KHOLODNYI, MYKOLA KOSTIOVYCH

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An I n t e r v i e w with Mykola Kostiovych K h o l o d n y i

V. Ovsiyenko sent the text of the interview to M. Kholodnyi on January 5, 2006. However, M. Kholodnyi did not correct it. He passed away at his home in Oster in mid-February 2006. The date of death is unknown. He was buried on March 15, 2006. Therefore, we are publishing the interview with question marks (?) in doubtful places. Indeed, this interview cannot be presented without the poems. We are adding a recording of M. Kholodnyi’s creative evening from September 13, 1999. Poems that are repeated during the creative evening are omitted here, leaving only their titles.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: On October 6, 1999, on Volodymyr Hill in Kyiv, we are speaking with Mr. Mykola Kholodnyi. The recording is being made by Vasyl Ovsiyenko.

This, Mr. Kholodnyi, is meant to be, so to speak, your dissident autobiography. The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group is preparing the Ukrainian section of the “International Dictionary of Dissidents” (or “Dictionary of the Resistance Movement”)—the latter will include several hundred names, so it’s impossible for Mykola Kholodnyi not to be in it. We will also post these interviews on the KHRG website (See: International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny.” – 2006. – pp. 1–516; Part II. – pp. 517–1020. The entry on M. Kholodnyi: pp. 799-805; KHRG website http://museum.khpg.org)

M.K. Kholodnyi: The Evil Empire touched me with its black wing even in my childhood, and my family—even before I was born. My grandfather was dekulakized. My grandfather didn't join the kolkhoz back then, so they threw him and his children out into the snow. And it was only because my godmother, my father's sister, Olha, was herding the brigadier's geese—the collective farms were already in place—that my grandfather bought his house back from the kolkhoz. I say, it was thanks to my godmother herding the brigadier's geese. Grandfather Ivan's sons were my father, Kostyantyn, and my uncle, Petro. Truth be told, they didn't have the same father, because my grandmother's husband died, so she remarried. So that uncle, Petro, was in Kotovsky's brigade. Kotovsky was no longer in command of it; Kryvoruchko was. Interestingly, Kryvoruchko wrote a very sharp letter to the village council demanding the house be returned. And later, Kryvoruchko was shot as an “enemy of the people.” Well, it turns out the Bolsheviks killed Kotovsky too.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Some guy shot him in bed while he was in the midst of his womanizing exploits!

M.K. Kholodnyi: You see, they didn't tell the truth back then... Well, my father went from Stalingrad all the way to Austria, and then ended up on the Japanese front. But the Germans—what’s interesting—treated my mother and me with tolerance. Well, that’s a whole other topic.

That was the first episode, with my grandfather. I was born in 1939. That very year, our khutir [hamlet] of Yahidnyi (it belonged to the village of Krasnopillia) was resettled. People scattered, whoever could, wherever they could. Such cellars remained there, impossible to dismantle—they were so sturdily built with lime mortar. We ended up in the khutir of Stiahailivka, near the village of Karylske in the Korop district of the Chernihiv region. After the war, so that I would be allowed to attend the Karylske school, they registered me as having been born in the village of Karylske. Later, once a year, I would walk to Krasnopillia for the patronal feast day. Actually, not to Krasnopillia, but to the church hamlet outside the village of Krasnopillia. It was sixteen kilometers from us. We went on foot. So I saw the place where our house had been and where that khutir of Yahidnyi had stood. There was a lake there, with many ducks on it—my mother used to tell me. Our house stood on the shore of that lake. But by the time I went there after the war, everything was overgrown with sedge; there were only wastelands. But there were still plum and cherry trees on those old homesteads.

The postwar years. My mother would get up early, go to the fields, and return very late. There were no days off. And in a year, she would earn a bowl of grain, and sometimes she would even owe sixteen kilograms to the kolkhoz, for supposedly taking some grain from the kolkhoz. Although she hadn't done it, it was impossible to prove the truth to anyone.

They wouldn't let us gather leftover ears of grain in the field; they would shoot at us. We would hide in the corn, I remember. And then they would plow those ears under. Once, there was a meeting, and Mykola—they called him Baranyk—asked: “Why are you plowing the grain under?” The next day they took him away, and he spent about five years in prison for that question.

At that time, letters of a religious nature were circulating, claiming that somewhere on a seashore a boy had seen the Mother of God in the sky, that she had said something—such omens, according to those letters, were appearing. Under the influence of those letters, in about the third grade—it was still in the hamlet school, which only went up to third grade, and then you had to go to the village school—I went and wrote (it was essentially a leaflet) that Stalin had died and everyone was praying to God. And I tossed it in the hallway. The teacher was Mykhalko, Mariya Lavrentiyivna. And her relative, Brushko Olena, was a cleaning lady. That Olena found the note and gave it to the teacher. The teacher guessed from the handwriting that it was me. (One witness to this story is still alive: Shura Zatskin. He’s in Korop now—the district center). The teacher immediately informed the principal. And the principal was in the village of Karylske, at the seven-year school. His last name was Kochubei. He came, and I was summoned to the teachers' lounge. That teachers' lounge also served as this teacher's, Mariya Lavrentiyivna's, living quarters. There was even a stove there. He yelled at me and told me to keep my mouth shut about what I had done. Because if they had made it public, I don’t know what would have happened to me, but I think they could have been taken away. Well, at the very least, they could have paid with their jobs—both the teacher and the principal.

On September 1, 1955, I published a poem in the district newspaper *Radianska Koropshchyna* [Soviet Korop Land]. It was my first publication. The poem was called “The Lazy Brigadier.” It was a criticism of a communist brigadier. I used that phrase in the poem, but the editor, Pozdnyakova, crossed it out. I didn't know then that you couldn't use words like that: a communist-slacker. You could only name him by his last name. The gist of it was that the lazy brigadier Chaika drank all day at a christening, and couldn't care less that the thresher was in the field. They had sent us schoolchildren to the thresher, and I had already been going there. 1955—how old was I then? Sixteen years old. I started working in the kolkhoz fields with my mother while I was still in school.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: But what about school?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Well, we worked in the summer—weeding potatoes, hilling them up. There were these plows that worked on two sides. We couldn't even climb onto the horses; we could only peek out from behind the plow. So they sent us to the thresher, but he hadn't provided enough people for it. You need someone to feed the sheaves and someone to rake away the straw. It's a whole conveyor line. And there weren't enough people there, so we practically wasted that day and didn't earn anything. We just sat there pointlessly.

After this poem, the first persecutions against me began. I was forced to flee the village. And I fled to Myrorod. They didn't issue internal passports back then.

Speaking of my human rights activities, they can be divided into several categories. The first is my poetry, in which I came out in defense of the social and national rights of the Ukrainian people. This is particularly evident in poems such as “Dogs,” “Uncle Owns the Plants and Factories,” and “Today There Are Horses in the Church...”—this one already has national overtones.

Then there was publicism. I had several publications in the journal *Suchasnist*—it was still being published in Munich at the time. The CPU and the CPSU still existed. I also published in the journal *Prapor* and the newspaper *Molod Ukrainy*. True, in *Molod Ukrainy* that article appeared under the name Okolko—a student with whom I had once studied in Odesa. I was finishing my studies at the university there, and he was at the pedagogical institute. The article was called “Who Will Protect the Crimean Ukrainians?” Another of my publicist pieces was published in a Tatar journal that came out in Feodosia. It was published by Rafik Muzafarov, a Tatar. It was an article about Crimean toponymy, which the Bolsheviks had distorted. In place of historical names, toponyms, all sorts of Krasnogvardeyskis, Pushkins, and Lenins appeared... There was a lot of the color red there, especially.

The third area was my public speaking. For one such speech (at Kyiv University during a discussion of Arsen Ishchuk's novel *Verbivchany* in December 1965), I was expelled from the Komsomol and, automatically, from my fifth year at the philology department of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University. What’s interesting is that two years later, I was reinstated at Kyiv University after working as a watchman and a swineherd in the Kirovohrad region. I brought back character references and was reinstated at Kyiv University. Then I transferred to Odesa and finished my studies there in 1968. I've been retired for several years now, but it was only in 1993 that Academician Skopenko, the rector of KDU, rescinded the order for my expulsion as unlawful. Justice, so to speak, triumphed.

On May 28, 1966, I read two poems near the Franko monument: “Dogs” and “Ivan Franko's Monologue.” It was the fiftieth anniversary of the Kameniar's [The Stonemason's] death. They grabbed me and threw me in...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: They grabbed you right at the monument?

M.K. Kholodnyi: No, no, they grabbed me when I was on my way home. They grabbed me on Khreshchatyk Street. By the way, Yevhen Sverstyuk had warned me. He must have sensed how it would end. He first went to the conservatory. There was an official event there, by special invitation only. We couldn't get in. And some worker tried to get those who wanted to get in through the stage—Oleksandr Serhiyenko (he's now a deputy of the Kyiv City Council) and his classmate from the medical institute, Valeriy Nabok (Valeriy Nabok died of a heart attack in Chernihiv in 1994)—and they were detained. On Khreshchatyk, they detained Viktor Kovalchuk—a student from the journalism department of Kyiv University—because when some unknown individuals in civilian clothes attacked me (a police “voronok” [paddy wagon] had driven up), he rushed to defend me. So they took him too.

The next day was Sunday. That Sunday, at the court of the Leninskyi district of Kyiv, Judge Pedenko sentenced us to fifteen days in Lukyanivska Prison. The night before the trial, we slept on the floor at the Leninskyi District police station in Kyiv. And the next day, they took us to Lukyanivka, having sentenced us to fifteen days.

We declared a hunger strike there, but they kept us for the full fifteen days anyway. They released me and returned my passport (because I had my passport with me)—and my passport already had a stamp: “Deregistered.” They ordered me to leave Kyiv within twenty-four hours. Which I did, going to the Yahotyn region to guard an orchard at the “Novo-Oleksandrivskyi” radhosp [state farm]. The current member of the Writers' Union of Ukraine, Valeriy Illia (b. June 23, 1939, d. July 27, 2005. – V.O.), was working there as a watchman. He started a dynasty of writer-watchmen. Because later, after me, this profession was mastered by Mykola Vorobyov and Viktor Kordun, who had been expelled from Kyiv University. Somewhere in the journal *Svitovyd* in the United States, Kordun published a photograph: the three of us—Vorobyov, Kordun, and I—in the orchard in the village of Pashkivka... That's in the Makariv district. Across from Makariv, somewhere to the left, on the way to Zhytomyr.

I didn't mention that when I was expelled from Kyiv University, I didn't lay down my arms. They offered to reinstate me at the university at the level of the Komsomol raikom [district committee]. If I hadn't made trouble for them, it might have ended peacefully. But I was already on a roll. I went through all the channels right up to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. I wrote a letter—a kind of confession. That letter was over sixty typewritten pages long. I addressed that letter to the then First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU, Petro Shelest, to *Komsomolskaya Pravda* in Moscow, and to Oles Honchar (he was the head of the Writers' Union of Ukraine at the time). This was almost 10 years before the creation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in Kyiv.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The Group, you mean.

M.K. Kholodnyi: The Group. Although I wasn't a pioneer in this field. I already had, so to speak, teachers who had gone through the great school of political struggle. This struggle took place in the sphere of literary criticism. At the forefront were Ivan Dziuba, Yevhen Sverstyuk, and Ivan Svitlychnyi. But their critical articles had clearly defined political overtones, because by then everyone had come to believe in the “Khrushchev Thaw”... And then in 1963, Khrushchev was provoked, obviously by those who wanted to seize his portfolio, against the intelligentsia, and then against the working and peasant classes. He took away cows in the villages, plowed up lands that shouldn't have been plowed, and they hid grain somewhere... These themes found reflection in my poems.

In that letter to Shelest, I referred to the main articles of the UN's “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” And it was concealed from the people here. I read it in the *Courier* journal, which I got from a library in Kyiv.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The *UNESCO Courier*?

M.K. Kholodnyi: The *UNESCO Courier*, because there are many *Couriers* now, and maybe there were others back then too. I also familiarized myself with the constitutions of capitalist countries, I read Jefferson's “Bill of Rights.” I wanted to bring those articles to the people in this way—because the letter spread through samvydav. I heard on foreign radio back then that it had been published in France. And just now, a few years ago, I published it in the regional newspaper *Vinnychchyna*. The letter was published in many issues. They returned this letter to me from the KGB's safes (now it's the SBU archive). There are eight volumes of my case file—that's the investigation of my so-called, and maybe not “so-called,” anti-Soviet activity. Because what's “so-called” about it? Now those quotation marks can be removed. As for the poems, there is a vivid document, produced at the request of the KGB—a review of my book *Kryk z mohyly* (A Cry from the Grave). By the way, I forgot to say that in 1969, in Paris–Toronto–Baltimore in the USA, the Vasyl Symonenko “Smoloskyp” publishing house (the director of this publishing house was Osip Zinkewych) published my book *A Cry from the Grave*. It was a book directed against the national policy of the CPSU. It was a direct challenge. True, it was published under the heading “Clandestine Poems from Ukraine,” without the author's name. But it contained a number of poems that had already been published, and they identified me immediately. Because I also read those poems in public. By the way, I didn't hide them. For this collection and for other poems that were circulating, the KGB arrested me in the winter of 1972.

Actually, I forgot to mention that eviction from Kyiv. I will make some digressions during my story, because not everything comes to mind at once. As for that eviction from Kyiv. Now, wherever I appealed (for example, I appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office), I would receive a reply that my arrest for an administrative violation was not provided for in the law in 1966. Well, all the more reason, if the arrest was not provided for, they should have somehow rehabilitated me and declared the expulsion from Kyiv illegal, right? Because I was registered here on Boichenko Street. I should have had an apartment long ago.

By the way, Vyacheslav Chornovil wrote about that eviction from Kyiv in 1966 and about that arrest, about being thrown into Lukyanivska Prison, in his famous work *Pravosuddia chy retsydyvy teroru?* (Justice or Recidivism of Terror?). (See: Chornovil V. Works: In 10 vols. – Vol. 2. *Justice or Recidivism of Terror?*. *Woe from Wit*. Materials and Documents 1966 – 1969 / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by Les Tanyuk. – K. Smoloskyp, 2003, – 906 pp.: ill. The mentioned work on pp. 71 – 359, about M. Kholodnyi – on pp. 353-354. – V.O.).

This is a work from the sixties. He ended up behind bars for it, by the way. And some thirty years later, Ukrainian President Kuchma awarded him the Shevchenko Prize for it. (Also for *Woe from Wit*. – V.O.) There was a list of those repressed extrajudicially and judicially. I was number thirteen on that list. It was stated that I, Serhiyenko, Nabok, and Kovalchuk were convicted with the wording: “For an attempt on the life of a police officer.” For such an accusation, we should have gotten about ten years, no less—but they gave us fifteen days. Of course, it was a phantasmagoria of the judge and those directors who orchestrated all of it to compromise us. And just this year, in February, the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office and the Kyiv People's Court (the judge, I think, was Hryhoriy Zubets, and the prosecutor, I believe, was Abramenko, and another one—the deputy prosecutor of the city of Kyiv, I forget his name) made a “Solomonic decision.” The three of them—Abramenko filed a motion, the deputy prosecutor of the city of Kyiv approved that motion, and the Kyiv city judge rescinded that ruling by Judge Pedenko from May 29, 1966.

By the way, when the KGB arrested me in February 1972, the story of the speech at the Ivan Franko monument was part of the case file. We also laid flowers there. Oksana Meshko was there. We sang a few songs. And the whole park was filled with police. What were you asking me about? I forgot.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Please detail the procedure of your expulsion from the Komsomol and the university. With dates, if possible. Who took part in that spectacle?

M.K. Kholodnyi: This is how it happened. I spoke at the discussion of Professor Arsen Ishchuk's novel *Verbivchany*. It was, I think, on December 5, 1965. And on the sixth, I believe, the order was issued. There was a Komsomol meeting for our year, then a faculty meeting, then the university's Komsomol committee met. At the Komsomol meeting for our year, the students mostly spoke out for me, in my defense.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Do you remember which of your classmates defended you?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I'll tell you who spoke... Mykola Chyshchevyi especially spoke in my defense. Then there was the faculty Komsomol meeting. Hoshovskyi—the secretary of the university's Komsomol committee—came to that one (he later became a lecturer at the pedagogical institute). He was set against me. Petro Kononenko was also set against me...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Petro Petrovych?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Petro Petrovych. Because I was also in charge of the “SiCh” literary studio there. He really didn't want me to be elected head of the literary studio.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: “SiCh”—the Vasyl Chumak Literary Studio.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Right, the Vasyl Chumak. By the way, they never actually removed me as head of the Studio, so from a legal standpoint, I still consider myself the un-re-elected head. True, the Studio was later renamed after Maksym Rylskyi. And it came to be led by a professor with the symbolic surname Dubyna, Mykola. [Dubyna means “oak grove” but can also be a pejorative for a stupid person—Trans.] He was the one who compiled some book about the so-called Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists abroad, *The Seal of Bloody Cains*, or something... He made things up there, like that Yar Slavutych had supposedly served in the SS “Galicia” Division, but he never served there. Yar Slavutych responded to him in the press somewhere. I know this story because my book about Yar Slavutych is currently in typesetting at the “Dnipro” publishing house—he is a poet, an outstanding Ukrainian scholar, lives in Canada, and during the war, he commanded the insurgent detachment “Chernihiv Sich.”

Even Professor Arsen Ishchuk spoke in my defense. But nothing could be done—the machine had been set in motion, they needed to find some pretext. What did they actually latch onto? That novel by Ishchuk, *Verbivchany*, was nominated for the Shevchenko Prize. Oleksa Zosenko asked if anyone would be speaking. And Oleksa Zosenko—he's a literary scholar, a literary critic—was playing first fiddle there. He lost to Ishchuk at billiards at the Writers' Union. And everyone there plays billiards without having any money. And whoever loses, the bartender puts on a “blacklist.” The worst thing for her was when the man who lost suddenly died. Well, Oleksa Zosenko lost to Arsen Ishchuk. So he says: “I have no money—I'll help you get your novel nominated for the Shevchenko Prize.” And that novel wasn't worth a damn. And so he didn't get the Shevchenko Prize.

The Studio, where I spoke, met in the yellow building of the university. Andriy Kabaliuk was sitting next to me. He writes poetry. I don't know, maybe he's even been admitted to the Union. So I asked him: “If they kick me out of the university, will you give me a ten-ruble note for bread?” He says: “I will.” Then I say: “I'd still like to say a word.” And no one, neither the professors nor the students, had read that novel. They were praising the language, saying it was interestingly written, but no one said anything specific. So I opened it in the middle (I hadn't read it either), and there was an episode where they bring some innocently arrested person to a prison, and its employees, these wardens, speak Ukrainian. I said: “This doesn’t meet the requirements of socialist realism for a truthful depiction of reality. Where have you ever seen a prison in Ukraine where the officials communicate in Ukrainian?” And that was enough. This was assessed as nationalism. And the carousel for my expulsion started spinning. Besides, in August of that year, 1965, a wave of arrests swept through. And I was acquainted with Mykhailo Horyn. We went together to act as a matchmaker for a girl, Tereza Tsymbalynets, in the Svaliava district of Zakarpattia.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: For whom were you matchmaking?

M.K. Kholodnyi: For me. Mykhailo Horyn was the matchmaker (`svat`). And then he went to the Black Sea. I didn't know he had gone there. He even sent a telegram saying he would be late. And it turns out, the leaders of the Ukrainian national movement (essentially, the Ukrainian national underground) were gathering there. Mykhailo Masiutko was there (I know this now because they were all arrested then), and Ivan Svitlychnyi was there. Well, I don't know about the others. So, Tereza and I went to the unveiling of a Shevchenko monument in Sheshory, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Prykarpattia. I saw Vyacheslav Chornovil there, Zinovia Franko. Hrytsko Sahaidak from Troyeshchyna came in his “Pobeda” car. He has published a book now, maybe two. But they forbade the unveiling of the monument back then. By the way, the author of that monument was the famous sculptor Ivan Honchar, in whose school (and not just me, but my whole generation) I received a national upbringing. They didn't unveil that monument then, but they did about a week later, without any people.

