Interview with Mr. Vasyl Volodymyrovych BARLADIANU-BYRLADNYK
(Last reading on 02.19.2008)
V.V. Ovsiienko: On February 11, 2001, in Odesa, we are speaking with Mr. Vasyl Barladianu-Byrladnyk. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsiienko.
V.V. Barladianu-Byrladnyk: I am Vasyl Barladianu-Byrladnyk. First, I want to say that I am not Barladianu-Byrladnyk. This is the surname given to my father, Volodymyr Andriiovych Hulyi-Hulenko, in 1921 by the people who adopted him after my grandfather, Andriy Hulyi-Hulenko, a General-Khorunzhy of the UNR army, led 300 sabers from Chisinau to the left bank of the Dniester in 1921. My grandfather was terribly wounded and couldn't take my father. They brought my grandfather to Odesa, healed him, and until 1926 (this is what I know about my grandfather) they tried to recruit him to cooperate with the Cheka. Grandfather did not cooperate. What happened to him after 1926, I do not know. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine states that he died in 1926. But what I know says that he was still alive in 1926. (The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine says about A. Hulyi-Hulenko: “Arrested on 07.19.1922 in Odesa, sentenced on 05.25.1925 to 10 years of imprisonment. Further fate unknown”; Ya. Tynchenko gives the sentencing date as 03.02.1925: “In 1927, released under amnesty. At his own request, he went to the Donbas for the position of an agronomist. Further fate unknown” – Tynchenko, Yaroslav. Officer Corps of the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1921): Scientific Publication. – K.: Tempora, 2007. – P. 126-127. – V.O.).
They found out about my father near Warsaw in 1944, that he was the son of Andriy Hulyi-Hulenko. He was repressed, sent to a concentration camp for 10 years. All I managed to find out about my dad is that he died in 1945. But on September 22, 1946, Iryna Senyk was saved by my father, who was the chief physician in the 7th Zaozernyi special concentration camp and was treating the famous Ukrainophobe Berman. It was my father who sent Iryna Senyk to Krasnoyarsk, and they cured her. When I was supposed to go to Canada in 1990 and appealed to the Chisinau KGB to determine my father's true date of death, that he didn't die in 1945 but was still alive in 1946, they issued me a certificate stating he died on September 27, 1946, that is, three days after he saved Iryna Senyk. When he died, I do not know.
I wasn't destined to get an education.
V.O.: Wait, where were you born?
V.B.-B.: In 1941, Dad moved our entire family from Odesa. My mother is from Odesa.
V.O.: And what is your mother's name, what was her maiden name?
V.B.-B.: My mother's name is Yevhenia-Zynovia. She is a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic from Odesa. Her real surname is Ivaniv. In 1941, Dad took us and her to Transnistria, and I was born there on August 23, 1942. But generally, I have lived my whole life in Odesa.
V.O.: And what is that village called?
V.B.-B.: The village of Shybka, Grigoriopol district, Moldova. Shybka, in old Ukrainian, means a hollow. I lived there until I was 6, and then we moved to Odesa, and I grew up in Odesa. I was not born in Odesa, but I consider myself an Odesan. My village is very similar to Odesa, and so I consider myself an Odesan. I believe that Odesa is one of the Ukrainian villages.
In 1964, I finished the school for military correspondents in Odesa.
V.O.: Wait—when did you finish high school?
V.B.-B.: I finished high school in 1960, but Khrushchev came up with the idea then that you had to work for two years, and I couldn't work—I was sent to Cuba in 1962...
V.O.: As a serviceman?
V.B.-B.: Yes, yes, and when the Cuban issue was resolved and we returned, my father's friend, Marshal Babadzhanian, did everything to keep me in the district. I served in the military cargo escort company. He, Babadzhanian, completely changed my biography so that I could enter the university. I wanted to enter the journalism faculty of the Lviv Higher Political School, but he said, “They will expose you there. Who are you?” And he left me in the district and helped me get into Odesa University. I have always specialized as a journalist.
