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Valerian Pidmohyl'nyi |  |
Valeriian Petrovych Pidmohyl'nyi was born on 2 February 1901 in a village called Chapli, near Katerynoslav (now called Dnipropetrovs'k), in southern Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian empire.(1) His father worked as a manager for one of the largest landowners in Ukraine, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, whose property included the village of Chapli. Valeriian's mother was from a peasant family. Valeriian attended a village school, and he and his older sister, Nataliia, benefited from the instruction of a French language tutor, whom their father provided for them.
While the First World War and the revolution in Russia were dramatically changing the world around him, Pidmohyl'nyi attended high school (real'nu shkolu) in Katerynoslav, graduating in 1918.(2) Facts are few regarding his activities at this time. According to most biographical sources, between 1918 and 1921 he worked in a variety of jobs, but mostly as a teacher in Katerynoslav and Pavlohrad. However, according to Volodymyr Mel'nyk,(3) KGB archives indicate that Pidmohyl'nyi was considered a Petliurite (that is, a follower of Symon Petliura, the military commander and politician who became leader of the Directory, the last independent Ukrainian government, which was displaced by Soviet military force). No facts are available to substantiate or explain the allegation. Many of Pidmohyl'nyi's early stories, however, focus on rebel military units. Perhaps he too was an active participant in political or military struggles.
His earliest short story, `Vazhke pytannia,' is dated March 1917, in Pavlohrad. Three others were written in a place called Sobachyi Khutir in the summer of 1918. `Vania' is dated March 1919, in Pavlohrad, and four other stories are from Katerynoslav, in the summer of 1919. Pidmohyl'nyi first appeared in print in Sich 1919, no. 1. The issue contained two of his stories, `Haidamaka' and `Vania.' His first book, published in Katerynoslav in 1920, was a collection of short stories entitled Tvory: Tom 1 (Works: Volume 1). Pidmohyl'nyi's first efforts as a translator also date from this time. In November 1921 the miscellany Zhovten' ran an announcement that the author Valeriian Pidmohyl'nyi of Katerynoslav had finished a novella entitled `Ostap Shaptala' and completed a translation of Anatole France's Thais.(4) The novella was published in a journal in 1921 and as a book in 1922, but the translation did not appear until 1927. Two stories appeared in miscellanies typical of the time: `Sobaka,' in Zhovten', and `V epidemichnomu baraci,' in Vyr revol³utsii.
In the early 1920s, Ukraine was still in turmoil. A sense of the material and literary hardships of the time can be gleaned from Valeriian Polishchuk's account of how he managed to publish Vyr revoliutsii, which appeared in Katerynoslav in 1921. In 1920 Polishchuk, Shkurupii, Kosynka, and others in Kyiv had organized a literary group called Hrono and published a miscellany under the same title, which they hoped to continue as a periodical. Difficulties in Kyiv forced Polishchuk to move to Katerynoslav, where what was to have been the second issue of Hrono appeared as Vyr revoliutsii. He describes the process as follows:
I took the material collected for the second issue of Hrono with me to Katerynoslav, where I had been invited by Ivan Nemolovs'kyi, then Zavhubono [a local education official]. Our materials were expanded by a story from V. Pidmohyl'nyi and the literary criticism of Professor P. Iefremov, and, thus, Vyr revoliutsii appeared as the next stage of `dynamism' [Polishchuk's literary program at that time was called dynamism]. In the summer of 1921 Katerynoslav was visited by cholera, but Iefremov and I pulled Vyr along: he proofread while I took care of production. I used a wheelbarrow to haul the bluish, sugar-base paper on which Vyr was printed and I helped lay out the plates, which had been cut in Kyiv, of the designs Narbut had drawn, while Pidmohyl'nyi typed out the illegible texts, since the miscellany was set in type by students in the printing school who otherwise could not read the copy.(5)
In the fall of 1921 Pidmohyl'nyi left Katerynoslav for Kyiv. He took up a post as a schoolteacher in the nearby village of Vorzel' and soon married the daughter of the village priest, Katria Chervins'ka, who later became an actor.(6) The first few years in Kyiv were apparently difficult for the young writer. Materially, conditions throughout Soviet Ukraine were trying at this time. For Pidmohyl'nyi these difficulties were further complicated by the fact that the arbiters of ideological purity were not receptive to his literary efforts. He was having difficulty getting published. The Kyiv publisher Chas had apparently accepted a second volume of his works for publication, but that volume never appeared.(7) Indeed, some of the stories it was to contain are not among Pidmohyl'nyi's known works, at least not under the titles given in the journal in which the information about the second volume appeared.(8) It is significant that the latter journal was an émigré publication.