Well, the KGB agents, so to speak, got on my tail. On the way to Svaliava, I stayed behind in Berehove. My friend, Kolia Horyn from Kyiv, was supposed to send me money there—my honorarium. I wasn't rich back then. And I forgot that we had changed the plan: he sent the money to Rakhiv. And I thought he would send it to Berehove. And by the time I arrived, everything had changed for that Tereza Tsymbalynets. And we were already preparing for the wedding the following Sunday. I didn't know why. She accused me of having some female acquaintance in Berehove. But I had stopped there because I was waiting for the post office to open. And we had arrived there very early. It turned out (she told me this many years later) that as soon as she got to the village council, the head of the council, who happened to be her relative, called out to her and said: “They're summoning you to the KGB.” Well, she took a bus to the KGB in the district center, Svaliava. There, some guy started asking her: “What counter-revolutionary plans were you and Kholodnyi hatching?”—because we had been walking near the forest. Well, what plans were we hatching? We were hatching plans to have fewer people see us, to kiss somewhere, or what do I know... You know what plans a young man hatches.

And then the guy who had grabbed her by the shoulders and terrorized her was killed in a motorcycle accident.

When I returned to Kyiv from Tereza's, I no longer lived in the dormitory. I was registered at Alla Horska's place, but I was living at the artist Mykola Storozhenko's place at the so-called Kulzhenko's dacha. These are art studios, there, beyond Shevchenko Square, in Kurenivka. My things were in Storozhenko's wardrobe; I left what I didn't need there. I took my passport with me, but I left my military ID and my Komsomol card there. The dues were paid. And so when the KGB agents conducted a search there, the military ID was there, but the Komsomol card was missing.

The next day, when I spoke at the university during the discussion of Ishchuk's novel, I was immediately summoned to the university's Komsomol committee and they asked me: “Where is your Komsomol card?” I ask: “What's the matter?” “Well, his wife found it in Kurenivka.” “And why did she find it there? The dormitories are on Lomonosov Street.” “No, no. She found it on Lomonosov and brought it to us.” But it turns out, the KGB agents had stolen the card from my pocket and wanted to play on that. They waited three months, thinking I hadn't paid my dues. But we had paid the dues about six months in advance because our Komsomol organizer was going somewhere to the virgin lands, for some job, and they were returning in late autumn. So the dues were already paid. In short, they accused me of losing my Komsomol card. They promised they wouldn't expel me from the university. But they did expel me, from the Komsomol and then from the university.

When I was summoned to the Komsomol committee, they didn't know what to ask for a long time. Then someone stood up, I think it was Hoshovskyi, or his deputy, and said: “The floor is given to the representative of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, so-and-so.” And he asks me: “Why do you wear a beard?” I had a beard, maybe a millimeter and a half long, I measured it. And at that time there was a campaign against beards. Someone was just telling me recently—I think it was Petro Volvach—that somewhere in Crimea, they told some dean or rector to shave his beard (he really did have a beard). He didn't shave it, so they immediately fired him from his position as rector or dean... Maybe I'll recall the name of that scientist who paid for his beard during our conversation.

Right, so he asked: “Why do you wear a beard?” I thought: what should I answer? I had three hairs sticking out there... And right in front of me hung a portrait of Karl Marx. So I answered: “You should ask Karl Marx about that.” Oh, they just flared up at that: “You see, he’s hostile to Marxism-Leninism! Let's expel him! How can he remain in the Komsomol?” These hearings on my case went all the way to the Kyiv Oblast Komsomol Committee. There was a guy named Kornienko there then; he later became, I believe, the first secretary of the Kyiv city or oblast party committee. The city committee. He was a careerist. He asked me: “And why did you...?” And back then I had also written a work called *About the Soul in Song and Song in the Soul*. It was later published in Italy, in Rome. The Vatican even awarded me some honorary prize for it. This work was later published abroad as a separate monograph by “Smoloskyp,” in Rome in 1979, and in Baltimore and Toronto in 1981. They awarded me the prize in 1979.

So Kornienko asks: “And why did you mention Savchuk in your work? Don't you know he lives abroad?” I say: “Not Savchuk, but Ulas Samchuk.” When they familiarized me with my archival criminal case from 1972 around 1992—because I hadn't been familiar with it before—there was a transcript of that meeting of the oblast Komsomol committee, about thirty or fifty pages long. By the way, I asked, and they gave me that transcript from the case file. I'll publish it somewhere someday.

I had a house. In 1972, I was deregistered again—this time from the Kyiv region. I was living in Mykulychi. I had a house, I had a plan for a new house, I wanted to build it. But a bulldozer tore that house down, and I was exiled to Vinnytsia. There, I was essentially under house arrest.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: From what year were you in the Vinnytsia region?

M.K. Kholodnyi: From 1972, around the summer. I worked in a school there. Then the situation there became unbearable; I was “taken to task” for so-called nationalism several times. I left that place. I was unemployed for a while, and then I got a job at a museum. They slandered me there, claiming that at the Tyvriv museum I had ordered that exhibits not be labeled in two languages—Ukrainian and Russian. But I had never even been to the Tyvriv museum, nor had I ever been to Tyvriv. The court acquitted me, but the museum director, Zayets (and he was a professional KGB agent, he headed the veterans' council at the Vinnytsia Oblast KGB directorate) said: “I'll put you in prison anyway.” So I fled from there to Oster and later ended up in the Chornobyl zone, because when the reactor exploded, Oster fell into the Chornobyl zone.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And you've been in Oster since what year?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Since 1976. I was cut off from cultural life there. I just live there, as if in a ghetto, because the city library doesn't receive a single Ukrainian journal. And to order a book through interlibrary loan, for example, you have to pay money. And to come to Kyiv, for instance, to get something—you can't read a book in one day, if you need to do it somewhere like the Vernadsky National Library or somewhere else. That means you have to spend the night. And staying in a hotel is several times more expensive than the trip itself.

Then the head of the Verkhovna Rada commission on national spiritual revival, People's Deputy Les Tanyuk, sometime in the early nineties—by the way, right before the GKChP putsch—appealed to the Kyiv City Council to grant me a one-room apartment in Kyiv, because I wasn't claiming anything more. He argued that since the time I was evicted from Kyiv, and later from the Kyiv region, I would have already received housing through my place of employment. And when the KGB arrested me in 1972, I was working as an engineer at the Central Normative Research Station of the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Management of Ukraine, on Kavkazka Street. And before that, around 1967, or more likely 1968, I was working as the executive secretary of the Society for the Protection of Nature of the Zhovtnevyi district of Kyiv. I was summoned to the Zhovtnevyi district executive committee, by some guy named Tokarev. And it turns out, in 1965, he had reviewed my case in the district Komsomol committee and knew me. As soon as he heard I had ended up in that district, he said: “How could we allow this? We have fourteen thousand workers here. And you were here as a nationalistic element?!” He took away my certificate as secretary of the Society for the Protection of Nature. The next day I was dismissed “at my own request.” I was hired through the city branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature. Serhiy Bilokin's father helped me with this—he was an academician, a wonderful person. He helped me get the job because he himself was a biologist. And the city society was headed by Ivakh. Ivakh was then summoned to the city party committee—and he had a minor heart attack there. The son of the writer Inna Kulska knows this very well. He himself is now a member of the Writers' Union, Ihor Moiseyev, my friend; I lived with him when I had nowhere to live. But then they found out about this letter from Les Tanyuk from the Verkhovna Rada about my return to Kyiv. The KGB found out—and they tripped me up. And so to this day, I am burning on a slow fire in that Oster reservation.

What else did I forget to say? You can ask a question.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: 1972. That arrest—I don't even know the date you were arrested. What were the motives, what charges were brought against you?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Alright, then. By the way, you asked who spoke against me at the university. Volodymyr Zabashtanskyi (b. Oct. 5, 1940 – d. …………) played the most shameful role there. By the way, I used to write poems for Zabashtanskyi, literally write them. It wasn't just editing; I had to write them for him myself. I used to walk him home on Frunze Street because he was blind. Then a legend spread in the Komsomol bodies that he had supposedly lost his hands and eyes while quarrying granite for Lenin's mausoleum. But in reality, it happened under domestic circumstances. They were trying to detonate some kind of explosive charge in a quarry, having taken it from the workers. As a result of an accident, he became disabled. So he played a very shameful role then because he was a member of the literary studio. And before me, the literary studio was headed by Ivan Drach, and before me, Valeriy Shevchuk—so the literary studio ignored the socialist realist canons. Petro Kononenko was constantly sitting in the back row. Zabashtanskyi was immediately accepted into the party, and then into the Writers' Union of Ukraine. Then he was given the Mykola Ostrovsky Prize—that Ukrainophobe—and then the Shevchenko Prize.

So Zabashtanskyi, by the way, sent me a letter sometime at the beginning of, I think, 1988, and suggested that I should repent for the collection *A Cry from the Grave*. I went to see him. And the manuscript of my collection was at the “Radianskyi Pysmennyk” [Soviet Writer] publishing house. It's now called “Ukrainskyi Pysmennyk” [Ukrainian Writer]. He, you could say, “ratted me out,” because during the investigation I said that I had not sent the collection abroad. But in 1988, he was speaking at our literary studio in Chernihiv. He got drunk, couldn't come to the session for a long time (he was there with Mykola Tomenko—also an author of songs about red horsemen, etc.). So Zabashtanskyi spoke and said that he, meaning Kholodnyi, was, supposedly, ‘still proud that his book *A Cry from the Grave* was published abroad.’ That I had even been walking down the street back then telling him that I gave the collection that title and sent it abroad.

By the way, Petro Kononenko wrote a character reference for one of our students to enter graduate school (and she did finish it). And in the reference, he indicated that she had helped him fight against me, Kholodnyi, back when I was the head of the literary studio.

So you're asking about 1972, when they took me?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The date of the arrest, what charges were brought? Where, under what circumstances were you arrested?

M.K. Kholodnyi: They were looking for me... At the Samhorodok school, where I worked, there were no teaching hours for me. That is, they found out there that I was a politically unreliable type. And I was fired from my job while I was in the hospital. This was in the Skvyra district. At that time, I had the imprudence to submit my poems to the journal *Duklia*, and they were published in 1967. There was a poem there:

Зацькований, цілую п'яти, зв'язані Сергієві, сохну в поезії, дійку обвиваю вужем. Друзі, якщо впізнаєте мене на вулиці в Києві, вдарте, будь ласка, під ліву лопатку ножем.

I was undergoing surgery on my middle ear at the Kyiv Oblast Hospital, and during this time I was fired from my job at the Samhorodok school in the Skvyra district. Because the head of the raivno [district department of public education], Brovko, to whom I had given that journal to show off that, you know, I was even being published abroad in the publications of socialist countries—he took it to the raikom [district party committee]. So I paid for my naivety.

And then I worked in Kozyntsi in the Borodianka district. I only worked there for a year too—KGB agents were already following me, escorting me from the electric train all the way to the village. Because I often spent the night in Kyiv and traveled there for work. The principal there was a certain Chervanskyi. By the way, I read his character reference for me in the KGB file, in that criminal case against me, just now, in 1992. He wrote that “I was not familiar with his poems, but they were of an anti-scientific character.” And he hadn't even read them...

I then bought a house in another village, in Mykulychi. It wasn't far to walk from the electric train. By the way, I bought that house with Vasyl Stus, because I was afraid someone might rob me of the money. So Vasyl Stus was holding the money. I bought the house for a thousand of the then-currency, those Soviet rubles. That was in 1969. We agreed on nine hundred and fifty, but when we went to finalize the deal, the old woman said a thousand—she added another fifty. And it turned out she had been selling it for only five hundred before. We went to look for the money, we had to find another fifty rubles. We come back, and the old woman says she doesn't need the fifty rubles anymore. “Why?” And she says: “I was chopping wood—I broke my arm. God punished me for agreeing to nine hundred and fifty and then trying to take another fifty rubles from you.” So she sold the house for nine hundred and fifty.

I stayed there for a year. And then the head of the raivno summons me, says: “Listen, you don't have your documents. We'll have to dismiss you from your teaching position.” But the school year had already ended. I go to the principal—his name was Yaremenko. He asks: “Why did they summon you to the district office?” I say: “They're taking me to the Teacher Training Institute, so I need a character reference.” He wrote me a positive reference—thinking it was a way to get rid of me.

And that head of the raivno in Borodianka, whose surname was Dvornyk, he was angry: “If I had met you somewhere on the front, I would have shot you on the spot.” I say: “And what makes you think you would have shot me, and not the other way around?” Well, he fell silent after that. So with that reference, I went to Ivan Svitlychnyi and asked: “What should I do?” He says: “Do you know who fired you?” “Who?” “It’s obvious who—the Okhranka fired you. That's who you should call.” “Who?” “Well, call him... You won't get through to Nikitchenko, he won't see you. Call Shulzhenko.” Well, I didn't call Shulzhenko—I went to the Central Committee, I think to Tsmokalenko, and Tsmokalenko called Shulzhenko. Well, they had no power there in the Central Committee—they knew the KGB did everything. I went to KGB General Shulzhenko. But Shulzhenko said: “We know, your works are abroad, some not even published yet.”

They led me on and on there in Borodianka and, in the end, they had a full staff, and so I was left without a job. I got a position as an engineer. Viktor Nikiforov and his friend Fedir Volvach helped me with this. They helped me get the job, even though I had a philological education.

I was on a business trip in Zhytomyr when the arrests were happening here. Specifically, at Yevhen Kontsevych's place. In 1965, for Kontsevych's birthday on June 5, Oksentiy Melnychuk—some local writer—brought an album, and a listening device was mounted in the head of a little dog statuette inside the album. Yevhen discovered it. Dziuba then spoke of this album as a new method of educating literary youth. Kontsevych had an embroidered towel on which guests would sign, and his wife would later embroider these autographs. My signature was there too.

So, in January 1972, I was on a business trip at a construction management office of the Ministry of Land Reclamation system. I was working as an engineer in the department of construction materials expenditure. Kontsevych and I read in the newspaper that arrests had taken place in Kyiv. When I returned to Kyiv, I met with Fedir Volvach. Volvach says: “They've already been to my place. They were asking for you.” Then I showed up in the village, in Mykulychi. A neighbor told me: “They asked for you, that you should stop by the village council.” When I was buying a travel pass—my pass for the electric train had just expired—the station master looked at me very suspiciously. And some rank-and-file employee of that station told me: “Get out of here quickly, because either the police or the KGB are looking for you.” I spent the night in Kyiv, not showing up at home in Mykulychi. Well, I hid whatever samvydav I had.

By the way, I didn't mention that I distributed samvydav. Once, Vasyl Stus (I was going to Donetsk) gave me a speech, I think by the Pope or by Yosyp Slipyj, to pass on to Volodymyr Mishchenko. I passed on this material. Then I passed on other samvydav documents. Mishchenko now lives somewhere in the Dnipropetrovsk region, I think—he moved somewhere then. By the way, he was the editor of my first book published in Ukraine in 1993 by “Ukrainskyi Pysmennyk”—*Doroha do materi* (The Road to Mother).

I was hiding illegally in the settlement of Vyshneve—that's Zhuliany, at Viktor Kordun's place. We noticed there that a spy was following me on the platform, hot on my heels. I came to Kyiv, spent the night somewhere, met with the artist Borys Plaksiy, and then went to a meeting at a pharmacy. The pharmacy was on Franka Street, on the corner. There was a pharmacy on one side and a shoe store on the other. So I met there with Valia Malyshko. She was either Malyshko's wife Liuba's niece or something—I had a brief relationship with her. (b. Dec. 29, 1937 – d. May 17, 2005. – V.O.). With her and with a certain Petlychka. Her last name was Petlychka, I forget her first name. She lived in Bessarabka. She said her father was a party official, but maybe he worked for the KGB? She had a communal apartment. I then saw that some... A KGB officer, young, married, lived there. So I'm walking with this Petlychka to meet Valia (she had told me that Valia Malyshko would be coming). And Valia was there. Just as I passed St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, I see—several white cars are parked there. The license plates were 05, I think. My heart immediately sank, knowing they were coming for me. Well, where could I run—you can't run far, where can you go? I went up to the girls and kept looking at those cars... And for some reason, Valia ran home, supposedly to change clothes. I'm looking at those cars, and Petlychka says: “Don't look in that direction.”

Then Valia came back. We're walking towards the opera house, and I say: “I'll get some beer.” She, that Petlychka, says: “Oh, I have something to drink at my place.” We go to Petlychka's home. She says: “Go into this store and buy it.” And I think: “No. I won't go in there, they'll grab me here, it's two meters to the KGB—they'll drag me away, and no one will even see.” I say: “No, I'll buy it downstairs, on Khreshchatyk.” There's a grocery store on Khreshchatyk, across from the department store. I go in there, get some beer, probably two bottles. And Petlychka said: “Get some cigarettes for Valia and me too.” I got the cigarettes, come out of the store—they're gone. I thought they had slowly started walking home. Thinking I would catch up with them on Khreshchatyk. Just as I reached the “Sporttovary” [Sporting Goods] store—they grab me by both arms: “Mykola Kostiovych?” I screamed: “Fascists!” Or something like that. And they dragged me into one of the white cars that were parked there. I later saw one of these cars on the grounds of the pre-trial detention center, on Irynynska Street—it's here, where Volodymyrska is, that car was parked. It was something like 05-20 KIA, or something. They took me to the oblast KGB. They fussed around with something for a long time, because it might have even been a Sunday. They fussed for a long time until they took me to that KGB pre-trial detention center.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: What date was that?

M.K. Kholodnyi: It was February 20, because the wave of arrests had swept through around February 12...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: January 12, 13, and 14.

M.K. Kholodnyi: January, I'm sorry. But I was on a business trip in Chernivtsi then. I didn't want to wander around Kyiv. I was in Konotop, visiting my mother. I took all the photographs I had to my mother. Because there were a lot of friends, dissenters, and if that photo archive had fallen into their hands, a lot of people would have suffered. They came to my mother's with a search warrant sometime in March. My mother noticed them in the yard as they were walking: the head of the village council, Borys Kotok, Berestovskyi went there...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I know KGB investigator Leonid Berestovskyi. He started my case on March 5, 1973. And then he handed it over to Mykola Tsimokh.

M.K. Kholodnyi: This Berestovskyi did his practicum in 1965 on Vyacheslav Chornovil. Chornovil really laid into him then! He showed his incompetence. So they transferred him to Khmelnytskyi. By the way, at that time they transferred Tamara Hlovak, who worked in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, to be secretary of the oblast committee (I don't know if that was a demotion or a promotion)...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: She was the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, right?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes, for ideology. When they kicked Shelest out to Moscow after my arrest—it was almost synchronous—and Shcherbytskyi took over... Because it was supposedly Malanchuk who ratted on Shelest, saying he had allowed nationalism to flourish... Then Shelest's book *Ukraina nasha radianska* (Our Soviet Ukraine) came out. Its title was graphically arranged in such a way that it could be read as “UNR” [Ukrainian People's Republic]. So he was later accused in the journal *Komunist Ukrainy* of autarky—of wanting to run things here independently of Moscow. Well, there was something to it, that he had a falling out with Suslov over some Dutch oil cake: Suslov wanted to take it for Moscow, and Shelest for Ukraine—for the cows, for the farms.

The first thing they charged me with then was the collection *A Cry from the Grave*. There were long and tedious conversations. The interrogations were conducted by Berestovskyi. They took me in warm clothes, because it was winter. So I wrote a note there and wanted to smuggle it out in my clothes... I had to somehow continue the fight with them. There, in the conditions of the pre-trial detention center, I couldn't imagine how to fight them. I wrote a kind of appeal-statement to the prosecutor of Ukraine, in which I expressed a sharp protest in connection with my arrest. That they had snatched me just like during the German occupation—grabbed me right off the street. And for what? For nothing! No, they knew what for... I wrote that statement in several copies. I hid one in my shoe—the sole had been cut open. I had felt boots... I don't remember, maybe even in both shoes. I hid it behind the heel counter in the shoe, and I hid the other one in the nightstand. I took the lid off the nightstand and put it under there.