In 1970, I graduated from Odesa University. I became the head of the art history office. In 1971, I completed the entire program of the history and philology faculty of Bucharest University in six months. In 1972, I graduated from the history and philology faculty of Sofia University. The Romanians helped me, particularly Alexandru Bârlădeanu, who until 1966 was the head of the State Council of Romania. Then he was ousted for the student riots in Moldavia—he took all the blame... After Ceaușescu was eliminated, he became the head of the Romanian Senate. He was the one who, in 1992, prevented Kravchuk from destroying me. He speaks beautiful Ukrainian, he's an old man now. When they were taking me to Lviv to destroy me, he called Kravchuk and said, “If a single hair falls from Vasyl's head, you will be a scoundrel in Europe.”
V.O.: Let's go back to the 60s.
V.B.-B.: 1968 was the year the KGB became interested in me. In 1968, I was doing an internship at the Prague National Art Gallery. When the Soviet troops entered, they caught me, beat me up, and brought me by helicopter to Lviv and let me go. That was on September 2.
At the philology department in Odesa, Dmytro Ursul, who is now a professor at Simferopol University, gave a speech. He used to take students to Slovakia. He recounted what had happened in Czechoslovakia—from the perspective of the newspaper “Pravda.” And I spoke from my own perspective, telling what I had heard and seen. Dmytro Ursul goes to the party committee and rats me out. But the KGB officer wasn't at the party committee; an Armenian man, Leon Khachykovych Kalustian, was sitting there. He tells him: “Dmytro, we will punish this Barladianu so that he'll regret it.” And he sends his daughter to me... And this Dmytro Ursul knows that they are going to deal with me, so he comes to me and doesn't say that he was the one who reported me to the party committee, but starts saying that I shouldn't have told what I saw in Czechoslovakia. As soon as he left, Leon Khachykovych Kalustian's daughter comes and says, “Dad asked me to tell you never to speak about Czechoslovakia like that again. Dad will do everything to stop this from going further, because you'll be arrested. Dad is terribly worried about your fate.”
From that moment, they became interested in me. In 1972, they found out I was a Hulyi-Hulenko. In 1974, they fired me from my job at the university, expelled me from the party (I was a member of the CPSU), and in 1977, they put me in prison. When the regional prosecutor said at the trial that I was the grandson of Hulyi-Hulenko, it so impressed my lawyer, who was a KGBist, that he asked, “And why don't you say who your parents were?”
So they started persecuting me in 1968.
V.O.: And when you were studying, what were your academic interests? Were you preparing for postgraduate studies?
V.B.-B.: I never prepared for postgraduate studies. I don't recognize such a concept as postgraduate studies. I believe that if a person can write scholarly works—what the hell does he need postgraduate studies for? I really needed to stay at the university. I swore to my late mother that I would be carried out of the main building of Odesa University.
V.O.: And when did your mother pass away?
V.B.-B.: My mother passed away in the same year, on the same day that I was released from prison. My mother wore tarpaulin boots but was an aristocrat. She was a very literate woman. She did everything so that we, her children, would study. She had 5 children. Her name is Yevhenia-Zynovia, her patronymic is Mefodiivna. My brothers: Hrytsko, Mykhailo, Vasyl, and I am Vasyl. The first Vasyl died in 1941, and when I was born in 1942, they named me Vasyl too. And my sister Olenka.
We were raised in a Ukrainian spirit. I started school in 1950—I was 8 years old. My mother didn't send us to school at 7, she believed it should be at 8. In 1950, my mother bought me books for the 1st grade in Frunzivka—a reader, a primer. I arrive—and the school is Russian... That was the worst part, because we had no money for Russian textbooks. We lived in our village until 1952. In 1952, we returned to our grandmother's in Odesa. My mother was afraid: there were four of us, we needed to get a residence permit...