Unable to publish in Soviet Ukraine, Pidmohyl'nyi sent some of his stories to western Europe. Those stories appeared in the émigré journal Nova Ukraina, starting with its first issue for 1923 - that is, the first issue prepared under the joint editorship of Mykyta Shapoval and Volodymyr Vynnychenko. An editorial note in the journal explains that the stories were made available by the `Ukrains'ka nakladnia' in Berlin, to whom they had been sent by the author.
The political coalition of Shapoval and Vynnychenko represented a serious concern for Soviet Ukrainian authorities. The publication of Pidmohyl'nyi's stories in the organ of anti-Soviet Ukrainian leftists undoubtedly did nothing to placate growing suspicion about his lack of loyalty to the communist regime. His situation can be better understood by examining Mykola Khvyl'ovyi's review of the first issues of Nova Ukraina following the reorganization of the journal. The very publication of such a review says something about the importance ascribed to Vynnychenko and Shapoval. The review is a political attack against the émigrés, veiled as literary criticism. It is written in the sarcastic and supercilious tone characteristic of Khvyl'ovyi. He expresses the opinion that the material under review, like the ideology of the émigrés is very poor and characteristically out of step with the times. Khvyl'ovyi summarizes his opinion of Pidmohyl'nyi in three sentences: `Pidmohyl'nyi is, nevertheless, the best of the prose writers of Nova Ukraina; at least he gives you something to talk about. But Pidmohyl'nyi needs to learn, learn, and still learn. He shouldn't latch on to Nova Ukraina; he'll shortly outgrow his story in this issue, but as for `The Emigration,' he'll probably soon buy a ticket for that destination anyway.'(9)
Pidmohyl'nyi was being damned for sins he might commit. Khvyl'ovyi may have had a personal antipathy towards him as suggested in a letter to Mykola Zerov dated 6 December 1925, in which he also worries about the state of his friendship with his correspondent: `Little boy Pidmohyl'nyi is very anxious (among other things, he thinks that he can bring joy to the whole country with his most thoughtful example. I think this is great self-deception). He writes to Kosynka that all the Kyivites have rebelled against me and that the time is near when even Zerov will leave Khvyl'ovyi. Then I just laughed, but now I'm asking anyway: did I perhaps insult you somehow, comrade Zerov?'(10) The degree of insecurity in this letter bolsters the sense of a personal grudge against the `little boy.' It also underscores the tenuous atmosphere of the times, when even Khvyl'ovyi is uncertain of his footing.
In this atmosphere it is small wonder that Pidmohyl'nyi felt the need to defend himself in an open letter to the editors of Chervonyi shliakh.(11) The attempt proved futile, however: the editorial comments that follow the letter speak of counter-revolution. Attacks continued, and only a few months later Pidmohyl'nyi wrote another open letter to the same journal, this time with Kosynka and Os'machka as co-signers, in which the three writers protest their innocence and their treatment at the hands of ideological critics.(12) Once again, a sarcastic editorial comment followed the letter, but this time it conceded that `non-proletarian' is not yet `counter-revolutionary.' The final scene in this drama came in the form of an editorial statement at the end of the journal's first issue for 1924: it exonerates Pidmohyl'nyi and Os'machka, and attributes the appearance of their works in Nova Ukraina to the `quick hands of the émigré publishers, who used various means to capture the young writers in their tentacles.'(13)
This reversal in the editorial position of Chervonyi shliakh was not serendipitous. The reason for it is evident in a comparison of the editorial board for issue 4-5 with that for issue 6-7 of 1923. The former lists Hryhorii Hryn'ko as editor; the latter lists Oleksander Shums'kyi as head of an editorial board that included Tychyna, Hryn'ko, Blakytnyi, Pylypenko, and Khvyl'ovyi. This was an important change at Chervonyi shliakh; it signalled the early, tangible results of the official policy of Ukrainization.(14) It was also a token of Pidmohyl'nyi's improving fortunes. In the summer of 1923, while Pidmohyl'nyi and Kosynka were fighting for their right to be published in Soviet Ukraine, Vynnychenko was sending them relief packages of food.(15) In 1924, the same issue of Chervonyi shliakh that contained the editorial exoneration also contained a story by Pidmohyl'nyi entitled `Viis'kovyi litun.'(16) The April-May issue contained an article by M. Dolengo (pseudonym of Mykhailo Vasyl'ovych Klokov) devoted to Pidmohyl'nyi's works,(17) as well as an item in the `Chronicle' section noting that Pidmohyl'nyi had finished a story entitled `Trik-trak' and that a collection of his stories had gone to the printer.(18) `Trik-trak' was renamed `Sonce sxodyt'' and appeared in Zhyttia i revoliutsiia in 1925.(19) The collection of stories, Pidmohyl'nyi's second, was published in 1924 by `Chervonyi shliakh' under the title Viis'kovyi litun. Opovidannia, and was positively reviewed by Osval'd Burhardt in the August-September issue of Chervonyi shliakh for that year. Also in 1924 an excerpt from an otherwise unpublished work appeared in Nova hromada.(20) Perhaps even more significant was the announcement in Chervonyi shliakh that Pidmohyl'nyi, Kosynka, Antonenko-Davydovych, Os'machka, Pluzhnyk, and M. Halych had formed a new literary organization.