Then they put some guy named Klymchuk in my cell—he was supposedly in for stamps. Well, it was so he could wear me down psychologically.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: That's a must—an informer in the cell was a must.

M.K. Kholodnyi: That's probably why they put him in with me, to find something out, to involve me in something. Yevhen Proniuk figured him out. Proniuk later told me that they had put him in his cell. That Klymchuk said he was in for some refrigeration units—supposedly he repaired refrigerators and took bribes. And for some stamps from Scandinavia, as a philatelist. His name was Klymchuk Oleh, he was from Chervonyi Khutir. He said that when he got out of prison, he would accept glass containers at some pavilion, that he would buy an old “Zaporozhets” and make a fortune. Indeed, when I got out, I was curious: had he gotten out or not? So once I visited him with Vasyl Skrypka (b. April 16, 1930, dismissed in 1972 from the Institute of Art History, Folklore, and Ethnography for political reasons. From 1986 – professor at the Department of Ukrainian Literature of the Kryvyi Rih Pedagogical Institute. Died Sept. 19, 1997).

Indeed, everything was going according to plan—he got a job accepting bottles, or maybe they helped him. He bought a humpbacked “Zaporozhets.” And when I visited him a second time, the house was overgrown with weeds. The part where he lived was shared with his brother. So his part was overgrown with weeds, not whitewashed on the outside. It was clear that he had gotten into trouble again somewhere.

What else? I had an interesting confrontation with Zinoviy Antoniuk. Antoniuk had some of my books. I was the godfather to his wife's sister's children, and Ivan Dziuba was the godfather to Zinoviy Antoniuk's child. We had such, so to speak, distant, symbolic family ties. So I would occasionally spend the night at Antoniuk's. Long before the arrest, I brought him Valentyn Moroz's *Instead of a Final Word* and some other samvydav. So I took the blame for that. I knew they had found *The Ukrainian Herald* at his place (I had given information to it myself, I distributed this *Herald*). I think they found one copy of *The Ukrainian Herald* at his place. This came up somehow, either at the confrontation or somewhere else. So I took the blame for it—I said I had brought him the *Herald*. But actually, I hadn't brought him the *Herald*. Larysa (?) knows that I took the blame for it then. Well, Antoniuk said that I had brought this *Instead of a Final Word*. They asked me where I got it. I said that some guy named Vasyl gave it to me, and I don't know him from Adam. Somewhere in a café, where Paradzhanov lived, there was a varenyky place. I say, I don't know him, I was drunk at the time and I don't know who he is. I tried, so to speak, to cover my tracks.

What else did they incriminate me with? They searched my home—but they found nothing there. In the wardrobe, under the glass, under the mirror (I once bought the wardrobe at a second-hand store, we bought some other furniture with Paradzhanov)—I had hidden a typescript of Yevhen Sverstyuk's work *Ivan Kotlyarevsky Is Laughing*—they didn't find it. But they did find—well, I didn't hide it—Dovzhenko's *Diary*. Oles Serhiyenko had given it to me once. I didn't say where I got it. By the way, that *Diary* was reprinted from Soviet editions—from Dovzhenko's *Dnevnik* in Russian. I also had a clipping from some newspaper on the door of my room, which I had partitioned off, maybe from *Pravda*, about Khrushchev's dismissal to retirement. So they tore off that clipping and took it. They took a book, a small brochure about yogis. Ihor Moiseyev had published it back then. He worked at some medical publishing house—I don't know what it was called... Somewhere there behind the Verkhovna Rada he worked. So they didn't return those books to me. Probably some KGB officer took them for himself. They searched, dug around under the peat in the shed, poked around there—they found nothing there. One guy climbed onto the stove, looked in the chimney—he didn't find anything there either.

But at my mother's... I don't know where those photographs were—there was a whole bundle of them. My mother saw the KGB agents in the yard and quickly hid the bundle in the pich [large stove]. And they didn't go into the stove. They found a few of my letters to my mother in a drawer—so they took them.

And my papers (there were a lot of them) I gave to Danko Dmytro in Nemishayeve. By the way, his godfather—the local police officer—lived next door to him. And it turns out, he was watching me, but he didn't report anything about me. Although he knew well what spirit we were breathing then—an anti-Soviet spirit. He didn't rat me out anywhere. What's interesting: Danko took all those materials in a plastic bag and lowered it into a well—in the winter! It would have been a piece of cake for that bag to tear, everything would have gotten soaked, or a bucket could have... And it was a well shared with the police officer! He could have scooped up that package. But the bag was intact. It stayed there until the end of the summer of 1972. When I came from Vinnytsia, he gave it all back to me.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Nothing got wet?

M.K. Kholodnyi: No, it didn't get wet. Actually, it wasn't like that. I didn't come from Vinnytsia; the KGB released me for one day. They brought me to the village of Mykulychi and told me to pack my things. And Svitlychnyi's trial was happening at the time (April 27–29, 1973. – V.O.). I was asked a question: had Svitlychnyi given me any advice? The lawyer asked. I said he hadn't. They asked if we had exchanged samvydav. By the way, they also asked this at Stus's trial. I said there was no exchange of literature either with Svitlychnyi or with Stus and that there were no anti-Soviet conversations or conversations on political topics. These were stereotypical questions; they probably asked everyone.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You were summoned to the trials of Stus and Svitlychnyi?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes. I've already mentioned Danko Dmytro, that he saved my archive. But, it's true, when I was carrying that bundle and opening the house, some photographs fell out in the yard. I didn't notice. And then in the morning, Berestovskyi arrives. He must have understood very well the origin of those photos scattered around the yard, but he kept silent. Although he could have reopened the investigation. But he kept silent.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And were any poems incriminated against you?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Oh, the poems—that was terrible! I've already mentioned that there was a review of the collection *A Cry from the Grave*.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And who wrote it?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I believe it was Anatoliy Kovtunenko, a senior research fellow from Shamota's Institute of Literature, from which Stus had been expelled from graduate school. And Stus, by the way, wrote about this reviewer Kovtunenko. In my criminal case file, there is one letter. The KGB addresses the director of the Institute of Literature, Shamota, asking them to review the collection *A Cry from the Grave*. Then there is a response from Shamota, that they have already reviewed it. But, what's interesting, the letter to Shamota arrived around the 20th or 21st of February, and Shamota already replies to the KGB on the 23rd that it has been reviewed.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: They were quick to fulfill KGB orders.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Quick. But, what's interesting is that the review is dated somewhere around March 3rd, or even March 23rd. Apparently, Anatoliy Kovtunenko didn't write it correctly. So, it seems, they dictated to him at the KGB how it should be written, so he was probably adding to it. Because the date is completely different from the one Shamota reported. There, Kovtunenko wrote that in my collection *A Cry from the Grave* I call on the people to armed rebellion, to take revenge on the working people for their loyalty to the socialist Motherland, that I harbor delusional ideas of restoring a bourgeois Ukraine, and something else like that. If it had been in the 30s, for such an accusation, they would have put me up against a wall—that's for sure.

Right, which poems did they appeal to? To those that were deemed anti-Soviet, nationalistic. Poems like “I Am a Foreigner Among You,” “Ivan Franko's Monologue,” “Today There Are Horses in the Church...,” “Uncle Owns the Plants and Factories...” They were particularly bothered by my poem “The Ghost”—it's a classic poem. By the way, Tsimokh, the one who now works somewhere in the presidential administration, he would quote my poems by heart. The artist Boychenko told me this—he worked there too.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: He still quotes them?

M.K. Kholodnyi: He still quotes them.

And then in some year, eighty-something, maybe 1989, the then-prosecutor of the still-UkSSR, Potebenko, acknowledged that there was nothing anti-Soviet or slanderous in the collection *A Cry from the Grave* (because they called these poems slanderous). I then appealed to the prosecutor's office and the oblast prosecutor's office rehabilitated me. But I was not reinstated at my place of work at that normative station, nor at my place of residence. The same goes for the second rehabilitation: the order to imprison me in Lukyanivska Prison in 1965 was rescinded, but nothing more was done. Neither the judge nor the prosecutor's office even mentioned that my residence in Kyiv should be restored. And that I was deliberately thrown out of my job at the Society for the Protection of Nature—that was to ensure my foot would never be in Kyiv. And they achieved that.

I also haven't mentioned that around 1969, they kicked me out of the “Slovo” cooperative of the Writers' Union. I had already made a down payment there. Everything was done to get rid of me from Kyiv. Now, those tormentors of mine are walking their dogs under the Kyiv chestnut trees, receiving good pensions on time, while I'm swallowing radionuclides in the Chornobyl zone.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You mentioned investigator Mykola Ivanovych Tsimokh. He also handled my case in 1973.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes. And he made up, as far as I know, that he handled my case too. We were young and inexperienced back then. Do you think they didn't set traps for me? You had to be constantly on the lookout not to get caught in some trap. This Tsimokh made up that he had already broken me.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: That's what he told me himself.

M.K. Kholodnyi: You see what kind of person he is. There's not even a hint of conscience there.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: But I was charged with distributing your poem “Today There Are Horses in the Church...”—as anti-Soviet. That's one of the episodes in my sentence.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Well, there you have it. And Tsimokh—I don't know him from Adam. My case was handled by Berestovskyi.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: This Berestovskyi also started my case, handled it for about a month, and then handed it over to this Tsimokh. That's the story.

I think it's starting to rain?

For the most part, you've told the story of this case. It fits on one cassette.

M.K. Kholodnyi: You know what I haven't mentioned yet? The distribution of samvydav.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I was just about to ask about that: what kind of literature passed through your hands? Who did you get it from—if you can say?

M.K. Kholodnyi: You know, once Chornovil (may he rest in peace) went and told everything, who he got what from, who he passed it on to. It seems to me it's premature to talk about this. We probably must hold out to the end, because if the communists make a comeback, silence will no longer save us. I've already written so much against them during the years of independence that they'll do what their predecessors did with the “Executed Renaissance” in the twenties and thirties.

As for what materials passed through my hands. I received samvydav from Ivan Svitlychnyi, from Ivan Dziuba, Vasyl Stus, from Chornovil, from Henrich Dvorak (he was a representative of the technical intelligentsia), from Lionia Pliushch (he's still alive). A lot of material came from Moscow, especially through Pliushch from Sakharov. I remember materials by Veniamin Kasterin and Petro Hryhorenko in defense of the Crimean Tatars. They weren't allowed to return to Crimea back then. I read such materials and passed them on. Then Valentyn Moroz's “Amidst the Snows,” “A Report from the Beria Reservation.”

Maybe we should go somewhere under a tree?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: There's a gazebo over there.

M.K. Kholodnyi: As for samvydav. From Viktor Nekrasov I received Amalrik's work in Russian, *Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?* Ivan Dziuba ironically commented on this title at the time—he said that the Union will survive until 2084, but will Amalrik survive until 1984? And indeed, Amalrik went abroad and was traveling somewhere in Switzerland with Fainberg, a non-conformist artist. They were traveling in a passenger car, I believe, to the Madrid conference on Helsinki-75. There was some international conference on this topic. They collided with a truck and Amalrik was killed. So Dziuba's words turned out to be prophetic.

But, what's interesting, in April 1984 Gorbachev came to power, and the Union collapsed....

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Gorbachev came to power in April 1985. But it was indeed the beginning of the end.

M.K. Kholodnyi: And other materials came through Viktor Nekrasov from Sakharov. I saw Sakharov and Bukovsky at Viktor Nekrasov's place, I spoke with them.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Sakharov came to Kyiv?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes, he did. I saw him once at Nekrasov's. And once I saw him near the courthouse, during Ivan Svitlychnyi's trial.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Sakharov came to Ivan Svitlychnyi's trial?

M.K. Kholodnyi: He did, yes. He and Viktor Nekrasov were standing...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And they didn't let him into the building?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I don't know what happened there. I think they probably didn't let him in.

Ah, I never finished saying. When Klymchuk and I were in the cell, suddenly in the middle of the night the guards came in and ordered us both to undress. I think both of us, well, me—for sure. And they did a shakedown. And in the nightstand under the lid, they found my note. And I thought my mother would receive my things and the guys would have the sense to rummage through them, to see if I had passed anything on. I thought they would find it in the shoes, they were ripped open, and the notes weren't there. Then those notes were photographed and appeared in my case file. This was also added as an episode of my crime. And I was charged under Article 62, “prime”—“anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation.”

As for the investigation of this “activity” of mine... Eight volumes were written! Essentially, Berestovskyi wrote them himself. Not even Balzac had such industriousness—he wrote eight volumes in less than four months! A whole brigade must have worked on it. Balzac didn't write like that!

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Well, there were also materials, articles, the distribution of which you were charged with.

M.K. Kholodnyi: By the way, what I found there. There are interrogation protocols of Mykhailo Nayenko (now the dean of the philology department at Kyiv University), Liudmyla Kaidash, Anatoliy Hryhorenko, Arsen Ishchuk. Berestovskyi interrogated that one, by the way, from two o'clock until about six. Apparently, Arsen Ishchuk wanted a drink and thought the guy would give him something, so he broke down and blamed me for everything. And Berestovskyi thinks he can keep talking—and he held him for a long time. That guy said such things about me that I got goosebumps when I read it. After the war, Ishchuk specialized in criticizing Mykola Yevshan's *Aesthetics*.

So many people were involved in the study of my literary and political activity—and my literary activity was essentially politicized... About twelve oblast KGB directorates were involved. Interrogations were also conducted by investigators from the Leningrad Military District, the Belarusian one. Someone was even interrogated abroad, because there was some field post office in the case file. Only now someone from the SBU told me that some of the guys were interrogated abroad. When I came to my village, there was a wedding at Mykola Lytvynenko's, our neighbor. I was invited there, and I read my seditious poems there. And there were young guys there, several went into the army. So Berestovskyi traveled to military units, conducted interrogations, or their local investigators conducted them.

The teachers behaved very positively. The principal of the Romodanivka school, Vereshchaka, where I studied, the teacher Zelenskyi (by the way, he was once accused of collaborating with the Germans during the war) could have, for example, trembled and pandered to the KGB, but he didn't do that. They gave me positive character references—just as it really was. The women in Dobrovelychkivka gave me positive references—I worked there in a subsidiary farm at the school, as a swineherd. The girls in Odesa also behaved very well. By the way, not a single woman betrayed me. True, Liudmyla Kaidash babbled a lot of nonsense—well, she seems to have been a member of the party committee in our faculty back then, so she had to speak against me... So where did we stop?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I was asking about samvydav.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Ah, about samvydav. From Ivan Svitlychnyi, I received the book *Contemporary Literature in the UkrSSR* by Ivan Koshelivets. I took that book to Donetsk, gave it to Volodymyr Mishchenko. They took it from Mishchenko back in 1965, after my arrival. And he didn't admit to me until 1972 that they had taken my books from him. They also took my book by Okhrymovych from him. I had given him those books to read. They took the book *The Development of Socio-Political Thought in Ukraine*. It was a book from the twenties. And in 1972, all this came to light. But Mishchenko behaved quite decently. Back then, in 1965, he said that I had brought him a speech by either Yosyp Slipyj or the Pope in defense of national rights in Ukraine. I thought, how can I save the situation? We had a confrontation in the KGB's pre-trial prison. Berestovskyi was conducting it. So I tell him: “Listen, don't you remember? The day I arrived, you found that thing in your mailbox. You just thought I had thrown it in for you. You should have said that you thought it was me who threw it in, that it just coincided with my arrival.” He says: “That's right, I found it in the mailbox.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You prompted him like that, right at the confrontation?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Berestovskyi pounced on him: “You remembered better back then than you do now! Your memory was fresher then!” And I say: “No, it's not what he said once that matters, but what he's saying now. What he says last.”

Dziuba gave me Solzhenitsyn's *Cancer Ward* to read. Borys Mozolevskyi was also reading it at the time. He was a friend of mine, I even lived with him for a while in a dormitory, he was still working as a stoker. Somewhere near Dziuba's, on Donetska Street in Chokolivka.

And I also signed those petitions. There was a petition in 1965 or maybe early 1966 in defense of Ivan Svitlychnyi. There were many signatures—seventy or so.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I think it was seventy-eight. It's a well-known document.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I was about to say seventy-eight too. And I signed it.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: There were several such letters back then. Those who signed them were called “signatories.” And besides poems, were any of your articles circulating in samvydav?

M.K. Kholodnyi: That long letter to Shelest was circulating.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The reference doesn't have the date you were released in 1972. It would be good to record that date.

M.K. Kholodnyi: It was in the summer. But I don't know the day. It somehow happened that the order to release me came today, but I had nowhere to go because for some reason they were releasing me in the evening.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Well, if you don't remember, so be it. So, after that release, where did they send you—to the Vinnytsia region?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes. This is how it was. They took me in a “bobyck” [police van] to the village of Mykulychi to gather my things. And the same car, that “bobyck,” took me back. It drove me around... I don't know why he took me to the Irpin forest. I thought they were going to whack me there. He kept looking around.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: They sometimes did that—to scare you.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I didn't know what it was for. They were stalling, dragging their feet, and didn't tell me anything, then they brought me to the train station—and Berestovskyi hands me a ticket for...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So it was Berestovskyi who was driving you around?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes, yes. With a driver. In a “bobyck.” They brought me from Mykulychi to the railway station in Kyiv and Berestovskyi handed me that ticket. The ticket was made of cardboard, for the “Kyiv – Chernivtsi” train, to Vinnytsia.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And did he tell you where to go?

M.K. Kholodnyi: And he told me to go to Vinnytsia and check into the “Zhovtnevyi” [October] Hotel. And then I was to go to the City Council, to the city department of public education about a job, to submit an application.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: What grounds did they have to send you specifically to the Vinnytsia region? Did you have relatives living there?

M.K. Kholodnyi: The head of the KGB, Fedorchuk, summoned me: “So where do you want to go: to the East or to the West?” I immediately understood what “to the East” meant—to Siberia, right? I say: “To the West.” He says: “Not so fast. You won't be going to the West. You'll be going not to the West, but in that direction. You'll go to the Vinnytsia region—you took a wife from there, after all. We'll find her, maybe you'll get back together with her,”—because I had divorced my wife. We had nowhere to live, so she lived in Kyiv, and I lived there, in the Borodianka region. So our family fell apart because of that.

As soon as I got out of the car at the station in Kyiv, Serhiy Paradzhanov comes along. He was on his way to Kamianets-Podilskyi, some woman was shooting a film there, he was interested in the shoot. There, where the metro is, there was a grocery store, with an underpass. A lot of people were standing there. He bought a wicker basket on the street and says: “Do you see where this man is from?”—And I was untanned. Everyone was tanned, but I had been sitting in a cell where almost no light came in. He bought everything there—dry wine... I wasn't traveling in my own compartment, maybe not even in my own car, because I went to Paradzhanov's. For some reason I was standing in the car, and some guy came up to me and started a conversation. It means someone was escorting me.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Of course, absolutely. They watched you relentlessly, probably right up until independence.

I want to ask, what was your relationship with Vasyl Stus? He said that you stayed with him for some time at 62 Lvivska Street.

M.K. Kholodnyi: As for Vasyl Stus, yes, I stayed with him... I did spend the night at his place. He received my poems from me. But during the investigation, I said that I hadn't given him those poems. And he also said that he didn't know how they ended up there. At the trial, I said that...

There was a discussion of my poems at the Writers' Union together with Stus. They also threw in Natalka Kashchuk. And Mykola Klochko also spent the night—another homeless man, he had been imprisoned before. The KGB soul-shepherds never gave him any peace. Once Vasyl went somewhere, so we lived in his house for a bit. Oleksandr Teslenko from Donbas also lived there. Mariya Ovdiyenko was there once, I recall. I remember once Nadiya Kyrian was there...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, I know Nadiya Kyrian and Mariya Ovdiyenko too.

