An Interview with Oksana GUMENNA
Vasyl Ovsiienko: June 26, 2008, Lviv. We will now record a conversation with Lviv's finest young lady, Oksana.
Oksana Humenna: Oksana Humenna, wife of Zoryan Popadiuk, born on May 9, 1953, in the village of Maksymovychi, Sambir district, Lviv region. When Zoryan came back from prison, he struggled with what to do. Chornovil was busy with his journal, everyone had their own thing. Before that, there had been a writers' congress, where an analysis of the number of schools teaching in the Ukrainian language was conducted, and the result was very discouraging. Those data were published in a newspaper... What was that newspaper called? “Literary Gazette”?
V.Ovsiienko: “Literary Ukraine”?
Zoryan Popadiuk: Those were the results of the plenum of the Writers' Union of Ukraine, which discussed the statehood of the Ukrainian language, right?
O.Humenna: Yes. Taking into account the data on the number of Ukrainian schools, Zoryan decided to organize a petition for the establishment of Ukrainian as the state language. We created questionnaires, and these questionnaires included all the necessary data to ensure they wouldn't be dismissed as fictitious. Because at that time, some resolution had been issued which clearly stated that passport data, place of work, and place of residence were required. All of this was included in the questionnaire, and this started the collection of signatures for the Ukrainian language.
Z.Popadiuk: We took the text of that questionnaire or petition sheet to Mykhailo Horyn, he approved the text, and then we began to collect signatures.
O.Humenna: I didn’t remember that.
Z.Popadiuk: But you were present then at Mykhailo’s place.
O.Humenna: The collection of signatures began at the Furniture Combine, since I worked there. Zoryan wanted to start it himself, but I told him that perhaps he shouldn't frighten people, as the attitude towards him was ambivalent. I must say that at the Furniture Combine, everything went very calmly and peacefully. There was complete understanding, people signed one after another. This was in the spring of 1988. I went to the engineering and technical staff, everything was quiet, calm. I was expecting that there might be some uproar, maybe they would summon me, intimidate me. Then I went to the workshop, to a brigade, and held a meeting there during the lunch break. I only remember one case when some Russian-speaking man got indignant, but I reassured him that no one had anything against the Russian language, it was just about the fact that the Ukrainian language was in a very bad state. This lasted for a period of time… well, about two or three weeks. The elections came...
Z.Popadiuk: Were those the elections to the Supreme Soviet?
O.Humenna: No, it was 1988, to the regional council, some supplementary elections, remember? We didn't go to those elections.
Z.Popadiuk: No, they were electing the first secretary of the regional party committee to the Supreme Soviet.
O.Humenna: In short, we didn't go to those elections. We didn't go to vote as a sign of protest. We wanted to go to the meeting with that candidate, but they didn't let us into the House of Culture. When it became known that we hadn't gone to the elections, a whole delegation came to us on election day to persuade us. Of course, they reported it to the Furniture Combine. The next day they summoned me, and after that, they started summoning practically all the engineering and technical staff, and they questioned each one, whether you signed or not, intimidated them that all the data was with the KGB. But we forgot to say that we photographed the signatures we collected.
Z.Popadiuk: We didn't only collect signatures here.
O.Humenna: No, first at the Furniture Combine.
Z.Popadiuk: Then near the House of Culture in Sambir. Oleg Pelekhatyy came, and we were near the House of Culture, where the monument to Les Kurbas is now—there was a large ash or maple tree there—a maple, most likely—and we set up our agitation for the statehood of the Ukrainian language.
O.Humenna: At that time, the Tovarystvo Leva (The Lion Society) was already active in Lviv, and from that Lion Society, we invited a person to openly collect signatures near the House of Culture. But these signatures were collected after the uproar at the Furniture Combine, after the director of the combine summoned me. They “read me the riot act” there. I was prepared, to be honest, because I knew almost by heart what the situation was with the schools and the Ukrainian language, and I gave a very serious rebuff. True, the party secretary stood a bit to the side, but Sydor—the director of the Furniture Combine—he was clearly told to take all measures, to intimidate. In short, Sydor told me I was a sow that had found its mud. And that mud was Popadiuk. One person was found who ran to the city party committee and told them—if only to the city party committee—that such and such was happening. But he returned with nothing, and that situation remained practically unchanged. So after that, people from the Lion Society came from Lviv and also collected signatures. We sent the questionnaires all over Ukraine, to any addresses we knew.
There was this one situation. At the Furniture Factory, they started to investigate what this “initiative committee” was, since the questionnaire mentioned an “initiative committee.” They were desperate to know who exactly was on this initiative committee. I had to make something up, that it included all sorts of respectable and high-ranking people. “And who are they? Who are they?” But who could have been on it when there were only two of us? Well, we had to find someone who would be on the initiative committee. Zoryan decided to entrust this matter to Taras... What’s his last name?
Z.Popadiuk: Maksymiak.
O.Humenna: To Maksymiak. Taras Maksymiak approached the writers in Lviv. Who did he approach—Ivanychuk?
Z.Popadiuk: Roman Ivanychuk.
O.Humenna: To Ivanychuk, yes. He refused. This went on for about a month. Signatures continued to be collected throughout Ukraine. We went to Kyiv. In Kyiv, we went to see Olia Heiko.
Z.Popadiuk: We already had several hundred signatures by then.
O.Humenna: Yes. We went to Olia Heiko’s, and together we went to the Union of Writers of Ukraine to find someone. We couldn't meet anyone.
Z.Popadiuk: We were looking for someone who could lend their well-known name to cover for this effort—the signature collection. And this collection was actually initiated by the plenum of the Union of Writers of Ukraine in July—I think it was July—of 1986, which called for granting the Ukrainian language the status of a state language. It was the writers who were demanding this from the state. So, supposedly in fulfillment of this plenum's demand, we began the campaign of collecting signatures for the statehood of the Ukrainian language.