This organization, `Lanka' (later reorganized as MARS), comprised a group of so-called fellow-travellers. As such, it did not take part in the competition among Marxist literary organizations for the exclusive right to represent the Party in matters pertaining to literary policy. Indeed, there is no formal record of the organization's activities whatsoever. Its members, however, did play a very important role in the cultural and intellectual life of Kyiv. The organization is usually associated with the journal Zhyttia i revoliutsiia, although the relationship was, no doubt, informal.(21) Perhaps of the greatest significance, however, is the personal relationship between Pidmohyl'nyi and Ievhen Pluzhnyk that grew out of their collaboration in Lanka. In his excellent biographical introduction to Pluzhnyk's collected poems, Leonid Cherevatenko captures the spirit of the friendship:
The tightest bonds united Ie. Pluzhnyk with V. Pidmohyl'nyi. The similarity of their personalities was a factor here. They were both intelligent beyond all measure, observant - they noticed everything, witty - they remembered details, phrases, and as for their expressions …! And they both knew their worth. They perfectly understood their own place and significance in literature …
But for all the similarity with V. Pidmohyl'nyi, these were very different people. They were both smart, disparaging, and sharp-tongued. And yet, Ievhen somehow never lost his innocent, bright childishness. For him there was always a line `thou shalt not cross'! Meanwhile Valer"ian Petrovych did not shirk from black scepticism and turned willingly to cynicism as a weapon.(22)
The years 1924-30 were good years for Pidmohyl'nyi. In addition to his writing and translating, he was active in publishing, working at times for the publishing houses Rux and Knyhospilka, as well as in the editorial offices of Zhyttia i revoliutsiia. Pidmohyl'nyi's name does not often appear in connection with public events at this time,(23) although he did participate in the political struggle that has since come to be known as the Literary Discussion.(24) The discussion, in its public form, reflected the divergence between a utilitarian and an aesthetic view of the function of literature. The Party, of course, promoted a utilitarian view. Pidmohyl'nyi's views were made clear in his speech at the public debate on the future of literature that was held in Kyiv on 24 May 1925: `If a comrade, having tried his hand at writing a sonata, were to claim that it was a beautiful sonata because it had a beautiful ideology, no one would hesitate to tell him that this was musical nonsense, and no one would listen to the sonata. If this comrade were to take up painting, having as much talent for painting as many of our poets have for poetry, no one would go to see his paintings just because they were ideologically correct. But in literature, it's go ahead and write if you're literate.'(25) Pidmohyl'nyi's literary and personal prospects were good as long as the discussion continued. His creative output for the years between 1924 and 1928 was considerable. In 1927 alone, Pidmohyl'nyi published seven volumes of translations of French prose.
Pidmohyl'nyi's writing was undergoing a change during this period. Except for `Z zhyttia budynku No. 29,' written in 1933, his last short story was `Tretia revoliutsiia,' dated 1925. Pidmohyl'nyi apparently had a particular inclination for the longer form and simply abandoned the short form in favour of the novel. Historically, it was, indeed, in the period 1925-27 that young Soviet Ukrainian literature as a whole finally outgrew its reliance on short forms, especially on lyrical verse and often-facile short stories. Moreover, the writer-hero of the novel Misto, in part an autobiographical figure, exhibits a similar progression from the short form to the novel.