M.K. Kholodnyi: And then, I remember that Stus might have been in the cell right next to me. I was in number six...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Ah, Vasyl spoke loudly, he could be heard from far away.

M.K. Kholodnyi: He was arguing with the old man who walked on the catwalks, or whatever you call them. Above the so-called walking yards. It was in the winter. So he was arguing about something with that old man. That's how I found out that Stus was there. I started talking loudly so that Stus would hear my voice, so he would understand that I was sitting here too. So he began to quote one of my poems. It was immediately clear that Stus was there. The walls of those yards were often plastered with new cement—because, you see, someone would scratch their initials. Yevhen Sverstyuk—he wrote on the ice in large letters, so you couldn't figure it out right away—he wrote: “Ye.S.” So one could understand that Yevhen Sverstyuk had been there.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Good. You said you were born in July 1939. What was the date?

M.K. Kholodnyi: July 30. Although according to the metric records (and that's how it actually was) I was born on July 31, and not in the village of Karylske, but in the village of Krasnopillia. That's in the Korop district of the Chernihiv region. It's the neighboring village, to which our khutir of Yahidnyi belonged.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And I also noticed: you seem not to have mentioned your mother's first and last name.

M.K. Kholodnyi: My mother's name was Halyna Mykhailivna, her maiden name was Chucha. My mother died right on the street, I don't know why, in 1984, around February 16. She had some kind of blood clot on the back of her head. It seems there was some kind of blow to the head, if she fell backward. By the way, she never regained consciousness, but lay in the hospital for several days until about the 19th. She was in the hospital for about three days and died without regaining consciousness. And the man who brought her home on a sled (he brought her while she was still alive), Vasyl Yakymenko, who was married to a woman on Hukova Street—I forget her name—he lived two houses away from my mother—he said that my mother was lying with her head in the direction of her house. Well, maybe she turned around, who knows what could have happened...

And my father perished. He remained in Siberia. He wanted to bring my mother there, but my mother didn't go—her mother, that is, my grandmother, dissuaded her. She dissuaded her, saying: “Don't go there—it's far away. And besides, you know, he might leave you there.” Well, you see, the war caused such things back then. My father didn't want to return to the kolkhoz, he wanted to send us an invitation. My mother didn't go. I, of course, would have been long Russified there and would not have existed as a poet. And my father died somewhere around 1962 or so. Supposedly he fell under a train. Whether he fell, or maybe they, I don't know... I don't think it should be connected with me. In short, he died, fell under a train.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You didn't have any brothers or sisters?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I had a sister for four years. I had a brother. He died during the war, as a little boy. And I had a sister, she died too. My father came home on leave after the war, around 1947. A sister was born after that visit. He maintained a normal relationship with my mother. My cousin was bathing her in the well, and she caught a lung disease. There was no penicillin back then, and she burned out in a week.

What else did I want to add. I gave a significant part of my archive to the State Archive-Museum in Kyiv, located on the territory of St. Sophia's Cathedral. And part of my archive—up to 1984, in particular, photographs, documents—I gave for safekeeping to Vasyl Yaremenko, a professor at Kyiv University. And he appropriated it. Seriously! Why did I give him materials up to 1984? Because my mother died then and clouds began to gather over me again. I was constantly blackmailed at school. By the way, I was fired from my job for corresponding with Sakharov. They thought I was corresponding with Academician Sakharov, but I was corresponding with the Sakharov who, you may remember, rescued or found the crew of Grizodubova, Raskova, and Maryna Osypenko somewhere in the Far East. That pilot, Mykhailo Yevhenovych Sakharov, was captured during the war with a teacher, also a pilot. I met him through Makarenko, a teacher from Yavmynka (?). I taught there with Makarenko. So he told me that he was captured with that pilot. Well, Sakharov no longer flew military aircraft, only civil aviation, on firefighting planes. Well, Grizodubova helped save him a bit, otherwise he would have been in Siberia.

So in 1984 I appealed to Reagan, and sent a copy to Chernenko, with a request that he grant me political asylum. After that, clouds began to gather around me. The oblast KGB issued me a warning. I thought my place might be searched and my archival materials confiscated. Therefore, I gave Vasyl Yaremenko many photographs: there's Paradzhanov, and Dziuba, and Pavlychko, and Kalynets, my father and mother, me with my mother and father.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: That's a valuable archive. Have you asked Yaremenko to return it?

M.K. Kholodnyi: There was an agreement with him that he would send them somewhere abroad, to preserve them that way. I said: “If you don't do it in two years, then return them to me, I'll do it myself.” I thought, if they don't imprison me, then in two years this will all blow over, the clouds will dissipate—I'll do it myself. But he didn't do it. And then he tells me: “My son will research them. I won't return those materials to you.” There are a great many items for storage there: letters from Dziuba, from my mother. There are autographs of Serhiy Paradzhanov, of people who have already passed away. There are documents about my persecution. For example, a letter from Petrenko from “Radianskyi Pysmennyk” says: “We cannot accept your book for consideration because you hold anti-Soviet positions.” They didn't accept it for consideration, but he knows what positions I hold. So Yaremenko supposedly told the director, Kriachko, that he would hand over Kholodnyi's archive. I've already spoken about this in the press, about who appropriated my archive. On the sixth or seventh, I gave an interview to the newspaper *Den*. But he had told Kriachko this even earlier. There are documents there that were given to me from the KGB archive, with KGB stamps.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Maybe all of it will be preserved?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I think it should be preserved.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Well, okay, Mr. Kholodnyi, I think we've covered what we needed to. Thank you.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Thank you, I wish you creative success.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: This was on October 6, 1999, on Volodymyr Hill. Mykola Kholodnyi was speaking. The recording was made by Vasyl Ovsiyenko. (The recording continues on the move).

M.K. Kholodnyi: Who supported me morally and financially when I was expelled from the university, when I was being persecuted in Kyiv? Because I was still living in Kyiv, writing poetry. I didn't lay down my arms. Who supported me financially?

Leonid Vysheslavskyi, even though he himself had been fired from his job at the journal *Raduga*, gave me money near the metro station. Right in front of the spies, he came up, greeted me, and handed me the money.

I lived with Henrich Dvorak (Dmytro Stus married his daughter, Oksana). Then I lived with Zinovia Franko, right in the same room with her father, Taras Franko. I defended my diploma thesis at Odesa University on Ivan Franko's collection *Ziviale lystia* (Withered Leaves). By the way, Vasyl Stus gave me one of the chapters, the one with the artistic analysis of this collection. When he was applying to graduate school, he wrote a paper on this topic.

The person who gave me money for the house I bought in Mykulychi was Ivan Dziub, the translator from Japanese.

Then I lived with the Tsekhmistrenkos. That was Yura and Iryna (they have both passed away). Yura had no legs—he once fell under a tram. He was a Doctor of Sciences, worked at the Institute of Physics.

From the writers—Yuriy Shcherbak. I lived at his place. I lived with Valeriy Shevchuk. I lived with Yevhen Hutsalo. Andriy Myastkivskyi supported me. I lived with Ivan Nemyrovych, with Mykhailo Tkach, with Ivan Honchar. Then with Volodymyr Drozd, right here above the second-hand bookstore or “Akademknyha,” now on Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Street. With Volodymyr Drozd and Iryna Zhylenko, because she is his wife. Then with Andriy Malyshko...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Even with him!

M.K. Kholodnyi: With Volodymyr Pyanov. About Borys Mozolevskyi—I've already mentioned him, about Ihor Moiseyev I've mentioned. And I lived with Viktor Nekrasov for several months.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So you know a lot about these people and could write about them?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes, I have published memoirs.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Where were these memoirs published? Are we going down the stairs?

M.K. Kholodnyi: I published my memoirs about Viktor Nekrasov in the journal *Donbas*, and in several issues of the newspaper *Moloda Hvardia* (that's a Kyiv newspaper, it's defunct now).

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I remember reading some of it.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Sometime in the early nineties or maybe the late eighties, a book was published in Moscow called *V samykh adskikh kotlakh pobyval* (He Has Been Through the Hottest Cauldrons of Hell). It's Viktor Nekrasov's works, I think his foreign ones, because he left for Paris in the early seventies. Or rather, he was essentially exiled there. So my memoirs, “In Viktor Nekrasov's Trench,” are there, ten pages long.

By the way, I have two letters from Volegov from Altai. In Viktor Nekrasov's book *In the Trenches of Stalingrad*, there is Kerzhentsev's orderly. That's him, only there he's called Valega. And the main character is called Kerzhentsev. Viktor Nekrasov himself was the prototype for this hero. So I got acquainted with that Volegov. Somewhere in Lund, Sweden, lives a professor of the Russian literature department at Lund University, Valeriy Kulakov. He was acquainted with Viktor Nekrasov. Nekrasov visited him in New York, and he has some bookstore there, or had one, in New York. So they would have a drink there and have some conversations. We correspond with that professor.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And with Mykhailo Osadchyi? You have a whole book about Mykhailo Osadchyi, don't you? What was your relationship like?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Mykhailo Osadchyi? Sometime in 1971, with Hrytsko Chubai, with the avant-garde artist (this was in Lviv) Orest Yavorskyi, the singer Viktor Morozov, and the translator Oleh Lysheha, we created an underground journal *Skrynia* (The Chest). We also involved Mykhailo Osadchyi in it. Only one issue came out—the KGB shut down the journal. We wanted to make it an all-Ukrainian journal. One or two issues came out. Are we going the right way or not?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The right way, the right way. There are stairs here.

M.K. Kholodnyi: It was an interesting journal. It had different sections, different genres, even music. The formation of the Ukrainian national pop scene was happening then. Viktor Morozov was with us, who later created the song theater “Ne zhurys” (Don't Worry). There's even a film made about it. And at that time they had an ensemble (it was banned) called “Arnika.” Arnika is some kind of mountain flower, a flower of immortality. The ensemble was banned, obviously, for its national orientation. When “Smerichka” was coming onto the scene, Taras Kyiuk told me that with a song, we will do no less than with a weapon... So I got Osadchyi to collaborate with the journal *Skrynia*. But the journal *The Ukrainian Herald* existed for longer.

I haven't told this story yet... For example, Tsimokh was spinning all sorts of insinuations against you to discredit you. And what did his office, the KGB, come up with against me? A certain Borys Kovhar photographed me with Nina Matviyenko, and then he montaged the photos in different situations and arranged a photo exhibition under a bridge in Irpin, not far from the Writers' House of Creativity. This was so that the shadow of suspicion would fall on me, as if I had done it.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And when was this?

M.K. Kholodnyi: This was around 1969. That exhibition really damaged my relationships with the circle that gathered around Ivan Honchar and his museum, because Nina Matviyenko was also a frequent visitor there. They had supposedly promised Borys Kovhar the position of department head at the Museum of Architecture and Folk Life. Until then, he had been the editor of a company newspaper at an aircraft factory. And then some Danyliuk, or Danylenko...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: KGB Major Danylenko.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Danylenko-the-KGB-man, a major, let him down, didn't keep his promises to Kovhar. So he wrote an open letter and confessed there that he had spied on Ivan Makarovych Honchar.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I read that “Open Letter to KGB Major Danylenko” in 1972. It was included in the sixth issue of *The Ukrainian Herald*, which Yevhen Proniuk and Vasyl Lisovyi were preparing, and I was helping them.

M.K. Kholodnyi: And I found out about that letter later. I read it too. I had an evening at some institute in Darnytsia, right near the “Livoberezhna” station. Bursov was hosting it. The “Homin” [Resonance] choir was there, led by Leopold Yashchenko. So the choristers heard it too. Borys Kovhar showed up at this evening. I had just told this story with the so-called photo exhibition. And here Kovhar appears, shaking my hand. And I shook his hand, stood before the audience and said: “Kovhar has appeared here. Let's forgive him for what he did. It's true, isn't it?” I ask. He says it's true, that it happened. I say that those dark forces did everything to divide us, to set us against each other. They are still continuing their dark deeds even now.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: They are still destroying Ukrainian organizations even now.

M.K. Kholodnyi: They split the Rukh—that was their work. They split parties, and there were even cases where they split families. For example, they would set husbands against wives, wives against husbands.

Take Borys Dovhan. He made a sculptural portrait of Vasyl Stus, and he did one of me. Vasyl and I were posing for him on the same days back then. So somewhere at the Art Institute or the Artists' Union, an employee of the so-called competent authorities invites Borys Dovhan and says: “Do you know who your wife has gotten involved with?” And he says: “No, I have no idea.” “With nationalists.” “You don't say?” “It's true.” “Then I’m divorcing her. I'm filing for divorce tomorrow.” “Oh, come on, Borys Batkovych! No need to get so heated. Perhaps you should try to influence her, talk to her.” Well, Borys, of course, put on such a little act. But there were times when they did the opposite—they put pressure on the wife, so she would then put pressure on her husband.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And they succeeded. Like in the case of Ivan Dziuba. They say Marta, together with the KGB, pressured Ivan.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Seriously? I don't know that.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And Ivan Drach's wife said: “I won’t let my Ivan go to prison.” And she didn’t! A wife is an ally of the KGB, you should know. That's what Yuriy Lytvyn said. It happened more than once. The KGB agents played on this: “Do you need your husband? Then let's save him together.”

M.K. Kholodnyi: And for me, they offered in Vinnytsia: “You need to get married—we can advise you on whom to choose.” I ask: “And who will be sleeping with her—you or me?” There were no more conversations on this topic. They saw that I had met a young person there. And it turns out her father worked in some German hospital during the war, he was a doctor. So they were afraid of getting into trouble with Kyiv...

I forgot to say what the demand was when I was going to Vinnytsia. Why did they send me to Vinnytsia then? It was one of the leading, richest regions in Ukraine. They demanded that I write a positive collection of poems to counterbalance *A Cry from the Grave*. They also said it wasn't necessary for it to be all “hurrah-hurrah.” On the contrary, to write some kind of neutral collection that wouldn't stand out. They even asked: “How much time do you need for that?” I said: “A year and a half.” But I didn't write it, nor did I aspire to; somehow my hands wouldn't lift. I was going through a creative crisis. I only came to my senses somewhere in the mid-seventies, approaching the eighties...

(The conversation continues inside the premises of the Republican Christian Party, at 24 Sahaidachnoho Street.) And also, Mr. Vasyl, I forgot to say that when my odyssey between heaven and earth began—I was expelled from the university in 1965, and I couldn't get a job anywhere. At the same time, the Central Committee of the Komsomol suggested that I go work in a Komsomol mine committee somewhere in the Donbas.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Was it Tamara Hlavak who suggested it?

M.K. Kholodnyi: No, it was other guys by then. But I didn't go. Back then, the Central Committee and all those Komsomol bodies were like a branch of the KGB. And where did they come from? It was the Komsomol members who went to work for the KGB.

The one who gave me shelter was Oksana Meshko. Later, at Oksana Meshko’s place, I met with Petro Hryhorenko. Not to mention people like Dmytro Ivashchenko from Western Ukraine. He was one of those imprisoned in 1965; he was a teacher.

I forgot to mention Ryta Dovhan and Borys Dovhan. Ryta worked at the newspaper “Reader’s Friend.” By the way, I got Chornovil a job there, because Mykola Hirnyk worked there, and I knew him. He might have even been the editor of that paper. “Reader’s Friend” was located somewhere over here, as you go down Shevchenko Boulevard, before Pushkinska Street. For a long time, I lived with the Dovhans on Perov Boulevard in Darnytsia.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone. But you can't remember everyone, because there were so many...

I haven't mentioned one other incident that the faculty Party Committee at KSU dealt with—unsuccessfully. I want to explain what the Party Committee was busy with back then. It was busy for five years. They had to identify the culprits in order to punish them accordingly and prevent them from graduating. But they never found out. No one confessed.

It was during our first year, sometime in the first few days. We were sitting in auditorium 142.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That’s a big auditorium in the yellow building. The whole year could fit in there.

M.K. Kholodnyi: They herded everyone in there, as a rule, for subjects like the History of the CPSU, historical materialism, and dialectical materialism. These subjects were mandatory in all faculties. Some girls were sitting in front of us. And we were sitting there—me, Mykhailo Kuzmych Naienko (he’s the dean of the philology faculty now).

V.V. Ovsiienko: What—he studied with you?

M.K. Kholodnyi: We lived in the same dorm room for all those years. With us was a man who is now a poet, prose writer, and playwright (Laughs)—Mykola Tomenko. And Zakordonets was probably sitting with us, and maybe Sysoi. I don't know, could that many people fit on one bench? Well, Zakordonets was definitely there (he started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after university). So, during the lecture, a condom appeared from somewhere.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And that was a rarity back then...

M.K. Kholodnyi: We were talking among ourselves. Well, the girls fidgeted and fidgeted and then passed us a note to be quieter. We took this item, wrapped it in their note, and returned it to the first desk, right back in front of us, to them, the girls. There was a beautiful girl from the Romano-Germanic department; she lived somewhere near the regional hospital, I've seen her. She later spoke in my defense. She was a really beautiful girl. She had some connection to Darnytsia—either she got married and then divorced. Just then the bell rang—the end of the lecture. I think two periods had passed. There was this Tetiana Tretiachenko. I think she’s the director of the Lesia Ukrainka Museum now. She spoke against me when I was being expelled. So she grabbed this thing and ran, holding it in her hand, to the Party Committee, to Mykola Stepanovych Zarytskyi. (He had defended his dissertation on “The Particles ‘-s’ and ‘-sia’ in Modern Russian.” There was this guy Shkurov who came up with a parody—something like: “S’, sia—he pissed himself.”) So she brings it to him and says: “The boys passed this.” And the dean at the time (or acting dean) was Sirenko.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Sirenko. He was such a gray little man.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes. He was just that—gray. And Zarytskyi says: “Why did you bring this? If I need one, I’ll buy it myself.” But she put it on his desk and left. Since she put it there, it meant they had to investigate. And they investigated for five years. They wanted to find out who was sitting there. They started summoning us. We said we didn't pass it. That they gave us a note, and we returned it. It was inside the note. We didn't unwrap it. They put it there. And we returned it; we didn't see what was inside.

We once went—I think it was Pidpalyi or Kaidash who drove us—to Lozirky near Pyriatyn. Kaidash and Pidpalyi were probably from there. We were going on an excursion to Poltava. Our guide then was (he worked in the trade union committee) Volodia Drobiazko; he took Mariia Nadolna from our year. Sirenko interrogated us even there—we’d had a little to drink, and he thought we’d talk: “Come on, boys, tell me. It's been many years.” But still, no one revealed the secret of how that thing ended up in the note. They summoned me too. The members of the Party Committee are sitting there, and Zarytskyi picks up the item with a piece of paper, holds it up, and says: “Well now, tell us how this rarity ended up in our university. We’re not interested in who passed it. But how did it get here?” He framed it in a way that this was an educational institution, not some den or brothel.

As an epilogue, I wanted to add to this story about the rubber product—it cost four kopecks back then, as I recall—that in 1968 I was defending my thesis at Odesa University, and the chairman of the state commission was Mykola Stepanovych Zarytskyi. No, no, that was before... I apologize. When I was defending it, the chairman of our state commission was Myroslav... from Lviv. I’ve forgotten his last name. He wrote a seminar paper on the works of Ivan Franko. He was later expelled from the university because he used the names of diaspora researchers somewhere in his bibliography. Zarytskyi must have been the chairman of the State Commission in 1967. He invited me for a glass of wine and said: “You know, Kostiovych, well, those were the times... Well, there was nothing I could do then to help you”—he meant my expulsion from the university.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Mykola, maybe you could read a few poems? Especially the ones that caused such a stir back then: “Horses in the Church Today...”, “Dogs,” “The Ghost”...

M.K. Kholodnyi: Alright.

ПРИВИД

"Привид бродить по Європі"

(Карл Маркс)

В добу, коли ракетні свисти,

На Марсі мешканців збудили,

Хто б міг повірить, щоб у місті

За кимось привиди ходили?

В радянськім місті? Певна річ,

Про це не може й мови бути.

Воно-то так, та третю ніч

Спокійно як мені заснути?