Vasyl, you can't imagine what Odesa is and what we call Transnistria. How they tormented us! The next day at school, the teacher yells, “Who wants to go to the board?” In Russian, I say: “I'll go to the board!” She stared wide-eyed and said, “Vasyl, you're such a khokhol. How do you know Russian?” I said, “For a Slav, no Slavic language is foreign.” She never called on me once. She automatically gave me grades in Russian language and literature. Although during breaks, I spoke with her only in Ukrainian.
V.O.: After you were fired from your job at the university, how did events unfold?
V.B.-B.: It all led to my arrest. I came to Kyiv, to the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life. They hire me as head of the socialist village department. I get my residence permit. They catch me on Khreshchatyk, take my passport, and cancel my Kyiv residence permit, they call the director of the Museum to have me fired. I go to Yakutsk. A friend of mine worked there. I submit my documents at Yakutsk University, they accept me into the department of foreign literature. But all materials are sent to the KGB—Yakutsk University turns me down. I return to Odesa, submit documents to the Museum of Western and Eastern Art for the position of senior researcher. The KGB finds out, I get fired, they don't even give me my labor book back. It hasn't been returned to this day. They claim I never submitted it. I leave. And in 1977, they jail me, I serve time in Rivne oblast...
V.O.: This needs a bit more detail. How did it happen?
V.B.-B.: It just happened. A Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist—that was it. No details needed there. In 1976, they searched my place and found out that Yan Drubala is Barladianu.
V.O.: What, did they find some of your writings?
V.B.-B.: No, I was published as Yan Drubala. Yan and Drubala—that’s Barladianu. They find out it's me. That’s it, they lead me to my arrest.
V.O.: I know that before your arrest you had some dealings with Mykola Rudenko.
V.B.-B.: On December 18, 1976, I came to see Mykola Danylovych. I read my poems—and that fantasist was sitting there...
V.O.: Ah, Oles Berdnyk?
V.B.-B.: Yes, Berdnyk. Later I met him in Moscow, and he started saying I was a KGB agent. So Petro Grigorenko's wife told him, “Don't push this man. He is a superior person to you.”
They arrest me on March 2, 1977. I had passed my works on through Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Everything went to the West. That saved me. Because everything I passed through Rudenko, through Berdnyk, through Oksana Meshko—it was all confiscated. And they didn't release any information about me to the West until May 9—I was arrested on March 2—until May 9. Only Moscow knew.
V.O.: Well, Rudenko himself was arrested on February 5, 1977...
V.B.-B.: I'll tell you something interesting. Rudenko, under Berdnyk's influence, calls my works anti-Soviet during interrogations. A major named Pluzhnyk comes from Kyiv—find him, Vasyl, Major Pluzhnyk—he's a Ukrainian patriot. Pluzhnyk places Rudenko's testimony upside down, you understand? Facing him upside down, so I could read it. And he slowly turns the pages, and I read. After reading it, Vasyl, I give different testimony. And then Rudenko changed his testimony. But I was tried based on his first testimony.
Major Pluzhnyk—he’s from the Kyiv KGB. He walked me around the first floor of the Odesa prison for a long time, looking for a place where we weren't being bugged, you understand? Find him—we need to write about people like him! He's probably a pensioner now, if he's alive. If you find him, mention Vasyl Volodymyrovych Barladianu and say: I want you to remain in the history of Ukraine as a patriot!
When Rudenko found out that his first negative testimony was used against me, he was displeased. That he had called me an anti-Soviet.
V.O.: You know that Berdnyk is the only member of the Helsinki Group who later recanted.
V.B.-B.: He sat in the camp for another two years after he wrote his statement. They extend my sentence, bring his statement to my cell. In it, he goes after Rudenko, after Lukianenko… Vasyl, this person needs to be erased from the history of the struggle for independence.
V.O.: Well, how can you? He existed, where can you put him?
V.B.-B.: No, he existed, but you need to show what he was involved in.