Pidmohyl'nyi adopts urban settings and themes in his novels more often than in his stories. Perhaps this reflects his own re-orientation from the cultural model of a village to that of a city. This conjecture is further supported by the works Pidmohyl'nyi published in the interval between `Tretia revoliutsiia' and Misto. The most unusual of these, by far, is the lexicon of business expressions Pidmohyl'nyi compiled with his friend Ievhen Pluzhnyk. Although she is not given credit in the book, Taisa Kovalenko, Pidmohyl'nyi's intimate friend and Pluzhnyk's sister-in-law, was a third collaborator in this project.(26) It was published in 1926 by Chas, the publisher for which Pidmohyl'nyi worked, under the title Frazeolohiia dilovoi movy, and later reissued in a revised edition in 1927. Mykola Stanyslavs'kyi gave it low marks in a review.(27) Leonid Cherevatenko, however, says that it was well compiled and that it was to be found decades later in institutional offices and on the desks of teachers and writers, with the title page and the names of the arrested and executed compilers removed.(28) In the preface to the recent reprint of this dictionary, Larysa Masenko calls it `one of the most valuable achievements of Ukrainian lexicography of the 1920s.'(29)
Pidmohyl'nyi joined the editorial board of Zhyttia i revoliutsiia in 1927 and, as an editor, was no doubt expected to contribute to the journal. Over the course of fourteen months he contributed two essays of literary criticism, a review of a collection of short stories, and a report on the visit of the writer Panait Istrati to Kyiv. These four pieces reveal a growing interest in literary criticism. Before 1926 there had been no indication that Pidmohyl'nyi had any interest in criticism. His incomplete statement during the literary debate of 24 May 1925 addressed political rather than literary concerns. But the essays in Zhyttia i revoliutsiia are clearly the work of someone interested in literature per se. The first of those essays is a study of the poetry of Maksym Ryl's'kyi,(30) and represents Pidmohyl'nyi's only known foray into the world of poetry. Pidmohyl'nyi sees Ryl's'kyi as a hopeless romantic. In the conflict between illusion and reality that inspires Ryl's'kyi's creativity, the poet chooses illusion, says Pidmohyl'nyi, but chooses it half-heartedly, always remaining aware that his choice is just an illusion. Viacheslav Briukhovets'kyi suggests that Pidmohyl'nyi uncharitably and dishonestly views Ryl's'kyi as a man unsuited to an era of revolutionary social change.(31) He thus implies, unfairly, that Pidmohyl'nyi was an ideological henchman of Stalinism. The fundamental dualism in Pidmohyl'nyi's thinking is always between reason and irrationality. Ryl's'kyi's poetry, he argues, is a deliberate flight from reason.
Pidmohyl'nyi's second essay in Zhyttia i revoliutsiia was another study of a single author. This time his subject was Ivan Nechui-Levyts'kyi, a major figure in nineteenth century Ukrainian prose. It is likely that the essay grew out of Pidmohyl'nyi's work on a two-volume collection of Levyts'kyi's stories, which he edited for Chas. In his preface to the collection, Pidmohyl'nyi stressed the social and economic realism of Levyts'kyi's stories.(32) In the essay that appeared in Zhyttia i revoliutsiia, however, he focused on the personality of the author, which, he argued, reflected the essential features of an Oedipal complex.(33) The psychoanalysis offered in this essay is naive and tendentious. Levyts'kyi may have been everything Pidmohyl'nyi says he was, but this essay will not convince serious readers. Its real significance lies not in what it tells us about Levyts'kyi, but in what it reveals about Pidmohyl'nyi. His interest in and familiarity with Freudian psychology, despite Ievhen Pluzhnyk's friendly jibe that he had not read what he was agitating for,(34) offer a major clue to understanding his own works. His application of this tool to literary analysis, together with the nature of his review of Tymofii Borduliak's stories(35) and his piece on Istrati,(36) give evidence of his growing interest in the technical and psychological analysis of literature.