Де не поїдь, де не піди,

Де не ступи у місті вільному,

Він вирина, мов із води, –

Знайомий привид у цивільному.

Ба, скрізь нові життєві форми,

Що й він, мабуть, ма’ службу нести.

В колгоспі привид цей три норми

За день давав би, слово честі.

Відсвітить сонце, чорним вороном

На землю вечір упаде,

Поснуть собаки злі наморено,

А він іде, а він іде.

А я радію, піт утерши

Пополотнілою рукою –

Це у житті моєму перший,

Кого повів я за собою.

(1964)

“POETS ARE DYING”—on the death of Volodymyr Sosiura.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Please read it. He died in 1965, I think on January 5. They said he hanged himself in a fit of madness.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Something like that, if not in December. I was at that funeral. Andrii Malyshko said there that no Siberias could kill our language. But those lines were missing from Malyshko’s speech in the “Soviet Ukraine” newspaper.

Вмирають поети в душі,

А потім в лікарні вмирають.

Ховають спочатку вірші,

А потім поетів ховають.

Поету копають яму,

Коли – знає тільки він сам.

В поезії білі плями –

Ще більше на серце плям.

Неначе потрапив не в свій город,

Нервово повітря ковта.

Поете, не той тепер Миргород

І Хорол-ріка не та.

Поетів вивчають діти

І слідчі десь цілу ніч.

Поетам дарують квіти –

Померлим, відома річ.

На цвинтар за місто, як сніг,

Вивозять на п'ятій швидкості.

Глузують із друзів їх,

Немов з історичної рідкості.

І ті над труною щось мимрять,

Кого так діймають турботи,

Що тільки поети вимруть –

Не стане для них роботи.

На Байкових зимних схилах

Падають сльози удавані.

І сняться поетам в могилах

На Півночі зими недавні.

І біли ведмеді, ватра,

Земляцьких кісток опилки.

Поетів не стане завтра –

Залишаться члени Спілки.

І як нам з-під криг тоді виплисти,

І хто нас запалить? Хто?

...Он знову на п'ятій швидкості

Помчало когось авто.

(1965)

СОБАКИ

"Провадиться перереєстрація паспортів на собак".

З оголошення біля київського стадіону "Динамо".

Собаки в місті мають паспорти.

Собак на дачах бачу поза містом.

У цих собак збудовані роти

Сучасно і за формою, й за змістом.

Вони навчені гавкати по-хатньому,

Війна з вовками – то не їхня тема.

Канарці усміхаються по-братньому,

У спів її вслухаючись дотемна.

Собаки мають грамоти й медалі

І нападають тільки за командою.

Невчених псів стає все менш дедалі –

Кому цікаво жити під верандою?

Собаки в місті з почестями мруть,

Прадавня слава в їхньому роду є.

Собак вночі до тюрем не беруть,

Як тих беруть, хто їх щодня годує.

А наша слава впала на порогах,

Пішла від нас десятою дорогою.

Сидять собаки у блискучих "Волгах",

А мої друзі десь сидять за Волгою.

Хай буде ж славен український лоб,

Яким з-під чобота ми так чудово бачимо.

Стоїть безпашпортний за хлібом хлібороб,

Стоїть і заздрить він життю собачому.

(1964)

БАЛАДА ПРО ЧОРНУ ПТИЦЮ

Трупи клав на вози

тридцять третій рочок…

Хоч бери та й гризи

комсомольський значок.

Жінка кинула чоловіка

і торби на горба.

Подаруй їй, Владико,

колосочка з герба.

Чоловік збожеволів

і пожежу вчинив.

До собачої будки

він дітей зачинив.

А за числами числа.

…Аж це полудня одного

чорна птиця повисла

над обійстям у нього.

Людським голосом запитала:

– Чи ви тута живі ще? –

Куля в відповідь просвистала –

Впала птиця на попелище.

А на тім попелищі рушницю

Опустив чоловік.

Він застрелену птицю

до дітей приволік.

Наказав їм її зварити,

на вечерю запросив півсела.

А на ранок почули діти,

що то мати їхня була...

(1963)

ДЯДЬКО МАЄ ЗАВОДИ І ФАБРИКИ

Дядько має заводи і фабрики

І постійну в селі прописку.

Лиш не має чим дядько взимку

Годувати нещасну Лиску.

З чотирьох похитнулася Лиска,

Покотилися очі високо,

Ой, об'їздила тітка Пріська

Ветспеців до найдальшого виселку.

Дядько був несформований партою,

Він відходив, мов стиль рококо:

Весь народ любив рідну партію –

Дядько вперто любив молоко.

Він щоденно в гної копався,

Не хотів вечорами на збори йти,

В дерев'яному цебрі купався,

Коли інші купалися в золоті.

А специ приїздили не зблизька,

А надворі шугала віхола.

І отак не одна вже Лиска

З ветспецами від дядька поїхала.

І нарешті, прийшла межа –

Дядько об землю брязнув цебра

І сунув за халяву ножа

Так, неначе під власні ребра.

А як місяць ступив на кладку –

Над проваллям сполохані зяблики, –

Попрощався з коровою дядько,

Котрий має заводи і фабрики.

(1963)

СПОВІДЬ БОЖЕВІЛЬНОЇ

(5.10.1998 рік, з нових віршів)

Я письменниця з Поділля,

Уважаю рукоділля

Й кормовий буряк.

У деревні рано з жиру

Отдалася фуражиру,

А мені – моряк.

Скучна жизнь була в колхозі.

У одній знімались позі

Около кущов.

Хоч були немиті морди,

Поздравляв нас за рекорди

Сам М.С.Хрущов.

Я люблю картоплю змалку,

Сало, бетономішалку

І зелений гай.

Як тікала до столиці,

Три в селі було телиці

І один бугай.

Коли є в кишені гроші

Всі професії хороші –

Злодій і гончар.

Пригласив мене на танці

У барвистій вишиванці

Лютий яничар.

Був водітєлєм на МАЗі,

Поселився у общазі

Із большим трудом.

Довго з целкой я носилась,

Наконець, опоросилась

І здала в дєтдом.

Інтересні віжу книги:

Наркоманія, інтриги.

Книги разметьом.

Марно времені не гаєм

І увєрєнно шагаєм

Ленінським путьом.

Єрунди я не крапаю,

Єслі треба, то склепаю

Небольшой стішок.

КПУ накрию матом,

Славлю тих, хто создал атом

І нічний горшок.

Бо полєзно черепочки

Мені дєйствують на почки,

Не мені одной.

Обступає ніч довкола,

Помню вас, кирпична школа

І колхоз родной.

Petro Rebro wrote a parody of me—“Barter,” or something. He pulled quotes from my love poems. It was an interesting, talented parody, by the way. So, not to be in his debt, I wrote one about Petro Rebro:

ПЕТРОВЕ МОТОВИЛО

Казали так: "На вуса намотай"

Січовики – жартівники запеклі,

Без сміху набридає навіть рай,

А з сміхом навіть можна жити в пеклі.

Петро Ребро

У Дніпрі, задивившись на Галю,

Утопився старий бегемот.

Я також позираю на кралю,

Але я не такий собі мот.

Нехай недруги брешуть погані

І хай друг мене десь обсміє,

Від зелених Карпат до Лугані

Знають всі мотовило моє.

Приросли до грудей залізяки,

Навіть бджоли про мене гудуть.

І до Лувру, звичайно, друзяки

Мотовило моє віддадуть.

Своєчасно змотався від Теклі,

Насміявсь, молодий, досхочу,

Сміючися, кипітиму в пеклі,

Бо й у сні я чомусь регочу.

Моя жизнь, як фортеця розбита,

Як над шляхом козацьким горох.

На вокзалі сумує кобіта –

Помотаємо в чортополох.

Поцілую, а іншого дудки.

Пахне п'янко подушка отав.

Попрошу її змотувать вудки,

А вона мене – щоб відмотав.

КОШУЛЯ ЧОРНОЗЕМУ

До села Шкандибенко приїхав,

Майже на новісінькій "Тойоті".

Лімузин знервовано зачмихав

І загруз по осі у болоті.

Піт рясний, неначе на коняці,

Силу мав Шкандибенко паршиву.

Плив народ на поміч комуняці –

Обласного все ж таки пошиву.

Не японський, звісно, імператор

Ощасливив їх периферію,

Але був Шкандибенко оратор:

"Я любов'ю до землі хворію".

І тяглася довго та хвороба,

Їздив гість по стегна і сметану,

Мов реп'ях, прилип до хлібороба,

Ще й колег привозив з Дагестану.

Не зітруться в пам'яті гостини,

Тости з дружелюбними панами,

Іменини, поминки, хрестини,

Реп'яхи вночі попід тинами.

Обласні рівнялись примітиви,

На ура – пригадуєш тепер ти?

Та сумні в Шкандибенка мотиви,

Якщо раптом плуга треба перти.

Орачам він скаржився весною

На пекельні болі в поясниці,

А торік за полезахисною

Підхопив інфаркт на молодиці.

Відвезли Шкандибенка за терни,

Звідкіля ніхто не повертає,

Залишив бензину півцистерни,

І над ними дух її літає.

Закривав повіки без іроній,

Горбачова згадував Мишулю.

На запале місце дід Антоній

Висипле чорнозему кошулю.

ТРИНАДЦЯТА ГАРМАТА

У Чернігові на валу дванадцять гармат. Іноді дівчата жартома призначають побачення біля тринадцятої.

Де моя тринадцята гармата?

Заряджу і вистрелю коли?

Я нащадок дикого сармата –

Ти мене очима не коли.

Ти ріка – і я здіймаю хвилю,

Ти фортеця – йду у гармаші,

Якщо прямо в серце не поцілю,

То лишуся раною в душі.

Що від Бога збутися повинно,

Не тікай ні в поле, ні в ліси.

Ніжної троянди, панно Інно,

Дай торкнуся краплею роси.

Не шукай поважної причини,

Що не можеш вийти за межу.

Як любов'ю юного Тичини,

Я тобою, мила, дорожу.

Сходами освітленої зали

У середні спустимось віки.

Нас іще докупи не зв'язали

Аж занадто гострі язики.

Дуже мало дав їм компромату,

Не забудь, не зрадь, не охолонь.

Вірю у тринадцяту гармату

І в тепло святих твоїх долонь.

I was very uncomfortable there: I had brought bad glasses with me and couldn't see anything when I was reading.

ЧОРНИЙ ЯЩИК

У блокноті стерлася адреса,

Можна прочитати кілька слів:

„Їхати до станції Одеса,

Запитати вулицю Ослів”.

Там у чорнім ящику з фанери

Дві старенькі мешкає змії.

Вперше подивитись на манери –

Викапані родички мої.

Правда, як наступиш на хвостище,

Якось не по-нашому сичать,

Корчаться. Плазуєш слабо ти ще

І кому не буде виручать.

Взагалі ж їх принципи хороші:

Є гірчиця, хрін і олів'є.

І якщо в кишені маєш гроші,

Котрась міцно шию обів'є.

Висмокче усі із тебе солі,

Приторкне до губ тонке жало,

Щоб хоч раз пізнати запах волі –

Й щось в тобі змертвіле ожило.

Уночі наробиш скрипу-рипу

Чи проспиш до ранку, як павич,

Обдеруть, гадюки, наче липу,

За той хрін, гірчицю і за ніч.

Відчувать романтику оцюю,

Два мішки купонів замалі.

Щож, поїду, мабуть, попрацюю

Двірником де-небудь в Сомалі.

Отоді вже, певно, розженуся,

У багно обличчям не впаду,

На зміюці юній оженюся,

Гадючат на старість розведу.

Є іще в Херсоні одна кобра,

Музику шанує над усе.

Скромна, невибаглива і добра.

Чув, що море щастя принесе.

У ЧЕРЗІ ПІЛЬГОВИКІВ

ЗА ВІДЗНАКОЮ ІМЕНІ ТАРАСА ЄГОРОВИЧА ЧЕ ГЕВАРИ

На здобуття Державної премії.

Через плавні вечірнього Чилі

Че Гевари Тараса тропа.

Я не був там. У мене на тілі

Не тоді виступає ропа.

Позираю ночами на сопку,

Мов на гуску старий пелікан,

І останнє поліно у топку

Жбурону Айседорі Дункан.

У жазі, у Тарасовім стилі

Поєднаю і міс, і модель.

У бамбуках почується: "Чилі!

Не стріляйте, маестро Фідель".

Позгиналися в черзі каліки,

Відлили Че Гевари медаль.

В піднебессі шугають шуліки

І виблискує песа медаль.

Нагородна пригріла комісія,

Хто по-вовчи співає й біжить,

Хоч, здається, живу не у лісі я,

Але мушу з вовками дружить.

Розгорілися пристрасті вовчі:

Нагородять, присудять, дадуть!

"Має норму завищену жовчі", –

За стіною медсестри гудуть.

Окуліст учепився за око,

Інший дрель наставляє у рот.

Пропонують мені до Марокко

Із блакитних тікати широт.

Учорашніх агентів таємних

Нарекли консультантами справ.

Кабінетів поменшало темних,

Але темних побільшало справ.

Всі безрукі, сліпі, нерухомі

В нагородний включилися раж.

Маю родича я в Оклахомі,

На "Тойоту" пришле й на гараж.

А доріс би я до скомороха,

По Сант-Яго б ходив, як везун.

Колись драму про мене відгрохав

В Конотопові Толя Гризун.

Не служив я в газетках Батисти –

Мав би премію, і не одну,

І не думав би, що його їсти,

І не повзав би раком по дну.

А відзнака мене не пече та,

Моя шия занадто худа.

Б'ється серце в мені Піночета,

Піночетова в мені хода.

І не маю образи на йоту

На дядьків у сорочках в журі.

Вже сідають до мене в "Тойоту"

Пікассо, Каменюк і Жарі.

Завітаєм до Римського Папи

На чарчину сухого вина.

І не треба нам вовчої лапи –

Волохата і довга вона.

Ще не раз у сплетіння одержу

І проткне мені груди ребро,

І немов Параджанову Сержу,

Мені мертвому зроблять добро.

Втома –енка (?) гримлять із фазенди,

Віршування придворних мазил.

На могилі у пана Альєнди

Жебраки обривають кизил.

А мене не включили до списку –

Пощо хвилю в болоті здіймав?

Дерев'яну б наповнили миску,

Якби з дерева голову мав.

(Миколаїв, вілла пані Світлани, 15.02.1996 року)

There’s this man Moskvych in Semypolky—a friend of Mykola Som and Mushketyk, and Naienko, and Slaboshpytskyi. Moskvych is his last name. He used to teach there. So he says to me: “What is this? You have poems signed: Cairo, Tokyo, Paris. But there isn't one signed: Semypolky, such-and-such a year.” So I wrote one. And to this day he’s not happy that I wrote a poem about Semypolky.

НАКОЛИКИ НА ЗГАДКУ ПРО СЕМИПОЛКИ

І знову спогади солоні:

Гаваї, Суми, Курбани.

Сплелися лінії долоні,

Немов стежки у дурмані.

Давай побродимо полями

І бараболі напечем.

Я вік лежав під "Жигулями",

Ти – під червоним "Москвичем".

Прийшла пора міняти кільця –

Крута попереду гора ж.

У тебе техніка звідкіль ця

І цей утеплений гараж?

Дробаха, станція Губаха,

Кривеньке озеро й Кривець,

Всю Божу ніч кручу я Баха

І попиваю сирівець.

Оте гніздо, гніздо лелече

Я бачу, бачу, бачу, ба...

У мене мислення старече,

Мов закіптюжена труба.

Спалили німці Семиполки,

Але є пісня і жужу.

Зробив на згадку дві наколки,

А де – нікому не скажу.

У повних гронах винограду,

Вино іскриться молоде.

Ти наче постріл із Бєлграду,

Що на той світ мене веде.

Люблю поп-музику і каву

І просто музику, без "поп",

І твою усмішку лукаву,

Після якої – хоч потоп.

Два дні чорти по Оболоні

Водили дядька, а мені

Лишили лінії долоні,

Немов стежки у дурмані.

Семиполки, 17.11.1995.

ПІСНЯ З ОКОПІВ

Гей, окопи, гей, окопи

І густа трава!

Підпили німецькі хлопи,

Як були жнива.

Гей, лилася оковита,

Пиво і вино.

Без руки старий Микита

Грає в доміно.

Подавала баба щуки,

Дід підносив квас.

Бабу німець взяв на руки,

І промовив: "Was?"

Дід почухав трохи теє...

І схопив кия.

Німець каже: "Libе tee"

Дід говорить: "Я".

Що одна дорога в пекло,

А друга навстріч.

"Дорога ґеноссе Фекло,

Просимо на піч!"

Ой летіли з печі пера,

Хай Господь простить!

Там, де піч була, тепера

Жито шелестить.

Німець мав армійську кицьку,

Коли брав Майкоп.

Я ж беру тебе за цицьку

І веду в окоп.

А в окопі листя пахне,

Не чичиркне гай.

Із двостволки десь бабахне,

Я скажу: "Лягай!"

There was a play on words there. In German, “was” means “what.” But the old man thought he wanted to have his way with her. Then the German says “liebe Tee,” and “Tee” is tea, “I love tea.” But the old man says: “Ya”—he thought the German wanted to have his way with her again. And “ja” in German means “yes.” So it's as if he agreed with the German to get what the old man was thinking. But in reality, he was just thinking about tea.

We were just talking about last year’s Shevchenko Prize laureate from Mykolaiv, right?

V.V. Ovsiienko: Dmytro Kremin.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Right. It turns out that when Mykola Horbal was supposed to be released from prison in 1984 (he is now a People’s Deputy of Ukraine)...

V.V. Ovsiienko: He’s not a deputy now, but he was.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Of the previous convocation, right?

V.V. Ovsiienko: The second convocation.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Ah. He once wrote an interesting article about culture, about the middlemen who took the money and brought us some third-rate artists... They were emptying our treasury, in a word.

So it turns out that this Dmytro Kremin wrote a review of Mykola's collection for the KGB. On the collection that was confiscated from Mykola in the camp.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Mykola was supposed to be released on October 23, 1984. The day before his release, he was taken from the Novodanylivka camp to Mykolaiv and informed that a new case had been opened. They confiscated his poems, and that's when Kremin wrote the review of them for the KGB.

M.K. Kholodnyi: The conclusion was that they were anti-Soviet poems. You see, the man hadn’t repented—where could he go with such attitudes? And they gave him however many more years...

V.V. Ovsiienko: Eight years of imprisonment in special-regime (i.e., cell-type) camps and five years of exile, with his designation as an especially dangerous recidivist.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Well, I'll be! That’s terrible!

V.V. Ovsiienko: And they brought Mykola to us in the Urals, to Kuchyno. He arrived there two weeks after Stus’s death, in September 1985, with this new sentence.

M.K. Kholodnyi: So you see, and his hand didn’t wither when he wrote that review…

V.V. Ovsiienko: And his hand didn’t wither when he received the Shevchenko Prize.

M.K. Kholodnyi: And what do you expect? Kovtunenko, the one who wrote the review of me—it also applied to Stus, because Stus is mentioned there. They found poems from the collection “A Cry from the Grave” on Stus. And the person who compiled that collection was, obviously, Ivan Svitlychnyi. The poems probably got abroad from Ivan Svitlychnyi. Well, I couldn't say that back then. There was a discussion of these poems. Everyone brought their works to Ivan. So I would say that anyone could take those poems—whoever wanted to, took them, and didn't necessarily return them.

So, in October 1992, “Literaturna Ukraina” publishes an obituary “On the Death of Ivan Svitlychnyi.” And above it is an obituary “On the Death of Anatolii Kovtunenko.” Kovtunenko, it seems to me, wasn't even a member of the Writers' Union, but what an honor! You see.

ПОКЛИК ГОРНА

(ПАРТІЙНИЙ ПІД'ЇЗД)

В люті, в печалі, в кривавім диму

Давню ховаємо еру.

Лиш не одламуйте руки йому,

Гіпсовому піонеру.

Дем'ян Бєдний? Трохи не вгадали.

В люті, в печалі, в кривавім диму

Вибіжу вранці із хати.

