then they even did a face-to-face confrontation, to establish that it was indeed with me and nowhere else. So that happened, I was a witness.

The trial was very funny. It was some kind of trial that to us, young people, seemed somehow unreal, like some kind of joke, some kind of comedy.

V.V. Ovsiienko: As if it wasn't about us? I had that same feeling.

A.P. Kysliy: “It felt like it wasn’t about us—not about Valera, not about me, I wasn’t a witness… and for the people sitting there—and they were journalists who had been summoned, about 20 or 30 of them in the room—it was as if none of this concerned us. And that this whole nightmare would be over, and tomorrow we would all meet again and everything would be all right. But it all turned out the complete opposite. Those were truly terrible times.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “Yes, I went through that myself, I know. When the prosecutor proclaimed, ‘Pronyuk, Lisovyi, and Ovsiyenko, having entered into a criminal conspiracy…,’ I just looked around the courtroom—were they talking about us? What criminal conspiracy?”

A.P. Kysliy: “And you have people listening to this—seemingly normal people—and you think: so who’s the abnormal one here? Because what's happening is just so unreal, so abnormal!”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “Or what about Yevhen Pronyuk's defense lawyer—Krzhypytskyi was his name, there were only three defense lawyers in total—who began his speech by saying: ‘We, the defense attorneys, fully and completely share the anger and indignation with which Comrade Prosecutor…’ A defense lawyer, starting his defense speech like that!”

A.P. Kysliy: “That’s what I mean. At the first trial, Nina Mykhailivna, I felt like it was all a joke. Wasn't it like that for you?”

N.M. Marchenko: “No, I was already terrified—after all the time I'd spent running to the investigators!”

A.P. Kysliy: “And do you remember me, my statement? I was supposedly defending him, but, you know… on the other hand, it was just horrific.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “Whatever was said, it only did more harm.”

N.M. Marchenko: “In fact, it was you Valera was talking about when he said, ‘If I am guilty—then I consider myself guilty before Kysliy.’”

A.P. Kysliy: “Ah, that was over *Internationalism or Russification?*”

N.M. Marchenko: “Right, the one he gave you to read.”

A.P. Kysliy: “You see, Nina Mykhailivna? The whole thing was just a farce. It all seemed like a comedy.”

N.M. Marchenko: “And that's how they set it up, to make it all look like a comedy, while the punishment…”

A.P. Kysliy: “And at an interrogation, when the investigator comes up and shakes your hand?”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “As if he were your best friend!”

A.P. Kysliy: “So what are you supposed to think?”

N.M. Marchenko: “And my Vasyl Ivanovych would just say, ‘They’re such nice guys! I don't get it—they treat me so well, they’re such nice guys!’ And so, believing they were nice guys, he just up and went to the KGB to ask for a visit with his son. On Sunday, February 23, on Soviet Army Day, he went there as a war veteran, a partisan with all his medals, and said, ‘Do me a favor, boys—let me see my son.’ That evening, at six on the 23rd—I didn't know this—they just grabbed him, dragged him over to 33 Korolenka Street, and let him have it! He came home at one in the morning. He'd tried to reason with them: ‘What is this, boys? I have all these honors, all these medals! What are you doing? I just wanted to see my son!’ ‘And who are you? Don't you know what kind of organization this is? What do you think you're doing here?’ They don’t tolerate that kind of recklessness—how could anyone do that? To just show up and say, ‘Let me have a visit?’ On the one hand, they act like clowns. But on the other, they put on this terrifying act. In truth, it's Sodom, a diabolical plague on this people, a people who allowed such a moral collapse, who allowed such debauchery—that was the nation's punishment.”

A.P. Kysliy: “It was a submissiveness that left no room for resistance to that evil, and so that evil flourished.”

N.M. Marchenko: “There was resistance, but they managed to crush it.”

A.P. Kysliy: “That was earlier, when your father was young. There was some resistance back then. But then they wiped everyone out.”

N.M. Marchenko: “That's exactly what Valera said during one of the visits: ‘Well, it seems truth is powerless.’”

A.P. Kysliy: “My father knew about the famine, about the Holodomor, and yet all he would ever say, and only sometimes, was that it was all orchestrated—and not another word!”

N.M. Marchenko: “And my father, after everything he'd been through, never shared any of it with Valera, not ever. Valera would try to ask him, but he’d just deflect with jokes and humor. And so the entire horrifying past was just blotted out. The ones who died were dead, and those who survived, they blotted it out.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “Thank you. This was recorded on July 16, 1998, in Nina Mykhailivna Marchenko’s apartment at 15 Chelyabinska Street, apartment 71.”