Pidmohyl'nyi's interest in questions of theory and aesthetic judgment, which would culminate in the creation of an opinionated writer as the protagonist of his first novel, is also apparent in the preface to his Problema xliba, a retrospective collection of stories published in 1927 by Masa. The piece discusses the then-fashionable question of siuzhetnist', a term used to describe thrillers, mysteries, science fiction, and other types of popular fiction that rely heavily on plot structure. In both form and substance Pidmohyl'nyi's prefatory epistle rejects plotting as inappropriate to his own temperament as a writer. The tone of the piece is playful but the interest in theory that it reveals is real.
The preface was written in 1926 in Gurzuf, a town in the Crimea just up the coast from Yalta. A resort town, Gurzuf has a history of famous visitors, among them Pushkin, Chekhov, and Mickiewicz. Whatever its literary significance, the fact that Pidmohyl'nyi found himself at this resort can be taken as an indication that his personal and literary fortunes were improving. This is not to say that his personal life was not uncomplicated at this time: In 1926 Pidmohyl'nyi separated from his wife to pursue a new romance. Vasyl Chaplenko depicts the young couple's troubled marriage in a biographical story dedicated to the writer's memory.(37) Subsequently, Pidmohyl'nyi reconciled with his wife, and they had a son, Roman.
By 1928 Pidmohyl'nyi was a well-known writer, an important figure in the literary life of Kyiv, a respected translator, and the subject of a number of essays and reviews. Reviewers were unanimous in the opinion that he was an exceptionally good translator. His literary skill as a writer of short stories was also highly regarded, but in this area praise was almost always qualified by reservations about his political loyalties. The keepers of ideological purity were particularly offended by the story `Tretia revoliutsiia,' in which the anarchist revolutionary Nestor Maxno appears as a central character. But the political attacks against the story were more concerned with denouncing Maxno, who was still alive in Paris and apparently perceived as a threat, than with Pidmohyl'nyi, whose fault consisted of depicting Maxno without horns, tail, or cloven foot. At the tender age of twenty-six, Pidmohyl'nyi was a literary success and ready for his next big step. That step was taken in the first half of 1928, with the publication of his first novel, Misto.
For Pidmohyl'nyi and, indeed, for Ukrainian literature, the novel's publication was an important event. In the timid and often orchestrated literary life of Kyiv in the 1920s, Misto generated excitement. The novel aroused genuine interest and sparked a controversy of significant dimensions. Some measure of the magnitude of its impact can be gleaned from Olena Zvychaina's review of the 1955 émigré edition of the novel(38) as well as from her own, less-than-inspired novel about life in Kyiv in the 1920s, which devotes an entire chapter to its protagonist's reaction to Misto.(39) A more objective yardstick is the fact that the first printing, of 4,000 copies, was followed by a second, of 5,000, in 1929. There was even a Russian translation of the novel,(40) as well as plans to translate Pidmohyl'nyi's works - no doubt including Misto - into Czech.(41) All this was accompanied by a chorus of reviews and analyses in newspapers and journals. The novel became a subject for public discussion. On 2 March 1929, an assembly was held at the Instytut narodnoi osvity (Institute of People's Education, formerly the university) in Kyiv, at which three speakers discussed the current literary situation. Misto figured prominently in all of the presentations.(42) The very next day a representative of Molodniak, the Komsomol literary organization, led a group of Komsomol members at the Kyiv film studios in a discussion of Misto.(43) But these two events pale in comparison with what had taken place at the All-Ukrainian Trade Union Congress, held 1-8 December l928. The official report on the cultural activities of trade union organizations used Pidmohyl'nyi's novel as its centrepiece example of the current state of Ukrainian culture.(44) Of course, most of the public discussion was organized specifically to condemn the novel. But the fact that the authorities considered such attacks necessary or prudent attests to the popularity of the novel - which was also evidenced by the trade union libraries' relatively high circulation figures for the book.(45)
With his first novel generating such excitement, Pidmohyl'nyi was enjoying the benefits of public attention. In the second half of 1928 the Ukrainian Commissariat of Education sent him, with a group of other writers, on a trip to the West. His itinerary took him to Paris, Prague, Berlin, and Hamburg.
By early 1929 Pidmohyl'nyi was back in Ukraine and preparing for another trip, this time to Moscow, as part of a delegation of Ukrainian writers invited by their Russian counterparts for a `Ukrainian week in Moscow.'(46) Among the highlights of this trip was a visit by the Ukrainian writers to the Kremlin, and an audience with Stalin himself. One account of this meeting ends with the General Secretary leading the respectful Ukrainian writers in song while Pidmohyl'nyi and Antonenko-Davydovych quietly leave.(47) Comrade Stalin had apparently failed to make much of an impression on the young writer.