Все позачинено. Мешти зніму,

Стану таксисту махати.

Не зупиняє чомусь ні один,

А в голові – наче жорна.

Десь одинадцять пробило годин,

Чим же роздмухати горна?

Мав би оце піонерську трубу –

Хтось відгукнувся б на звуки.

Снився вночі Ірванець з Бу-Ба-Бу,

Ніби заламував руки.

Я опирався: „Ти знаєш, хто я?!”

Навіть заїхав по карку.

Раптом прокинувся – доле моя,

Голий лежу серед парку.

Що мені парк цей зачуханий, хи,

Крик гайвороння з гілляки.

Вмійте розгледіти крізь лопухи

Потяг Париж – Кобеляки.

Завтра зберу однодумців загін,

Кинем по гривні на бочку.

В Древньому Римі знайшли водогін

І засекречену точку.

Вирвем Червоне з руки комуняк!

В нім народився колись-бо.

Драстуй, корово, налигач, баняк

І дорога моя призьбо.

В люті, в печалі, в кривавім диму

Пробую силу в вокалі.

Грає щось рідне у слові цьому,

Наче життя у бокалі.

Що ви копаєте душу мою?

Вічні навколо розкопки.

Людство кохане, тобі віддаю

Все – до останньої стопки.

Що мені південь і що мені юг,

Слово порадника враже?

В білім халаті скупа мене друг,

Й ніжно до ліжка прив'яже.

Ватра в печінці з учора гуде,

Ніби в первісній печері.

Знов до цілющих джерел поведе

Рідна стихія вечері.

Що це за двері із буквою "еМ"?

Може метрó а чи мéтро?

День трудовий на тарілці дилем

Переміщається в ретро.

Місце в театрі у першім ряду

І за кулісами кварта.

Біля тролейбуса мертвий впаду,

Мовби солдат Бонапарта.

Миколаїв, 23.08.95.

This was me, by the way, playing on phrases from Kremin's poems—he has “Bonaparte” and things like that. I mentioned Chervone, but he was born in the village of Sukhe in Zakarpattia. In the biographies for his first collections (there were collections like “May Arch,” “Fires of Atomobud,” or something like that), he indicated that he was the son of a collective farmer. And you know, it meant a lot to write that: “son of a collective farmer.” Everyone in Western Ukraine resisted collectivization because they saw what collectivization was like in the East. But his father, it seems, not only joined the collective farm but may have even herded others into it.

V.V. Ovsiienko: He was born around 1949-1950. And already the son of a collective farmer?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes, he writes that he is the son of a collective farmer.

БРАТІЯ ВЕДЕ

Майже за Павлом Григоровичем Тичиною. Цього вірша опублікувала газета "Чернігівська просвіта". У такому вигляді, як я читатиму.

Ой, коли ми вже сконаєм!

По президіях куняєм.

Прошу не грубить!

Свого ближнього до ями

Заохотимо киями,

Будемо любить, будемо любить.

Чути ввечері і вранці:

«В нафті плавають іранці,

Треба б навзаєм».

Біжимо до них галопом

І америкам, європам

Руку подаєм, руку подаєм.

Здаємо в оренду води,

Закриваємо заводи,

Ростемо ж ми, гей!

Їдуть всі до нас бандюги,

Наркомани і блядюги:

Хата без дверей, хата без дверей.

Біля нашого кордона,

Мовби залишки гандона –

Чорноморський флот.

Він не сіє і не косить,

А три пальці нам підносить

Аж під самий рот, аж під самий рот!

Проти сейфа, проти пломби

В нас гранати є і бомби.

Ще й підмога йде:

Збільшовиченого діда,

Що лишився без обіда,

Рекетир веде, рекетир веде.

Не на Рейні, не на Марні,

Хтось украв шрифти з друкарні –

То не в нас, не в нас!

Уночі льохи тривожим,

Треба – власника стриножим.

От прекрасний час, неповторний час!

Без репресій і терору

Нову дачу прокурору

Збудували вмить.

Сплять сини під килимами –

Хай за них черешня в мами

Трохи пошумить, трохи пошумить.

Швидко вихрещені зеки

Нас від влади до Ревеки (?)

Гонять нагаєм.

До зими готові з літа.

У старого замполіта

Сподні дістаєм, сподні дістаєм.

На культурну стали ніжку,

Сто письменників на книжку

І на п'ять родин.

Ми плануєм творчі гони

Епігони, епігони –

Та все ж, як один, та все ж, як один!

Від корита до корита

Вся земля уже порита.

Чесний хто, вгадай.

Мов на палубу пірати,

Лізуть всі в лауреати:

Премію подай, премію подай!

Остер, 02.03.1995.

MYKOLA KHOLODNYI’S CREATIVE EVENING ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 60TH BIRTHDAY

September 13, 1999, at the National Writers' Union of Ukraine.

Hosted by Leonid Cherevatenko. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsiienko.

(The poems that appear in the interview are not repeated here in the recording of the creative evening, namely: A Memento of Semypolky, The Thirteenth Cannon, Petro's Reel, The Ghost, Dogs, The Black Box, The Brethren Lead, Poets Are Dying).

L. Cherevatenko: ...I have known him for 30 years, since the first year at Kyiv University, and this man never ceases to surprise and amaze me. He is the same today as he was back then. His last name is Kholodnyi, which means “cold,” but in reality, he is obviously hot, perhaps even very hot, painful, controversial. So—should I dwell on his characteristics? Obviously, you have read his last interview in the newspaper “Den,” which Pavlo Volvach conducted with him. It sparked debate: who was for, who was against, who liked it, who didn't. And so it has been, I repeat, for all these three decades of our shared existence on this earth. He asked me half an hour ago: “Why are they already looking at us like we're old men?” I said: “Well, no one is definitely looking at you like an old man...”

M.K. Kholodnyi: Literary old men.

L. Cherevatenko: No one is definitely looking at you like a literary old man, because everyone is interested in what you’ll pull off next, say, in the next minute. I think we should give him the floor. Whatever he wants to say about himself—he'll say it. And then we'll see how things go. Please.

M.K. Kholodnyi: First of all, I am grateful to the company that has come to this meeting with my poetry. It's a pleasure for me to see people, to talk, to exchange something.

I consider my first literary teacher to be—and indeed he was—Pavlo Hryhorovych Tychyna, whom I met by correspondence while still in school. He sent me Mayakovsky's book “How to Write Poems,” and we corresponded. I wrote my first poem in 1955 and published it in 1955 in the Korop newspaper (that's a district center in the Chernihiv region). It was a critical poem about a collective farm brigadier, a communist, for which I was persecuted and forced to flee the village at that time. I went to Myrhorod, and from there I entered Kyiv University, from which I was expelled in my fifth year. I graduated from Odesa University in 1968, and worked for over 20 years as a teacher. Now, only after some 30 years, two years ago, Academician Skopenko, to whom I am very grateful, canceled the order for my expulsion from the fifth year of Kyiv University. What’s interesting is that I was reinstated at Kyiv University, enrolled at Odesa University, but that order was still in effect. So only now has that order been canceled. So justice has triumphed. In 1966, I spoke at the Franko monument in Kyiv, where I read two poems—“Franko's Monologue” (it was the 50th anniversary of Ivan Franko's death) and “Dogs”—two poems.

L. Cherevatenko: Well, read them, so people know.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I’ll read them. No, I won't read them because they've been published. I will read a few recent poems that I have written. They grabbed me then on Khreshchatyk. Besides me, they also grabbed Viktor Kovalchuk—a young journalist who was defending me. It was at eleven o'clock at night, and the next day (it was a Sunday) they sentenced us to 15 days in Lukianivska Prison. With us in the cell were Oles Serhiienko (now a deputy of the Kyiv City Council) and Valerii Nabok. Kovalchuk disappeared without a trace—I don't know where he is. Supposedly in the Rokytnianskyi district. Nabok died sometime in 1994 in Chernihiv. Of those guys, only two of us are left—Serhiienko and me. What's interesting is that only now (how many years has it been—about 33, or how many?) I received a letter from the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office stating that they had overturned the ruling of the Kyiv City Court judge Pedenko—there was such a woman who gave us 15 days each. If it were just 15 days. It was a precedent to evict me from Kyiv. They deregistered me from Kyiv then, because I had my passport with me. When they released me—it was at night, at eleven o'clock—they brought me to the Lenin police department (it's up a small street behind Independence Square, now there's some kind of private security there) and handed me my passport. It already had the “deregistered” stamp—and I was ordered to leave Kyiv within 24 hours.

The very next day, I went to Yahotyn to guard the orchards. Valerii Illia was already there (He died on July 27, 2005. – V.O.), who started the dynasty of literary watchmen. There was the future political figure and educator—Petro Rozumnyi, who is sitting here.

In general, at our evening today we have Dmytro Holovko—my countryman, a poet; Vasyl Ovsiienko—a human rights activist; my like-minded contemporary from the '60s, Leonid Korenevych; Pavlo Volvach—a young, promising poet from Zaporizhzhia, and now from Kyiv; Mykola Ivanovych Krachko (or Krachok) from the State Archive, Viktor Mohylnyi over there by the window in the black jacket. Actually, the Sixtiers movement started in his house. His whole house was covered with various slogans, I remember, such formalist ones. The same was true at Dziuba's—all the walls were covered in writing, but when Dziuba got married, all of that disappeared. Oleksa Riznykiv from Odesa—a long-term political prisoner and my classmate from Odesa University; Anatolii Hryhorenko—a writer and my roommate. Here we see a representative of the avant-garde organization “Bu-Ba-Bu,” Oleksandr Irvanets—both a poet and a playwright.

Remark: Whose prize you are a laureate of.

M.K. Kholodnyi: And also an academician of “Bu-Ba-Bu.” That prize cost me dearly... Oleh Leshyha from Tysmenytsia—both a translator and a poet, and a member of the editorial board of the underground journal “Skrynia”—a Lviv journal from the '60s, edited by Hrytsko Chubai, and I was on the editorial board. We managed to release, I think, only one issue—and then the state security caught us all with a wet sack.

I arrived, of course, very upset. Why upset—because Leonid Danylovych presented the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, 1st Class, to Yasser Arafat. I was also accused of terrorism—only, it's true, not state terrorism, but literary terrorism. Well, they could have, at least, if not the first class, then the second. But, I think, we can still fix that. And Arafat could have yielded, say, waited for a round anniversary...

Do I consider myself a happy person? Yes. I recently had the good fortune to get acquainted with the play “Was Mayakovsky” (?) by the Sumy poet and playwright Anatolii Hryzun. It is a wonderful piece. It is published, by the way. I published an article about it in the journal “Kurier Kryvbasu.” Just today, I submitted a screenplay by Orest Halyniv—a young writer from Lviv—to the journal “Kyiv.” It's a screenplay for “Taras Bulba,” based on Gogol. The screenplay, you know, has a great magnetic power; you read it and can't tear yourself away. I wrote a 17-page foreword. A staff member of the “Kyiv” editorial office read it today—he says that if the screenplay is as good as the foreword, everything will be fine. There is an interesting author in Lviv whom I presented—an academician of the New York Academy of Sciences, a professor at the Lviv Polytechnic, Vasyl Chaban. He recently published a book, “The Surrealist Novella.” I also presented it on the pages of “Kurier Kryvbasu.”

The year before last, I wrote an afterword to the third book of the “Erotic-Political Novel” by Mykola Melnyk from Vinnytsia. This is the Melnyk who was a People's Deputy of Ukraine. It's an interesting work. He called me yesterday and invited me over, so I'm going to the Vinnytsia region tomorrow. The fourth book has come out, and he says: come, I'll give you the book. You have to go to read it. This is already the fourth book, and the second, third, and fourth deal with the behind-the-scenes political intrigues happening in Ukraine today. And he knows them well. And all this is intertwined with erotica. But, you know, erotica is erotica, but I managed to write an essay of about 30 typewritten pages. It should be out any day now in the journal “Sova”—such a journal has started to be published in Ternopil. By the way, they lack prose, so I would ask young prose writers to take this into account and send their works there to make it an interesting journal. So, in the third issue of “Sova,” my study “Christian Motifs in Mykola Melnyk's Novel ‘In the Wild Raspberry Thickets’” is coming out. This year, I managed to publish in the journal “Kurier Kryvbasu” (it's a popular journal, published in Kryvyi Rih), in the July issue, the “Symphony ‘Makhno’”—its length is about 330 lines, with just as many notes.

And I began my literary biography with publications in a district newspaper. My first book was called “A Cry from the Grave”; it was published in 1969 in Paris, Baltimore (that's in the USA), and Toronto without the author's name, but all those poems are mine. This was its dust jacket, and there was also this cover. (Shows it). In 1972, Anatolii Kovtunenko wrote a review for the state security organs, it is kept in the SBU archives in my file—there are eight volumes—and he wrote that in this collection, “A Cry from the Grave,” I was allegedly calling for an armed uprising. Then in 1969, my book “Twilight in the Soul” was published in Paris. In 1979, the book “About the Soul in Song and the Song in the Soul”—a study on the history of Ukrainian song—was published in Rome. There, I was awarded an honorary prize from the Vatican. This book was reissued in 1981 by “Smoloskyp” in Baltimore and Toronto. In 1972, my collection “Where and Why the Water Runs” was published. It was included in the book “The Wide Sea of Ukraine.” There were dissident materials there—Moroz, Sverstiuk, and at the end, this collection of mine was published.

Finally, the ice broke, and in 1993, I published a poetry book, “The Road to Mother,” with “Ukrainskyi Pysmennyk.” I am indebted for its publication to Volodymyr Kolomiiets, Liubov Holota, Mykola Zhulynskyi—now an academician. Somewhere at a presidium meeting of the Union, there was talk about what needed to be published, and he mentioned my name, and then wrote me two letters on this topic. He was supported, according to him, by Oles Honchar, and Yurii Mushketyk was also on my side. Then Telniuk sent me a letter asking me to give him the manuscript and he would take it to the publishing house himself. I gave him the manuscript, and then Telniuk drowned somewhere in the ponds, in Holosiievo, or someone drowned him. But that letter is preserved. I don't know—I probably gave it to the state archive, because I transferred my documents there.

In 1995, a book of my selected works, “The Smile of the Mona Lisa,” was published by “Ukrainskyi Pysmennyk.” There is a photo on the other side, on the fourth page of the cover, a photo with Bursov—a controversial person, but an interesting journalist. He published an interview with me in several issues of the “Moloda Hvardia” newspaper, which has since died. Well, that's how it all started.

I published the book “The Golgotha of Mykhailo Osadchyi”—it's for sale downstairs, costs two hryvnias. Osadchyi was a political prisoner, author of the book “The Cataract.” It was published in many languages, and Mykhailo Osadchyi was twice nominated for the Shevchenko Prize, but he did not receive it. I was also nominated for the Shevchenko Prize—by the journal “Kyiv,” in particular, but that fact was somehow hushed up at the time. In 1996, I published the book “Kameniuk and Petrarch”...

I have written new poems, and I want to read a few of them. My throat is a bit dry—can I have some water?

L. Cherevatenko: Anyone who wanted to hear an academic report about the man of the hour has heard it from his own lips. For me, this genre is very unexpected—I didn't know Mykola Kostiovych worked so much and achieved such success. As for the Taras Shevchenko Prize—a controversial issue. As for the orders—I have the impression that you will not receive them, at least not in your lifetime and at least not from the hands of this government.

But an anniversary is an anniversary, and telegrams have arrived addressed to the man of the hour. Allow me to read them.

“Dear Mykola Kostiantynovych! We congratulate you on your glorious anniversary—your sixtieth birthday. You have done much in Ukrainian literature and poetry, in criticism, in journalism, and in the revival of the culture and spirituality of our native people, for which we are sincerely grateful. We wish you strong health, a happy fate, and new creative achievements!” Signed: Mushketyk, Drozd, Liutyi, Kordun, Movchan, Pohribnyi, Shevchenko.

Second telegram. God, it's so faint... “Together with you, we sincerely and abundantly salute our outstanding poet Mykola Kholodnyi on the occasion of his anniversary. Voloshyn. Yalta.” I don't know who this is.

M.K. Kholodnyi: He published the novel “From the Kholodnyi Yar,” my friend Rozumnyi prompts me.

Petro Rozumnyi: That Roman Koval wrote it.

L. Cherevatenko: And this one is addressed directly to this evening: 2 Bankova Street, to the participants of Mykola Kholodnyi's anniversary evening. “Dear Mykola Kostiovych! We congratulate the Sixtier poet, the idol of our youth, whose poems we passed from mouth to mouth in the sixties, on his 60th birthday—a legendary personality for me to this day. Health to you, and due recognition! Marchuk.” And Ovsiienko (Laughter). “Doctor Mykhailo Marchuk, Zhytomyr.” (More laughter).

Please, read some poems. But your classmates are present here—here's Raia Kucher, Anatolii Pohribnyi, over there is Vasyl Osadchuk, who attends all the literary evenings.

We recall that you started as a follower of Mykhailo Semenko. I remember the scandals, the outrage caused by the poem “One, one, two...” You can continue from there. If you can, please recall some poems from the sixties.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I have a friend in Semypolky. His last name is Moskvych. He threw Borys Oliinyk out of the school curriculum and put me in, threw out Stelmakh and put in Melnyk. Actually, he shortened it—he threw Oliinyk out completely and didn't teach him to the children, and he shortened Stelmakh a bit. You are allowed to maneuver within the curriculum there. So he says: “What is this, you have poems signed with Paris, Tokyo, Cairo, but there are no Semypolky?” I didn't know he was a very jealous man; they told me very late. But I wrote the poem. So he asked me to rewrite it, to write about a stork's nest. He had already arranged with the electricians to even move a pole. But the poem lived on; it immediately spread through the village, and they started copying it there. The poem goes like this

Reads the poem

НАКОЛКИ НА ЗГАДКУ ПРО СЕМИПОЛКИ

“Before the portrait of Serhii Parajanov”—the original is in criminal case No. 170 on the accusation of Nina Strokata and others, which was investigated by the UKGB in Odesa Oblast, investigator of the KGB department at the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR for Odesa Oblast, Lieutenant Prystaiko (Volodymyr Illich). Signature. This is from the poems returned in 1992.

ПЕРЕД АВТОПОРТРЕТОМ СЕРГІЯ ПАРАДЖАНОВА

Ваш будинок у Києві – гора Арарат.

І щоночі на ній серця Вашого ватра палає.

А Ви сидите біля неї, одинокий Хаджі-Мурат,

І очікуєте на того, що погубити Вас має.

Біля Вас лежать сотні різнокаліберних мін,

Що ними Ви фільми свої замінуєте.

А за спинами димить Київського радіо гумористичний камін,

І через те Ви дужче „Вірменське” шануєте.

Інші їдуть, щоб нашому слову в спину

По колодочку ще одна фінка впилась.

Ви ж українцям відкрили Вкраїну,

А Україна відкрила Вас.

Перед Вашим вікном кінь мій стає на коліна,

Перед Вашим вікном я хотів би соняшником зацвісти.

З Вашого вікна видно, як під Уманню опускається домовина,

І мені до підвіконня бодай дорости.

Можемо без води, але не без Вас,

І немає Вам звідси дверей.

Україна – це теж Кавказ,

І Ви на ній – Прометей.

(1968)

Next, he reads the poem

ТРИНАДЦЯТИ ГАРМАТА

Petro Rebro wrote a parody of me. And I, accordingly, wrote one about Petro Rebro. (Laughs.) But that parody, I'll tell you, is quite interesting, I was grateful to him for it, it's so witty. You know, he is the patriarch of Ukrainian humor.

Reads the poem

ПЕТРОВЕ МОТОВИЛО

L. Cherevatenko: Will you take a break?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Yes. Let's give the people a chance to speak.

L. Cherevatenko: The people will say a word about you. And they already have. As for me, after that academic boredom you inflicted on us with your report, we finally heard (Inaudible). As for me, this is cooler than “Bu-Ba-Bu.” Irvanets won't deny that.