V.O.: And what did you write before your arrest? Did your works circulate in samvydav? Were they published abroad?
V.B.-B.: Since 1968, my works were published in the West under the pseudonym “Yan Drubala.”
V.O.: What were they—poems?
V.B.-B.: No. I believe that when there's a struggle for independence, you don't publish poems. These were articles: “The History of the National Question in the Russian Empire and in the USSR”; “I am a Ukrainian Catholic”; “How Else Could It Be?” How else could it be? Could I not fight for Ukraine’s independence when we now have 1% of our press in Ukrainian? And under the communists, it was 40%. Even though it was hostile, it was still in the Ukrainian language. How else could it be? That's what they caught.
By the way, on June 16, 1976, they arrested my friend Vikentiy Honcharov. He lives in New York now. They arrest him and find my address on him. And they search my place. It so happened that just as Vikentiy was about to be released, they jailed me; just as I was about to be released, they jailed Vikentiy. Levko Lukianenko wrote that no one was arrested from Kirovohrad oblast, where Yevhen Marchuk worked for the KGB. Well, Marchuk arrested Honcharov. Write this down somewhere. I want to say: you really got to Lukianenko nicely...
V.O.: Well, let's not talk about that now. What was the situation before your arrest?
V.B.-B.: When I was working in Yakutia, I earned nine thousand. When I got married, we bought a lottery ticket and won a Moskvich car. We sold that car and with the money I brought, we bought a house. But I was registered for residence near Odesa at my cousin's place, in the village of Vasylivka. The KGBists were trying to drive me out, but they were afraid to jail me because, according to my father's adoption, I am the nephew of Alexandru Bârlădeanu, who was close to Ceaușescu. But in the end, they did jail me.
V.O.: Under what circumstances were you arrested?
V.B.-B.: It was like this. In the morning, I went out, took my daughter to kindergarten. It's not far from the bus station. As I was walking, I realized I was being followed. I went to the Syryis' place and didn't leave. They came at two in the morning, between March 1st and 2nd, and broke down the door...
V.O.: At Syryi's place?
V.B.-B.: Yes, yes, and they arrested me. There was also an Azerbaijani policeman there who wanted to beat me as we were going down from the 9th floor, but I told those KGBists: if they touch me, I'll kill all of you.
V.O.: Are you a strong fellow?
V.B.-B.: I know judo. I said: I will destroy all of you, you know who I am. I said: get this filth away from me so I don't have to see it again. They sent him away immediately. He only hit me with his elbow once.
They specifically gave me article 187-1 so that I wouldn't be in the political prisoner camps. They told Mykhailenchykha (Hanna Mykhailenko. – V.O.): “The years his father didn't serve, the bastard, he will serve them.”
V.O.: And who conducted the investigation?
V.B.-B.: The investigation was conducted by Yasynskyi, the prosecutor of Odesa. The investigator was also Hulenko—my cousin. He wanted to show we weren't relatives; he tormented me as much as he wanted. True, I did give him a punch in the face.
V.O.: But couldn't you protest this, since he was a relative?
V.B.-B.: What could I protest? In the Soviet Union, you couldn't protest anything. He didn't write that he was my relative. And I never wrote that he was my relative. He’s scum. And you know, he limped on his left leg, just like the prosecutor. They're devils, you understand?
V.O.: And how long did the investigation last?
V.B.-B.: 6 months. And I was on a hunger strike for 6 months.
V.O.: So, were you force-fed?
V.B.-B.: You know how they fed you there. Artificially. In the first 3 years, I was on hunger strike for 13 months.
V.O.: Good God! And what were you accused of during the investigation?
V.B.-B.: Of Ukrainian nationalism.
V.O.: More specifically.