O.Humenna: Which of the writers did we meet?
Z.Popadiuk: First Ivanychuk, then Drach was…
O.Humenna: Someone who agreed—from the magazine “Vsesvit”...
Z.Popadiuk: None of those I just mentioned took part in the signature collection; they kept their distance. Only the editor of “Vsesvit” signed... Such a fine Ukrainian cultural scholar…
O.Humenna: I was seven months pregnant at the time, by the way. And I think that my pregnancy helped in getting people to sign.
Olia Heiko and I were looking for writers. In the building where the Union of Writers is located, there was no one, but they told us that Ivan Drach was holding a meeting of “Zelenyi Svit.” I believe there was such an organization. They told us which building—maybe Zoryan remembers the address. We went there, and it happened to be during a break. During the break, Zoryan approached Ivan Drach and told him that we had brought the signatures. There weren't very many at that time, maybe a few hundred. I was standing in the hallway with Olia. Olia was pregnant, and I was pregnant. And Ivan Drach said, “You bring us a few million, otherwise everything gets dumped on the Union of Writers, and we always get the blame…” In short, Zoryan returned empty-handed. I was terribly upset. When the break ended and the meeting was about to start, I felt like rushing to the podium and telling everyone sitting there, look, I’m pregnant and I was collecting signatures, people trusted us, people signed, and you won’t even join in. But Zoryan held me back, and we left with that.
We went to Olia Heiko’s house just before our trip, before leaving for Lviv. My water broke, I ended up in the maternity hospital, and two days later my Lyubchyk was born, which is symbolic… Let Zoryan continue the story… (Lyubomyr Popadiuk was born on April 10, 1988. – V.O.).
I was terribly crushed that Drach refused and that we couldn't find any famous people to join the cause. Because at the Furniture Factory, they unleashed a terribly unpleasant campaign of terror. They called people in one by one, and those people, mostly women, would later come and ask if the SBU really knew...
V.Ovsiyenko: It was still the KGB back then.
O.Humenna: Right, the KGB. If they really knew about the signatures, who signed, when they signed. By the way, the head of our Rukh movement, Stepan Shahalo, who later became a great patriot, a democrat, the most honest of the honest, signed his name taking up nearly a quarter of a page, because he was afraid that someone after him might see that he had signed. There was this Yosyp Kronshko, also known in Sambir as a great patriot and a judge of all patriots. He told me he couldn't sign because he would have to report it somewhere. He was the head of the economics department at the time. I didn't even go there or bother those girls. But it was nice that people signed nonetheless.
To this day, I wonder why no one reported us. Maybe the fact that I was pregnant really played a role, and they were simply ashamed that a pregnant woman like me was walking around collecting signatures and taking risks. The head of the trade union committee, a woman named Levko Yaroslava, told me: “You should think about your child.” I said, “Actually, it is precisely the child I am thinking about. I'm thinking about her future, and I want my child to speak her own language and live in her own country.” In short, there were all sorts of nuances. But I went through a lot in Kyiv. And Olia Heiko was terrified, because she was pregnant too, and after what happened to me, she was afraid the same thing might happen to her.
And I would like to meet Ivan Drach, and maybe one day I will meet him and remind him… Not to tell him off, but just to tell him that he is Lyubchyk’s godfather. Because if it weren't for that situation, maybe Lyubchyk wouldn't have been born in Kyiv. Well, that’s about it.
V.Ovsiyenko: Thank you. Zoryan Popadiuk.
Z.Popadiuk: I'll just add a little. It’s true, we couldn’t find anyone, and in the end, Mykola Riabchuk—I think at that time he was either the editor or deputy editor of “Vsesvit”—he was the one who said, “Alright, if no one wants to talk to you, and this is a cause that needs support, then I’ll sign.”
V.Ovsiyenko: What, he signed?
Z.Popadiuk: He said he would sign, he was ready to head the initiative group, as a public figure whom no one would dare to touch. But time was moving much faster than we thought. When I returned to Lviv, I, Maksymiak, and someone else who was with us—maybe even that Oleh Pelekhatyi—were in the Shevchenkivskyi Hai, and we continued collecting signatures. There was some kind of festival in Shevchenkivskyi Hai, there were a lot of people, and we collected those signatures by the thousands. And when I came to Kyiv the second time and brought those signatures...
O.Humenna: A month later.
Z.Popadiuk: About that, not much more than a month later—then, at the Union of Writers, they were tearing these signatures out of my hands. They were no longer afraid, their fear had passed. But by that time, we no longer needed someone to lead the process; it had taken on a life of its own.
O.Humenna: That questionnaire then began arriving at the Union of Writers from all over Ukraine.
Z.Popadiuk: Yes, yes, yes, it just took off from there. And with that, I'll end my part.
V.Ovsiyenko: Alright, thank you.
Z.Popadiuk: I’m saying that, in fact, Oksana turned out to be the first person to seriously start collecting signatures for the establishment of Ukrainian as the state language in Ukraine. I wrote that text. We were preparing to collect signatures in Sambir, in Lviv, across Western Ukraine and beyond, and Oksana, working at the Furniture Factory in Sambir, was practically the first to collect about two hundred signatures.
V.Ovsiyenko: And what was her job there?
Z.Popadiuk: She worked as an engineer. She is an engineer-technologist in woodworking by trade. That's the story.
In the photo by V.Ovsiyenko on January 30, 2000: son Lyubomyr, Oksana Humenna, Zoryan Popadiuk, and their daughter Iryna.