Are you going to read more? He won't! Let him rest, his throat is dry.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Well, it's like that—sometimes it's dry, sometimes it's wet.

L. Cherevatenko: Sit down. Mykola Ivanovych Krachok, director of the Archive of the Institute of Literature, asked to speak even before we started.

M.I. Krachok: I want to say that Mykola Kostiovych just today brought us forty documents. Including the poem “Christ on the Cross,” the article “Presentation of the Black Book,” and a whole series of letters. There are investigative documents. He says they shouldn't be read. But I will definitely read a couple. Because without these documents—there are people here who have lived through this, and they will be speaking. I won't take up much of your attention, but I will read nonetheless. What are the accusations?

“The criminal case against Kholodnyi was opened on February 20, 1972. He was detained on the same day, and on February 23 he was arrested for the production, possession, and distribution of anti-Soviet and slanderous works. The evidence collected in the case sufficiently exposes Kholodnyi in that, under the influence of conversations with nationalist-minded individuals—Zinoviia Franko, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Yevhen Sverstiuk, the anti-Soviet literature he read, and listening to hostile foreign radio broadcasts, he became imbued with anti-Soviet sentiments and, with the aim of undermining and weakening Soviet power, began to conduct anti-Soviet activities himself. Thus, during the years 1958-66, while studying at Kyiv State University, Kholodnyi composed a number of poems containing slander that defamed the Soviet state and social system: ‘I am a foreigner among you,’ ‘Nation,’ ‘Horses in the Church Today...’, ‘Dogs,’ ‘Poets are Dying,’ and others. At that time, Kholodnyi read these poems to university lecturers and students: Arsen Oleksiiovych Ishchuk, Anatolii Kyrylovych Hryhorenko, Mykhailo Kuzmych Naienko, Liudmyla Dmytrivna Zinchuk-Kaidash, Mykhailo Tykhonovych Skoryk, as well as his acquaintances Borys Dmytrovych Antonenko-Davydovych, Stanislav Ivanovych Tsyplyak, Mariia Petrivna Hlushko...” Well, there’s a whole list. The list ends with Sverstiuk.

“At the same time, Kholodnyi distributed handwritten and typewritten texts of his slanderous works, including the collection ‘A Cry from the Grave’ and individual poems, providing them to Zinoviia Tarasivna Franko, Ivan Oleksiiovych Svitlychnyi, Alla Oleksandrivna Horska, Bohdan Mykolaiovych Horyn, and his brother Mykhailo. In May 1965, Kholodnyi, having received from Alla Horska photocopies of the anti-Soviet book by Ivan Koshelivets ‘Contemporary Literature in the Ukrainian SSR,’ published abroad, and a letter of a similar nature from Rakhmannyi ‘To the writer Iryna Vilde and her countrymen who are not afraid of the truth,’ brought them to Donetsk and gave them to Volodymyr Ivanovych Mishchenko and Tsyplyak for their perusal.

On May 28, 1966, Kholodnyi, at a gathering of nationalist-minded individuals near the Ivan Franko monument in Kyiv, declaimed his slanderous poems ‘Franko’s Monologue’ and ‘Dogs.’ In the summer of 1970, on the ‘Arcadia’ beach in the city of Odesa, Kholodnyi read his slanderous poem ‘Dogs’ to Vitalii Olehovych Moroz. In December 1971, Kholodnyi gave for safekeeping to Zinovii Pavlovych Antoniuk photocopies of five articles by Dontsov, in particular, the article ‘On the Barons of the Middle Ages and the Rams from the Banks,’ which was of an anti-Soviet nature.” And so on.

All these publications and speeches were used as accusations against him. And another reason I decided to speak is that many writers have Kholodnyi's documents. For example, Vasyl Yaremenko has a substantial part of Kholodnyi's archive. One way or another, the writer communicated, someone got his manuscripts. So I ask, if anyone has materials by Kholodnyi, please hand them over to the archive-museum, so that a complete set can be assembled. And I cordially congratulate Mykola Kostiovych on behalf of the entire staff on his sixtieth birthday and I think that he will continue to add to his fund, which researchers will work on. Thank you.

L. Cherevatenko: Thank you, Mykola Ivanovych. I think it makes sense to listen today to Mykola Kostiovych's slanderous poems “Dogs” and “Franko's Monologue.” Can you read them? Please, read them.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I have to find them. And Mr. Petro Rozumnyi says: read “The Ghost.” I'll read it.

Reads the poem

ПРИВИД

(Applause). I don't know where “Dogs” is. I'll read something else, and you find “Dogs” and “Franko's Monologue.” I will read this poem, but, you know, the actress Raisa Reshetniuk has come from Chernihiv. I saw her in the wings. The fifth court case in a year about her reinstatement at work has just passed. Raisa Reshetniuk, Chernihiv. Please! (Applause).

Back when the CPSU still existed, Raisa Reshetniuk brought Stus's works and a film about the Holodomor from Canada to Ukraine through customs. Now the actress is waging a great fight for the opening of a monument to Sofia Rusova in Chernihiv and supports the presidential candidate Yevhen Marchuk.

“Dogs.” You know, when I was reading this poem (at the Franko monument), it had just rained a little. And this was right in front of the Central Committee building. When I started reading, I was scared of my own voice, honest to God—the whole park was packed with police. One of them, it's true, told me: “If you leave here, we'll take you.” He said this during the day, but the reading was in the evening. I didn't leave, but they took me anyway—on Khreshchatyk.

Reads the poem

СОБАКИ

(Applause). The head of the Chernihiv regional organization of the Ukrainian Republican Conservative Party, the poet Slavko Zhuravel, appeared in the doorway.

“Huliaipole.” My companion is sitting here, with whom we traveled to see Nestor Makhno's grandson. As a result, this symphony “Makhno” later appeared.

L. Cherevatenko: Another Makhnovite is sitting here, Pavlo Ivanovych Volvach.

M.K. Kholodnyi: We went there. It's a small house where Makhno lived. We saw interesting photographs there—a young Makhno, returning from Moscow after his imprisonment; his daughter with a kitten in her arms, about seven years old. Makhno's grandson ordered his wife to prepare dinner. She cooked it. He told her to allocate three karbovantsi from the budget and give them to him. She thought about it for a long time. I allocated three karbovantsi from my own budget. And, accordingly, after dinner, we decided to sing.

Pavlo Volvach: That old man used to drive Makhno. They had one cow for three households. It would live with one owner for a week, then with the second for a week...

Petro Rozumnyi: In 1967. Socialism in action.

ГУЛЯЙ-ПОЛЕ

То не дзвони калатали,

Калатала не душа –

То миряни нас вітали,

В миску кидали гроша.

І дзвеніла срібна миска,

Не злиняла за бугор,

То ж попова одаліска,

З неї цмулила «Кагор».

Я з тобою, друже, їхав,

Пару жмень монет ох, на!

Через станцію Оріхів

В Гуляй-Поле до Махна.

У полях усе дозріло,

Де котеджі в лісабой (?).

З "Мерседеса" підозріло

Подивився мазарбойн (?).

Спека горло нам давила,

Ти шовковицю лизав.

З-за паркану дядько вила

У гнояці показав.

Закортить колись, юначе,

Пращурякам навздогін.

В Гуляй-Полі баба плаче –

Зіпсувався водогін.

Ну, а ми своє догоним,

Доженем, шановний Сем,

Десь проскочим під вагоном,

Десь кобилу попасем.

Тільки добру кобилицю,

Щоб вино пила відром,

Заберу її в столицю

І віддам на іподром.

Що це я таке городжу –

З перепою, а чи так?

З хати двері не знаходжу,

А знаходжу четвертак.

На городі тітка поле.

Полоття ти, полоття!

Гей, позаду Гуляй-Поле,

А попереду життя!

(Applause).

МАРЕННЯ НА НОСИЛКАХ

В зоопарку сподобавсь жирафі я –

Сивина, сивина, сивина.

Під ногами моя біографія,

Наче келих розлитий вина.

Коли сон подолає мій опір,

То, буває, насниться таке,

Що літак переводжу у "штопор",

Потім знову заходжу в "піке".

Я тепер не поїду в Америку,

Бо часу на роз'їзди нема.

Котрий рік передачу по телику

Про багатих дивлюсь з усіма.

Пам'ятаю, іде передача –

Передача портфелів в ЦК.

А душа моя вперта й ледача

Передачі в підвалі чека.

Скільки тюрем відвідала ненька,

І солоної випив води!

На носилках мене, як Черненка,

Занесли у спілчанські ряди!

(4.06. 1993)

(Applause).

МОНОЛОГ ФРАНКА

В багно звірми притоптана калина,

Австрійська мова в душу нам плює.

Та ще не вмерла мертва Україна,

Народ в народі знову повстає.

Народу шлях показують суди.

Недарма звуться ці суди народні –

І садить він по півночах сади,

І добува метали благородні.

І вчать його майори філософії,

І підривають йому береги,

І навкруги усе вже пересохло,

Але не все ще всохло навкруги.

Нас і виховують, нас і приховують,

Не вислуховують – так підслуховують

Серед зими, народе, й серед літа –

Стоїть в снігах надій твоїх Говерла,

Але ти вже розлився на півсвіта,

І рабська твоя падає орбіта,

І ще не вмерла!

(1966)

(Applause).

Let me read, you know what—let me read “Tenderness.” I had a romance. It lasted about 14 years, this romance. There were letters—I gave them away somewhere—about half a sack of letters. Probably to the M.M. Kotsiubynskyi Museum in Chernihiv. Well, and then, after 14 years, I went to Krolevets. I wanted to name the collection “The Sun Rises in Krolevets.” But Volodymyr Kolomiiets says: “What is this Krolevets?” But I should have. I really regret it—I should have named it “The Sun Rises in Krolevets.” You know, there are favorite poems that you just want to read. I will read you one poem, and then I'll think about what I'll do next. And after this poem, I will read “The Brethren Lead.”

L. Cherevatenko: We'll see, we'll see—you read, don't comment! Why are you scaring the audience?

M.K. Kholodnyi:

НІЖНІЙ

В Кролевець приїхавши, уникав політики,

Не торкавсь у ліжку визвольних ідей.

Та колись напишуть прогресивні критики:

Щось я там розхитував і будив людей.

Не любив Вітчизну і горілку з перцем,

Ноги нареченої, трудовий народ,

Вибачте за те, що несвідомим серцем

Вболівав за землю і за город.

Заздрив тим, що зникнули в паровозній топці.

Розважав я публіку, як Андрій Сова.

У дівочих пазухах щось шукали хлопці –

Я ж шукав для тебе чарівні слова.

Не хотів співати з кам'яної вежі,

А кортіло півнику жити, як дрозду.

Розсідлає доля скакуна в манежі,

Закушу востаннє золоту вузду.

Мати довго думала і назвала "ніжною",

"Доброю водою" річку нарекли.

Я до тебе вулицею завітаю нижньою,

Щоб твої цілунки груди обпекли.

Пахкими тюльпанами сохне передмістя,

Над тобою стану кленом молодим.

Ти моє обпалиш неопале листя,

Нас поглине полум'я і покриє дим.

(25.05. 1993)

(Applause).

Since I traveled there by car, I wrote a cycle of poems—14 poems. I wrote a poem every day, maybe even two—there was some kind of breakthrough.

ВОДА ІЗ КРАНА

Не купатимусь у грудні

І не питиму женьшень.

Хто казав, що пополудні

Не поцілив я в мішень?

Тричі вистрелив по птиці,

Ти промовила: "Везе!"

І тремтіли твої циці,

Наче музика Бізе.

Буря яблуню хитала,

А із яблук капав мед.

Хлопця дівчина питала:

"В що впирався Архімед?"

На руці моїй до рана

Ти лежала молода,

А вода текла із крана,

Бо на те вона й вода.

У сусідовій квартирі

Щось кахикнуло лишень.

Ти не вір, що я у пір'ї (?)

Не поцілив у мішень!

(Applause).

There was a poem here that Petro Rebro wrote a parody of—it's “Hymn to the Car.” I arrived there by car, of course. I won't read it.

L. Cherevatenko: Read it. Come on, read it, come on!

M.K. Kholodnyi: In a moment. No, I won't read it. Right now I'll read you the poem “The Brethren Lead” from the newspaper. It's been published. I will read it verbatim—exactly as it was published. The newspaper “Prosvita” published it—that's the Chernihiv regional newspaper. It's not here!

L. Cherevatenko: Read it from memory.

M.K. Kholodnyi: It’s not here, and I don't remember it. It's not here. Maybe we can give someone else the floor while I look for it? Oh, Raia Reshetniuk!

L. Cherevatenko: I think that after such touching lyrical poems, we should give the floor to a woman. Ms. Raisa, please, we invite you to speak!

Raisa Reshetniuk (Chernihiv): Highly esteemed community! I greet you from the glorious land of Chernihiv—from the land that gave the world many outstanding Ukrainian writers and figures, and also gave us the legendary man, the outstanding Ukrainian poet Mykola Kholodnyi! (Applause). Mykola Kostiovych, you see what a bouquet I've chosen for you—of our flag? Because you are a true Ukrainian, you are a symbol of Ukraine.

I was flipping through Oksana Meshko's book, where she tells how you were one of the first to read bold poems at the Franko monument. In 1990, I brought the book “Vasyl Stus” from Canada and was looking through it, but they confiscated it from me at Sheremetyevo. Miraculously, I managed to hide the film about the Holodomor. The entire customs office was in an uproar. But the books “Palimpsests” by Stus and “Vasyl Stus” still made it to Chernihiv. I saw what an important role the figure of Mykola Kholodnyi played in Vasyl Stus's life. He was very concerned about Mykola Kholodnyi's fate—he probably drew from you the courage that you showed when you read the poem at the Ivan Franko monument. So many quotes here—and Mykola Kholodnyi is mentioned everywhere. How the totalitarian system persecuted him, how merely possessing Mykola Kholodnyi's poems led to a person being taken away and imprisoned.

Today, this extraordinary person is speaking before you so jokingly, so cheerfully, with such unconventional poems. And we are proud that we are from Chernihiv, that the Chernihiv region has such a poet. And I sincerely congratulate you, Mykola Kostiovych, and wish for your greatest desire to finally come true! (Applause). When I was a student, we would gather in Kyiv at the Shevchenko monument and recite poems, give speeches, and fight for our independent Ukrainian state. As a member of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society and an artist of the Philharmonic, I had a program called “The Unknown Tychyna,” based on Pavlo Zahrebelnyi's book “A Fragment of Tenderness.” It was called “Solo for Violin and Clarinet.” I thought then: “We know about Pushkin's loves, about Goethe's loves. But we don't know about Shevchenko's love.” And so in my home library, I found a book by Marietta Shaginyan, in which a whole chapter is called “Shevchenko's Love.” I became so interested! I started going to our poets with this idea. I said: it would be great to write a script on the theme of “Shevchenko's Love.” Stanislav Opanasovych Repiakh did write the book “Mirage,” where he researched these figures. The Chernihiv region was very dear to Shevchenko. He had many friends here, and he visited here many times. And the women who were dearest to his heart were from the Chernihiv region. He dedicated the poems “If We Were to Meet Again” and “There is Nothing Worse than in Captivity to Remember Freedom” to Hanna Zakrevska. And his last hope for marital happiness was also a woman from the Chernihiv region, from the hamlet of Lypiv Rih, near Nizhyn—Lykera Polusmak. When I was reading these poems in 1992, Mykola Kostiovych was also around. He wrote a poem called

ЛИКЕРІ

За те, що вірші понаписував лівою,

Вбачали злочинний в мені елемент.

Та ось від лампади запахне оливою,

І шани до мене настане момент.

Чернеча гора з гончарями, каліками,

Попами чужими не раз обросте,

Не лізьте на неї з серцевими ліками,

Коли ви поради собі не дасте.

Захочеться поруч зі мною лежати

Усім, хто зі мною ні вмер, ані жив,

Шановна Ликеро, запізно бажати,

Щоб мертвий я з вами навік подружив.

Шляхи мені доля судила мережати

Туди, де телят випасає Макар,

І місце, що генію мало належати,

У вашому серці зайняв перукар.

Покриє трава петербурзькі алеї,

У мареві зникне поетів кортеж,

Дадуть вам ім'я рятівниці моєї,

А може, й Шевченківську премію теж.

(Applause).

Mykola Kostiovych, the Chernihiv branch of the Union of Ukrainian Women announces here before everyone that we are once again nominating you for the Shevchenko Prize. I think he has long deserved it. I ask you to support the slogan: “The Shevchenko Prize for Mykola Kholodnyi!”

I must tell you that last year, the Chernihiv Ukrainian Language Society “Prosvita” was one of the first to start the fight for the Shevchenko Prize to be awarded to Vasyl Stus. With the program “My Ukraine,” we went to the Prosvita members in the Kharkiv region, and they supported us there. I think if this highly esteemed community supports us, then Mykola Kostiovych, this extraordinary historical figure of Ukrainian literature, will also have the title of Shevchenko Laureate. I wish you this from the bottom of my heart! (Boisterous applause).

L. Cherevatenko: Mr. Petro Rozumnyi wanted to say a word. Please, sir, we invite you to speak.

Petro Rozumnyi: I have already told the story of how we lived together in 1967 and heard stories about Makhno. I believe they influenced Mykola Kostiovych's work.

M.K. Kholodnyi: Tell them how they gave you a book on February 23rd.

P. Rozumnyi: I'll tell what I want to tell. It was in the spring of 1967, and there were elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. In our district, Vasyl Kozachenko was running—a great writer of our time, he's deceased now. But he had written some book, it was called “Letters from a Cartridge.” I didn't read it, but I remember they commented on it and said what this writer would give us if he were elected as a deputy. We sent him a question: “What legislative ideas do you have, besides wanting to write more books like this?”

M.K. Kholodnyi: What bills will you propose?

P. Rozumnyi: Bills, if we, perhaps, elect you. What legislative ideas will possess you, so that you will not only write such wonderful works as “Letters from a Cartridge” but also do something else useful. He answered this question at great length and swore that he would write the best works. Then we sent him a note to this effect: right now (and this was 1967) Svitlychnyi, Zalyvakha, and others are in prison and in the camps. They are not doing well there. Will you help them in any way? Because they have been imprisoned for no reason at all. Kozachenko hid this note and, as Mykola Kostiantynovych told me—he was at the reception after that meeting with the candidate for deputy—he started the reception like this: “Oh, damn it, they are here too!” And this was the village of Pishchanyi Brid, Dobrovelychkivka district, in the Kirovohrad region. Ukrainized Moldovans, a nice village on the Chornyi Tashlyk river. That's where we lived. There, Mykola Kostiantynovych ordered the works of Mykhailo Semenko from the Odesa library. It was an unheard-of and unseen edition for me until then; I had only heard all sorts of stories about him. It was only thanks to Mykola Kostiantynovych that I read Mykhailo Semenko and became acquainted with his poems. (Further text inaudible, dictaphone power fails).

Later, the KGB interrogated me about Kholodnyi: “What did he think about the KGB?” “I don't know what he thought about you. That's his business...” “Ah, his business?” I could tell a lot about Mykola Kostiovych, but I'm in a hurry to catch a train. I'm writing my memoirs, so I'll describe him there from head to toe.

Slavko Zhuravel: Esteemed community! Esteemed man of the hour, allow me to congratulate you on your Cossack 60th birthday. Indeed, the Chernihiv region is a unique land. Here we have Mykola Kholodnyi, here Sofia Rusova, here Hryhorii Vashchenko, here Mykola Mikhnovskyi—indeed from the Chernihiv region, not Poltava, from the Pryluky district. I want to read a very sharp poem that every conscious Ukrainian in Chernihiv knows by heart. It's called

БЕЗЗАКОННЯ ФІЛАРМОНІЇ,

або Як ми копали картоплю на городі у Раїси Решетнюк

Із пієтетом евенки

З оленя шкуру здеруть.

Є й у Чернігові -енки,

Котрі за горло беруть.

Миє машини дурному –

Хто ж без роботи тепер?

Краще би був з гастроному

Шефу півлітру припер.