V.B.-B.: I'll tell you. In 1970, at the International Conference “Ukraine–Bulgaria,” I presented a paper on “Renaissance Features in the Art and Literature of the Second Bulgarian Empire and Ukraine-Rus'. 1118-1395.” Why Ukraine-Rus'? Because Kyivan Rus' did not extend beyond Ukrainian lands, as can be seen from the chronicles. This was accepted and published. And they came after me. They also discovered that Barladianu was Hulyi-Hulenko, a Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist. Oleksa Riznykiv’s sister was a big help. When they tried Oleksa and Nina Strokata (05.04–19.1972. – V.O.), she told a mutual acquaintance of ours that I should come—she would be waiting for me at the corner of Lenin and Derybasivska streets. I was supposed to go to Bulgaria—that was 1972. I waited and waited for her there, they recorded me. I went home, took my suitcase, and went to the ship, traveled to Varna. They waited until I returned from Varna, and suddenly it all rained down on me, that I was this and that, that I had to leave the university. I was on the housing list—they denied me that too.
V.O.: So you were incriminated for this historical research and the materials you sent abroad?
V.B.-B.: Yes, under the pseudonym Yan Drubala. By 1976, I had stopped sending things under the name Yan Drubala. After I was exposed, I only started using Barladianu.
V.O.: And how did the trial go? Were you still on a hunger strike during the trial?
V.B.-B.: Yes, yes, yes. They brought girls from the law faculty to the trial, filled the courtroom. They thought: oh, what do first-year law students know! But people came to my ex-wife and passed on everything that happened at the trial.
I did not plead guilty. In general, I want to say that in those publications under Yan Drubala—I didn't write any falsehoods. I wrote what was happening. I did not plead guilty. But they just needed to give me three years, send me to a camp for criminals under article 187. And then they added more... Even though I'm hypertensive.
V.O.: And where were you sent? Tell us about your time in the camp.
V.B.-B.: I was in Rivne oblast, there is a village called Polytsi in Volodymyretskyi raion, OR-318/76. They sent me there specifically to add to my sentence. But there were cops there who had connections to the UPA. They brought me salo.
V.O.: Descendants of UPA fighters, obviously.
V.B.-B.: Yes, yes, yes, they treated me well. When they imprisoned me there a second time, they fired them.
V.O.: And what were the conditions of detention there?
V.B.-B.: We smashed granite. Crushed it into gravel, the kind used for railway tracks. The stone there isn't for construction, you can't build anything with it, only crush it. They put me in the PKT (punishment cell) there on the grounds that in 3 years I had not started on the path to reform—well, I didn't repent. They take me to Rivne, add to my sentence. The prison warden does everything to prevent me from being sent back to that same hard labor. They transfer me to Torez in the Donetsk oblast. And there it's like this: no work, I sat and read newspapers, books. The KGB, when it found out I was in such conditions, sent me to the 82nd camp, where I worked as a locksmith.
V.O.: There are mentions that during this second case, Maksymov, an associate professor at the Rivne Institute of Water Management, and Leshchenko, an associate professor at the Rivne Institute, were brought in as experts. They found slander against the Soviet reality and the friendship of peoples in your academic articles, though in the process they confused the Mongol Khan Mamai with the eponymous hero of Ukrainian folklore. What can you say about this investigation and the fabrication of this case?
V.B.-B.: In Odesa, Mykhailo Rakovskyi and Ivan Duz were involved in this.
V.O.: Duz? That doctor of philological sciences? He also wrote slanderous pieces about Stus. (See the journal “Prapor.” – 1984. – No. 2. – p. 98.).
V.B.-B.: Yes. He also wrote against Oleksa Riznykiv, and against Sviatoslav Karavanskyi. Write this down, Vasyl. I met this Maksymov during the investigation—he was sitting in these nice, you know, shoes, showing them off to me. So there I am in my prisoner's uniform, and he’s sitting there, you know, in nice shoes... This scum did what he was asked. And they should be kicked out—he's still working…
I saw him once. The investigator brought him in specially, he came to prove to me that I was a nationalist, a “racist.” You know, I never deny being a nationalist. Nationalism is "nationhood" translated from French. I love my people—and that is nationalism. And what they impose on us—that is racism. And he sat there in a nice suit, boasting that he was a normal Soviet person. And he confused Khan Mamai with the Cossack Mamai—is that a normal person?
V.O.: They transferred you to the 82nd zone. That's Snizhne in the Donetsk region. What were the conditions like there?
V.B.-B.: The head of the operational and disciplinary unit there was my fellow villager Vsevolod Polishchuk. Volodia Pelipas also worked there. He begged me terribly never to mention his name anywhere. These two fellow villagers of mine did everything to ensure I didn't get a third term there, so that I would be released.
I completed an electrician's course there—got a 5th grade qualification. And I was released on February 28, 1983. I was arrested on March 2, but there were weekend days, so they released me two days earlier. They did everything—Polishchuk and Pelipas—to prevent them from adding to my sentence. You know, Vasyl, I want to tell you one thing. I don't know how you served your time—because you were in political camps…
V.O.: I was in the criminal ones too.
V.B.-B.: Well, I want to tell you how this Polishchuk treated me. I’m walking, you know, through the industrial zone—he’s coming towards me: “Vasyl, come here,”—he’s hiding. “The Rivne KGB came, they want to extend your sentence. But I said that you're a normal person, you need to be released. Look, I'll send people to you, they will do everything to get you released. Whatever my people tell you—do it.” He couldn't approach me himself in the zone. I want to say that we should celebrate people like this. He’s a pensioner now, and so is Pelipas. Nothing threatens them or me anymore, I can now say that they helped me. These are courageous people. V.O.: Were you released directly from the zone?
V.B.-B.: Yes, yes. Maria Ovdiienko came for me. Her husband is my third cousin. We came to Kyiv, from there I moved to Odesa. I couldn't get a residence permit anymore because my ex-wife did everything to prevent me from registering at her house. I went to the rope factory, to the dormitory. They registered me there. Then the KGB married me off to an actress from the Russian theater. I got a normal residence permit, but after some time I realized I was dealing with a KGB agent. I left her. Until 1990, I lived in the city center. And in 1990—remember, they were trying to kill me?
V.O.: I remember meeting you in September 1988. I was released at the end of August, in September I came to Lviv and lived with Chornovil for three days. You came then—that's when we met. You were already a member of the editorial board of the “Ukrainian Herald” then. If you could talk about that—how you got together with Chornovil, with the “Ukrainian Herald.”
V.B.-B.: First of all, we're related. I look like him—I was detained several times in his place. On my mother's side, we're first cousins. I'd known him since 1965. When I was going to Kyiv, my mother gave me his mother's address to visit. In 1987, when Yosyp Terelia was supposed to go abroad, I went to see him. I missed Yosyp, on my way back, I stopped by Mykhailo Horyn's. Mykhailo took me to Bohdan Horyn's, I spent the night there, and the next day we met with Slavko Chornovil. When Slavko saw me, it was a great joy for him. I became a member of the editorial board of the “Ukrainian Herald” magazine, that is, a co-editor. But Slavko and I finally broke up on April 7, 1990, when he returned from Prague and took an anti-Ukrainian stance. I broke with him. We met as brothers—as many times as he came here, he stayed at my house, slept over, but we never spoke as political figures again. I know that he was eliminated—eliminated because Slavko had one wonderful trait: when he realized he had made a mess of things, he would start to change his position. True, he never repented. A politician, first and foremost, must repent. You know what politics is. Look—who would say now that Oleksandr Moroz is not a patriot? But look how he came—with the communists, under red flags, right or not? You and I didn't support him. But he kept going. And now we all know that he is a patriot—right? He is a great man. I want to tell you one more thing: all Ukrainians should rally around him. Then he will just shake his head and say: go to hell... To Symonenko he'll say: go to hell...
V.O.: Well, these are current matters, but we need to go back a little. I know you traveled abroad. What year was that?