Лістом, а не комуністом,

Мрієш махнути в Мілан –

Дзуськи! На ранчо за містом

Реалізуй свій талант.

Всяка гидота із дзоту

Спритно на сцену повзуть.

Спробуй усю ту мерзоту

Прогодувати і взуть!

Спритні потраплять до раю,

Їх не шкодують і там.

Плюньте, нескорена Раю,

В пику червоним катам,

Гангстерам, що партквитками

Зводили власний Едем,

Підло гадали роками,

Що упадем, пропадем.

Вітер гуля в філармонії

І беззаконня гуля.

Слава суспільній гармонії

В бомжі, у бомжі гиля.

Добре, коли є меліса,

Власна картопля, щавель,

В полі нас троє: Раїса,

Я й молодий Журавель.

Влітку ....... ........ .(нерозбірливо, сміх)

Мокрі згинають кущі.

Ох, як приємно копати

На безперервнім дощі!

Мов синьо-жовті знамена,

Наша палає душа.

Ні, не помре Мельпомена,

Дасть ворогам відкоша!

І пам'ятатиму достоту (?)

Цей картопляний урок,

Після подібних уроків

Полетимо до зірок.

Демонструватиму соплі,

Хто зрозуміє і де?

Вірте, Раїсо, картоплі,

Знайте, що не підведе!

Before presenting this modest gift, these flowers, I'd like to read an impromptu poem of my own:

У тяжкі буремні роки

Із деснянських берегів

Голос нового пророка

Час жорстокий народив.

Його твори вчать напам'ять,

Ворогам пече вогнем.

Не зуміли яничари

Знищити його поем!

Там, де пам'ятник Тарасу,

До дніпровських берегів

Певну дарував він масу (?),

Ворогам сірчанку лив.

Скуштував лихої долі,

Став з системою на прю.

Україно, рідна нене,

Я одну тебе люблю!

Він і зараз шаблю гострить –

По-козацьки вріже так,

Що Васюта оком косить,

І Шкандибенко закляк.

Мельпомену захищає

Від авантюристів злих,

Модернізмом пригощає

Щедро друзів всіх своїх.

60 – хіба це старість?

Ще гостріш нехай перо

Ворогам своїм – на заздрість,

Україні – на добро!

Glory to Ukraine!

L. Cherevatenko: Well, Mykola Kostiovych, you'll have to work off that advance. Please, read a poem.

M.K. Kholodnyi: I will read it now. Very briefly... Mr. Rozumnyi has left for his train, so I'll just briefly say that there was an interesting incident at the school. The elections were approaching. Mr. Rozumnyi says: “Ah, maybe I'll go, maybe I won't come to the elections.” The teachers: “What?!” “Well,” he says, “what is there to choose, when there's only one candidate?” Then comes February 23rd—Army Day—and they ceremoniously present him with a gift, wrapped in cellophane, with a ribbon—they give him a book. He unwrapped it—the title was “The Deserter.” And I had a book, “A Tangle of Snakes,” in Russian (author's name inaudible), and he had a book by a Ukrainian economist from America, Tereshchenko, on the scientific organization of labor, a thin little book. I wanted to trade it for something. He didn't want to. But now he says: “Listen, let's swap. You give me this book, and I'll give you the one on the scientific organization of labor.” “Deal.” He takes it, wraps it in the same cellophane, with the same ribbon, this book “A Tangle of Snakes.” And when everyone gathered for March 8th, he says: “I want to give you this women's gift of mine.” And their eyes go wide! They already thought: “Look at that, we've re-educated the man!” But women are curious about everything, so one starts untying it, another pulls it out—what kind of book is it? They probably thought it was something about culinary arts, Eastern cuisine, or something else. When they read it! I look—they start turning pale, then yellow, then blue!

Unfortunately, Mr. Petro has already left. He had this big barrel. He didn't work at the school for more than a year. One year, and then it would turn out there was no place for him, they couldn't staff him. So I see, when spring comes, he packs all his books into that barrel—a sign that he's already thinking of going somewhere. He sends inquiries all over Ukraine to regional departments of public education, asking if there's a position for an English teacher. And he goes to the other end of the country—well, say, from the Kirovohrad region, he went to Ivano-Frankivsk.

“The Black Box.” Once in Mykolaiv, a partisan woman asked me: “Do you know how much a woman in Odesa costs for a night?” I say: “But this isn't Odesa! This is Mykolaiv!” When I returned, I wrote this poem.

Reads the poem

ЧОРНИЙ ЯЩИК

(Applause, laughter). That story took a tragicomic turn there. Dmytro Kremin wrote in the newspaper... What did he write there? “Vasyl Korchynskyi's Gossip,” or something like that. I took him to court. Then they backtracked. They published a second article, saying the wedding was off. There were such peripeteias in this Mykolaiv, Oleksa Riznykiv knows this and sighs: what have I gotten myself into?

КОНЦЕРТ ДЛЯ СКРИПКИ І КОНТРАБАСА

Відгриміли мої фанфари,

Мертвий сон подолав братву.

І один, погасивши фари,

У багажник хова жратву.

Для чого я, спита нащадок,

За собою спалив містки?

У довічний нащадку спадок

Я свої заповім кістки.

Наче курка, з-під себе гріб я

І приводив державу в шок.

Все одно на моє надгріб'я

Дасть цементу вона мішок.

Я у дядька колись Лук'яна*

На державних харчах пожив,

В тридцять третім будинку** зрана

Із парашею подружив.

Ой, параша моя, параша,

Не гнівися, що я на "ти",

Я, на жаль, не козак, а раша (Russian).

Бач, розкрили уже роти.

На поліські молюсь криниці,

Акварелі деснянських плес.

Оббрехали мій щит лисиці,

За штани учепився пес.

Друзі буйно справляють дати –

Значить, гроші у друзів єсть.

Хто тобі заважав продати

Зуби, нирку, простіше – честь?

Поховайте мене, де Крути,

А зі мною перо криве,

Щоб не видно було й не чути,

Як на площах юрба реве.

Де ряди хризантем пахучі,

Голубий мій помчав експрес.

Коли скинете бабу з кручі***,

Я скажу вам: Христос воскрес!

(Applause).

* Lukianivska Prison in Kyiv.

** The KGB in Kyiv at 33 Volodymyrska St.

*** The "Rodina-mat" (Motherland) monument in Kyiv, also known as the "Iron Lady with the Forged Nose."

And the last poem. I live in the Chornobyl zone.

СТІЛЕЦЬ, ПРИПИСАНИЙ ДО ЗОНИ

Тягнуть газ у Чорнобильській зоні,

Кажуть, довго ще будуть тягти.

Поступово, неначе бізони,

Ми повинні у землю лягти.

Не загрожує нам голодуха

І не всіх позгинали корчі,

Бо сюди від нечистого духа

Присилають нам чисті харчі.

За туманами жовтими вранці

По Дніпру пропливають плоти.

Може, справді то наші обранці

Перевозять до зони хати?

Перемігши у герці з єдиною (?),

Зачерпнув самогону порцель (?).

Народився на світ я людиною,

А, на жаль, помираю борцем.

Заспіваю у хорі з комахами

У садку, що давно переспів.

Хай товариш де-небудь за шахами

Мій почує піднесений спів.

Кажуть, він і до мене по відео

Усміхнувся із панських одеж.

Не журюся – із Рима Овідія

Рабовласники вигнали теж.

Прописали його у Ладижині –

Все одно не зміліла ріка.

Із столиці єфрейтор нас вижене,

А із пам'яті – куца рука!

Пролунали громи над столицями,

І народ констатує: то ми!

Де оті, з золотими петлицями,

Що про нас написали томи?

Опустіли гаї прибережні,

І нікого вже газ не втіша.

Відлетить у світи незалежні

Незалежна співцева душа.

(Applause).

So—maybe I should read that Donbas poem?

L. Cherevatenko: Wait, rest a bit. And what will the Bu-Ba-Bu-ists say? I think you are the successor to the great cause of Kholodnyi.

Sashko Irvanets: I apologize—I wasn't prepared to speak.

L. Cherevatenko: Who here was prepared?

Sashko Irvanets: Mykola Kholodnyi is truly a living legend. I was fortunate enough to meet him relatively late, but in the early 80s, in Lviv circles, in the circles around Yurko Vynnychuk, when conversations turned to contemporary Ukrainian literature, then probably (there's a fashionable word, “rating”)—by rating, Mykola Kholodnyi was in first place. Moreover, people really knew his poems by heart. Every poet dreams of experiencing such happiness. Such happiness fell to Mykola Kostiovych: dozens of people quoted him to me. Before I read this author's works myself, I knew him by heart from quotes, having learned them from others' stories. And four years ago, we were awarding our annual prize for the best poem of the year. Yurko Andrukhovych nominated Mykola for his poem, published then in the journal “Suchasnist,” about the Oster fair. All three of us were unanimous. Mykola was a laureate at the end of the century. Thank you, Mykola Kostiovych, for everything! (Applause).

L. Cherevatenko: I don't know if the esteemed Sashko knows the poem about “Bu-Ba-Bu”—“What is ba, and what is bu? In the mysterious Bu-Ba-Bu the devil appeared to you.” I could keep quoting. Have you rested yet or not? But before that, a trusted representative—for the attention of Vasyl Ovsiienko—of the candidate for President of Ukraine, Yevhen Marchuk—Anatolii Ivanovych Kulchytskyi, requests the floor. Please, Anatolii Ivanovych. (During the 1999 presidential election campaign, V. Ovsiienko published a sharp article against Y. Marchuk, “The Walls, Like a Statute, Have Judged Us...”).

A.I. Kulchytskyi: Esteemed Mykola Kostiantynovych and esteemed company! Today I have both a pleasant duty and a pleasant opportunity to congratulate the outstanding poet of our state, Mykola Kholodnyi, on behalf of the candidate for President of Ukraine, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy and Labor, Yevhen Kyrylovych Marchuk. Allow me to read this greeting.

“Esteemed Mykola Kostiantynovych! I sincerely congratulate you on this milestone date in your life! I wish you health, goodness, happiness, bright hopes, and expectations. I know you as a Rome Laureate for your wonderful book on the history of Ukrainian song, ‘About the Soul in Song and the Song in the Soul,’ as the author of classic, popularly beloved poems ‘Poets Are Dying,’ ‘The Ghost,’ ‘Shadows in Kyiv,’ ‘Before the Portrait of Serhii Parajanov,’ and many others. I am confident that your complex life's path has not broken your character and will, that your work, your poetic word will yet worthily serve the cause of building an independent Ukraine. So, may you have good fortune in this field! With deep respect, Yevhen Marchuk.” (Applause).

I have been instructed to give you this souvenir, so that you may have instant hot tea every morning. (Applause).

M.K. Kholodnyi: Thank you, Anatolii Ivanovych! Please tell Mr. Marchuk that yesterday I successfully distributed propaganda material at the Oster market. (Laughter in the hall). Out of the entire crowd that was there—it was simply impossible to get through—only three people spoke out against it. One of them (I didn't know this) heads the local headquarters in support of Natalia Vitrenko—of course, I just ran into the wrong person. And the other two were just... One said—he's a doctor I've never consulted. Some woman was standing next to him and said: “But we are loyal to one tsar!” So I said that this is precisely the problem, this is why we suffer, because we are loyal to one tsar. And there was another one—I don't know him. But otherwise, the operation was a success.

L. Cherevatenko: When he came to my office half an hour before the start, he said we would work for an hour and ten minutes. We have already been working for an hour and forty-five minutes. So what do you say, esteemed man of the hour—will you read poems?

M.K. Kholodnyi: Mr. Ovsiienko also wants to say something. Vasyl Vasylovych, please.

V.V. Ovsiienko: My investigator, Mykola Ivanovych Tsimokh, boasted to me in 1973 that he had handled Mykola Kholodnyi's case right before mine. So we have, as they say, the same godfather.

M. K. Kholodnyi: He lied!

V. V. Ovsiienko: That Mykola Ivanovych supposedly works in the Administration of our esteemed Mr. President now.

M. K. Kholodnyi: Not supposedly—he really works there!

V. V. Ovsiienko: He’s from the same agency as Marchuk, the one that used to break our backs. Mykola, I was incriminated—in the verdict, it was listed as one of the episodes of my criminal activity—for your poem “Today.” I still know it by heart.

M. K. Kholodnyi: Recite it!

V. V. Ovsiienko:

СЬОГОДНІ

Сьогодні у церкві коні

Ночують і воду п'ють,

Сьогодні новим іконам

Прочани поклони б'ють.

Сьогодні у полі дядько

Гнилий підійняв буряк.

Сьогодні комусь на згадку

Подарували літак.

(This was when Khrushchev gave an IL-18 plane to the British Queen.)

Сьогодні ґвалтують рації,

Що в мера шлункові болі,

Сьогодні вмирає нація,

А світ очманів на футболі.

Сьогодні жива колекція

Побільша по той бік ґрат,

Сьогодні у клубі лекція

"Людина людині – брат".

And in general, gentlemen, I’ll tell you that he is a truly legendary man, because people told jokes about him during his lifetime. And that’s the highest praise from society, when they tell jokes about you while you’re still alive. I know a whole series of them, but I won’t tell them today.

L. Cherevatenko: Mykola has prepared a poem called “The Brethren Lead.” Read it.

M. K. Kholodnyi: Actually, Tsimokh made that up for Vasyl. He would say: “Go on, repent—I dealt with Kholodnyi, and Kholodnyi has already repented. Go on, repent quickly, or it will be too late!” (Laughter in the hall). And I just now heard about that Tsimokh for the first time.

L. Cherevatenko: So tell us, did you repent or not?

M. K. Kholodnyi: No, Tsimokh never interrogated me. I don’t even know the man, that Tsimokh.

He reads the poem

THE BRETHREN LEAD

Oleksa Riznykiv: Gentlemen, I am currently on vacation in Irpin. I came from Odesa and happened to end up here. I couldn’t miss an evening like this. I am very glad that Mykola has kept his health and his sparkling humor. I remember 1968; I was finishing Odesa University. Mykola arrives. He says: “They expelled me from Kyiv University.” I ask: “What for?” “Because I had a beard like Karl Marx’s. They said: you’re an epigone of Karl Marx. And they kicked me out.” He defended his thesis with us. We defended our theses together in Odesa. He was popular then not only among the students, but among the faculty as well. Some of the professors would hug and kiss him. This was 1968, don’t forget. He read his poems to Moroz. This Vitaliy Moroz was a person of interest in my case. He justified himself like this: “I thought I was a member of the Party. But it turned out I was just a member. Will the Party forgive me for going to the Kumanets café with these guys, singing Ukrainian songs, and growing a mustache like they did? But I swear I will no longer sing, only drink. One hundred grams.”

Congratulations, Mykola. May God grant you good health. Greetings to you from all of Odesa, from Volodymyr Barsukivskyi and Yura Shevchenko, and from everyone who listened to you and loved you.

L. Cherevatenko: As I understand it, all of Ukraine knows Mykola Kholodnyi.

Oleksa Riznykiv: Read the poem “Poets Are Dying.”

M. Kholodnyi: Haven’t I read it already? This poem was written for the funeral of Volodymyr Sosiura. I was at his funeral.

He reads the poem

POETS ARE DYING (on the death of Volodymyr Sosiura)

L. Cherevatenko: We’ve heard so many accusations, insinuations, and slander against the Sixtiers that it’s become amusing. And not just because I also belong to this generation. I must say that this generation was exceptionally interesting. Drach, Symonenko, and the living classic present here, Mykola Kostovych Kholodnyi... To my great regret, he did not want to read a poem I like very much, “Farewell to Oleksiy Bulyha.” He was a legend of the war generation. He passed away very early. I remember how we, as second-year students, listened with our mouths open to Oleksiy Bulyha, who came to us with Hryhoriy (last name illegible)—also a legend of the Sixtiers, still not a member of the Union. He doesn’t want to join the Union. Hryts, say a word.

Hryhoriy: (Inaudible from a distance. Reads his own poem).

L. Cherevatenko: There is a courageous editor here who, after a very long forced hiatus, dared to publish the poems of Mykola Kholodnyi. This is Petro Perebyinis.

Petro Perebyinis: I wasn’t prepared.

Ihor Pavliuk from Volyn and Kholmshchyna: Mykola Kostovych never beat in unison with the world. He, in my opinion, always beat in unison with nature. And with his own nature as well. Byron said that the lyricist’s final word is irony. It seems to me that irony was Mykola’s first word. I first latched onto Kholodnyi in Lviv, when Mykhailo Osadchyi asked me to put up posters for “An Evening with Mykola Kholodnyi.” Osadchyi wrote the afterword to my book, which was published long after he had passed into a better world. When I saw Kholodnyi and heard his poems, I understood that Byron was right, and for the first time, I understood what irony is—that is, self-irony. Because when someone praised my poems, I didn’t know what to do with myself. But when you have self-irony, then there is no longer any fear. Laughter conquers fear.

Mykola Kostovych came to visit me, we set out a bottle, and I was seized by fear again, because I realized that he was a poet not only in his poems, but also in life. He gave me a lesson in how to approach life in the best sense of the word, that is, regarding the unity of poems and the heart, of the body and the personality. It turned out that Mykola once had a youthful love in Lviv. He asked me to find that love. For a long time, I searched for her, almost in the footsteps of the KGB... But I won’t tell the rest; instead, I will read a poem for Mykola Kostovych, “The Lyricist’s Final Word.” (He reads in such a way that not all the words are intelligible).

I am very pleased that for me, a young scribbler, there is an example of the unity of word and love.

L. Cherevatenko: One more big secret of this evening: Pavlo Ivanovych Volvach. He doesn’t want to, says his throat is sore...

Mykola has a phrase, “Betrayed Tenderness.” It seems to me that this is at the core of Mykola Kostovych’s work—a betrayed tenderness for the whole world, for this clumsy state, for this imperfect nation. Because when I hear that this nation wants to elect Nataliia Vitrenko to the Verkhovna Rada because she promised to increase pensions...

To conclude, I will read a poem:

ГРАМАТИЧНА ВПРАВА НА ЗАЙМЕННИКИ

Я помру. Ти помреш. Він, вона, воно помре.

Ми помремо. Ви помрете. Вони помруть.

(1954)

But what he managed to create—that will not die. And I think you have all been convinced of that today. Thank you, Mykola Kostovych, and on behalf of everyone present and not present here, I want to wish you another sixty years of creative life. (Applause).

M. Kholodnyi: Tomorrow I’m going to the Vinnytsia region. Melnyk invited me there to get acquainted with his fourth book, *In the Wild Raspberry Thickets*. I will probably expand my essay about it. But I think he won’t stop at the fourth book; it will be something like Balzac’s *The Human Comedy*... Tomorrow, on the left bank of the Dniester, we will be sitting in a house, I will be telling them about this evening, and I will try to bring the atmosphere that reigned here to the lands of Vinnytsia.

We could sit here until morning, but all things must come to an end. Over there, Viktor Mohylnyi is looking at me; there sits Dovzhyk, who supported me when I was being persecuted. Ihor Vasylyk is sitting here—when I was expelled from the university, I essentially lived with him illegally. Moiseiv, Matushevskyi, and Inna Kulska gave me shelter. I lived with Volodymyr Drozd, with Yuliy Shelest, with Viktor Nekrasov. He and I drove Volodymyr Bukovsky to Hlevakha to help him avoid trial, but we only made things worse. Because then he was taken to a closed-type hospital. We outsmarted ourselves. Volodymyr Yakovych Pianov, who also supported me, is not here. He would take books for review from the “Molod” publishing house, and I would write the reviews. I would also like to mention Vasyl Stus: I lived there with Mykola Klochko. I am deeply grateful to everyone.

L. Cherevatenko: Dear friends, dear colleagues, on that note, allow me to declare this evening, dedicated to the 60th birthday of the poet, slanderer (laughter), and illegal resident Mykola Kholodnyi, closed.

In the photos by V. Ovsiienko: Mykola Kholodnyi at his creative evening at the Writers’ Union on October 13, 1999.

Mykola Kholodnyi with Tereza Tsymbalynets (?)