V.B.-B.: In 1990. They sent me a guest invitation. When I went to the OVIR, they told me: it’s a one-way trip.
V.O.: So you couldn't return, right?
V.B.-B.: Yes. I thought to myself: I'll go to Canada, but if I'm not stripped of my citizenship, I can get on a plane at any moment and come home. I wrote to the person in Canada who sent me the invitation to send me an invitation for permanent residence. I bought a round-trip ticket. I arrived, immediately said what had happened to me, why I had come. I stayed there for half a year and returned home. That's how I earned the money for this house.
V.O.: And how did you earn it, in what way?
V.B.-B.: I gave lectures, traveled around Ukrainian communities. I speak English. At the University of Toronto, at New York University, at Washington—I went there, gave lectures. I earned money and because of that, I was able to return. I can never leave my Motherland. You know, Odesa is my village… That room over there—I don’t live there. I live here, where my books are.
V.O.: Well, why is that? Do you have enough space? I see you have such an atmosphere here—philological, historical.
V.B.-B.: I can work in the kitchen too.
V.O.: And since you returned from abroad—where have you been working?
V.B.-B.: At Odesa University. I created a department of Ukrainian studies. Now anti-Ukrainian forces have liquidated it. I work in the department of Ukrainian and foreign culture in the philosophy faculty. I am happy, at peace. The dean of this faculty, Chaykovskyi, is a very decent person. Although he was born in Calcutta, he is a Ukrainian patriot. I used to fight with him, because they constantly set me against him. I wrote against him. And suddenly, when we met, I realized that I was dealing with a normal, wonderful person. I am happy now that I work with him. As a political prisoner, I have 18 years of work tenure for 6 years of imprisonment. It turns out I have more years of tenure than I have years of age.
V.O.: I do too, by the way, almost 60 years of tenure. And Lukianenko has over 100. I know that you worked in Kyiv for some time.
V.B.-B.: At the Academy of the Kyiv Patriarchate, I taught the history of Ukrainian literature. I generally don't teach the history of Ukrainian literature, but I did there. The students were amazed. This was during the lifetime of Patriarch Volodymyr Romaniuk. We loved each other, I helped him—helped him ideologically. This was from 1993 to 1995—I taught the history of Ukrainian literature at the Theological Academy. When Patriarch Volodymyr died—his death was hard for me. Firstly, he was a man you could talk to. Although I am on very good terms with Patriarch Filaret as well. When Patriarch Volodymyr introduced us, I said, “How did you feel about my articles that I wrote against you?” He said, “Mr. Vasyl, if you had written positively about me, I wouldn't be sitting here.” So Patriarch Filaret is a wonderful person, though his entourage... I am terribly fond of Filaret, I hold him in high regard. And that he pinned a medal on Chornovil—you remember how Chornovil said, “I am an atheist of the Orthodox orientation”?
V.O.: An interesting phrase.
V.B.-B.: I suppose there can be an atheist of the Catholic orientation too?
V.O.: Mr. Vasyl, what can you tell us about your Odesa friends? In particular, about Hanna Holumbiievska.
V.B.-B.: Hanna Holumbiievska was expelled from the CPSU in 1974. She worked in a school, teaching Russian language and literature. She was born in 1937, an Odesan, graduated from the pedagogical institute, the history and philology faculty. They expelled her in 1974, turned her into a shop teacher. Why wasn't she arrested? First, she was a very sociable woman. All those who are called dissidents came to her—I'm not a dissident, Vasyl... V.O.: Well, that's a term that circulates in Europe...
V.B.-B.: No, remember, Vasyl, forever: I am a Ukrainian nationalist. A dissident is... Brezhnev says: let's build a concentration camp with an exit to the North Pole. And Chornovil says: no, with an exit to the south. Where else would you bring the prisoners from? Those are dissidents.
V.O.: I agree with you, but this term is all over Europe.
V.B.-B.: Never, nowhere write that I am a dissident. As for Hanna Viktorivna... because of her sociability, they realized that everything that was happening in Odesa could be monitored in her apartment. That's why they didn't arrest her. When they added to my sentence, I wrote her a letter asking her to marry me, so there would be someone who could visit me. They offered her a room. She didn't do it. She got the room, but she didn't visit me… And after my release, I couldn't, you understand? I treated her well. I have one poem in Russian that I dedicated to her.
V.O.: And why to her—in Russian? Did she speak Russian?
V.B.-B.: She only spoke Russian. Although she was a patriot of Ukraine. She understood that you couldn't teach Russian literature in Odesa, because we all love acacia, grapes, blackthorn. I want to say that she was a great woman, but her greatness was used by the KGB to control all of us. There was surveillance there.
As for Hanna Vasylivna Mykhailenko, I treated her like a mother. When Hanna Vasylivna found out who our informant was, she said, “Vasyl, we need to slit his throat.” Vasyl, we are philologists, you and I, and neither you nor I are going to slit anyone's throat—it's impossible.
I have a friend—Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Shlapak, he teaches physics here at the Institute of Land Forces, an associate professor. This man has dedicated his entire life to me. A person who was always a patriot and did everything to make things easier for me. He was severely punished for this, kicked out of the university. And now he—an outstanding physicist—works at this foolish Institute of Land Forces.
Besides Holumbiievska, Mykhailenchykha, Shlapak, I have no one here who seriously supported me. And at that time, my circle of communication was not wide. The closest to me was Hanna Vasylivna.
V.O.: And Maria Ovdiienko? She now lives in Brovary near Kyiv, I see her from time to time.
V.B.-B.: She was, Liudmyla Avdiievska—the sister of the director of the Hryhoriy Veriovka ensemble. Avdiievska and Ovdiienko were my students. Maria even wanted to divorce her husband so that I could settle near Kyiv. But I couldn't do that, because Dima Obukhov, Maria's husband, is my brother. She came and got me from prison… And Avdiienchykha now lives somewhere in Moldova, I haven't seen her in a long time. Wonderful people.
Let me also tell you about my participation in the struggle for independence. 1968. Serhiy Oksavin, he's a Chuvash, Mykolaukhovetskyi, and Ivan Kushta are publishing a magazine, “Kolo” (Circle), in which they are developing a program for how Ukrainians should come to power, even in Moscow. They give one copy of this magazine to Tolia Kolisnychenko.
V.O.: Is that the one who co-authored “The Unburnt Bush” with Serhiy Plachynda?
V.B.-B.: No, no, not him. There are many Kolisnychenkos. So, they give it to him, and he takes it to the party committee. Sukhovetskyi took the magazine to Kharkiv, Oksavin took it to Kyiv, and Kushta to Lviv… At that time, I was supposed to receive the Lesia Ukrainka scholarship, and Sukhovetskyi was supposed to get the Taras Shevchenko scholarship. So they give me the Taras Shevchenko scholarship, and no one gets the Lesia Ukrainka one. They gave Sukhovetskyi failing grades. Oksavin commits suicide, Ivan Kushta commits suicide. Sukhovetskyi still stutters to this day after what they did to him…
When they started persecuting Ovdiienko and Avdiievska, I supported them. When they were about to be given failing grades, I sought out professors, made arrangements so they wouldn't fail them. That's how I fought to keep them in the university. And then I myself was expelled.
You haven't read this “Another History of Odesa University”? It will be published in London soon without errors. In it, I showed that the entire history of Odesa University is a history of struggle against Ukrainianness. You know, they hate me at the university. They can't fire me after this review of the university's history, because it would immediately become another anti-Ukrainian action. The most they can do is change my first-period class to a second-period class in the schedule, and I have to wander around somewhere. That's the kind of thing they do.
That's how it is, Vasyl. Shall I make some tea?
V.O.: That was Mr. Vasyl Barladianu.