Back in Ukraine, Pidmohyl'nyi's work continued as before. He submitted a short article giving his own view of his novel to a popular magazine.(48) A half-dozen volumes of his translations from French appeared during 1928-29, among them his best-known translation, that of Maupassant's Bel-Ami, entitled Liubyj druh in Ukrainian. Work on the ten-volume edition of Maupassant and on a twenty-five-volume edition of Anatole France continued. Some letters from Pidmohyl'nyi to Il'ko Borshchak, a Ukrainianist in Paris, and to Mykola Zerov have survived from this period. They are largely business correspondence dealing with the details of editorial plans and publishing arrangements.(49) Most important during this period was Pidmohyl'nyi's work on another novel, Nevelychka drama, which he completed by early 1930. But the political climate had changed. The novel was serialized in Zhyttia i revoliutsiia,(50) but it did not appear as a separate volume. Stalinism had set in. Pidmohyl'nyi was removed from his position as co-editor of Zhyttia i revoliutsiia. In its 15 July 1930 issue, Literaturna hazeta mentions that Pidmohyl'nyi had been elected to the Kyiv Writers' Committee (Miscevkom pys'mennykiv) and that he was the co-leader of a newly organized exercise group (fizkul'turna brygada) in the city's literature building. But these honours masked a precipitous decline in Pidmohyl'nyi's fortunes. His career as a writer was being curtailed.
Little is known of Pidmohyl'nyi's life after 1930. He moved to Kharkiv, where he continued to translate from French and Russian, publishing volumes of Anatole France, Diderot, Turgenev, and Gogol. He served as the foreign-literature specialist at the Rukh publishing house. Although a request made in 1932 to publish his second novel was denied,(51) in June 1933, a month after the suicide of Mykola Khvyl'ovyi and two weeks before that of Mykola Skrypnyk, as Pavel Postyshev purged the Ukrainian Party apparatus and a famine devastated the countryside, Pidmohyl'nyi was allowed to publish a story in Literaturna hazeta. The story, `Z zhyttia budynku No. 29,' is largely an indictment of Soviet ideological terror. Cherevatenko explains its publication as part of an effort by the regime to ease up on its campaign of terror at that particular time.(52) Whatever the explanation, the appearance of the story was not a sign of Pidmohyl'nyi's improving fortunes. His father died in Vorzel' in 1933. One by one, his fellow writers and fellow intellectuals were being arrested. Yet Pidmohyl'nyi kept on writing. In 1933-34 he worked on a novella, Povist' bez nazvy, and, according to Iurii Smolych, translated André Malraux's La Condition humaine, but neither work was published. Pidmohyl'nyi waited for the inevitable knock on his door.
On 1 December 1934, Stalin had Sergei Kirov assassinated in Leningrad. A massive campaign of terror had begun. On 8 December Valeriian Pidmohyl'nyi was arrested at the Zan'ky artists' colony near Kharkiv. The warrant for his arrest was dated 4 December. He was charged with membership in a terrorist organization. His career as a writer was over.
The story of Pidmohyl'nyi's life from his arrest to his death is a tale of the barbarity of the Soviet regime under Stalin. Yet it is only one of millions of such stories. Volodymyr Mel'nyk has told Pidmohyl'nyi's in frightening detail.(53) I summarize it here: Pidmohyl'nyi was interrogated and tortured for a month (two extensions of the ten-day limit on interrogations were granted). On 14 January 1935, having signed a confession to the state's fantastic charges, he was moved to Kyiv, where he was kept for two and a half months. On March 27-28 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was sent to the prison camp on the Solovecki Islands, which occupied a famous monastery founded in the fifteenth century in the White Sea, and which became an infamous link in the Gulag Archipelago. Pidmohyl'nyi's wife and son left Ukraine and eventually settled in Alma-Ata. They did not return until after the Second World War. But Valeriian Pidmohyl'ny³ never returned from prison. On 9 October 1937 a special commission re-examined his case. By order of that commission, on 3 November 1937, Pidmohyl'nyi was executed.
Pidmohyl'nyi's recently discovered letters from the Solovecki Islands to his wife, his mother, and his sister offer an interesting picture of his life in the camp. They are, as one would expect, documents of a highly personal nature, expressing the political prisoner's anxiety about the physical, material, and emotional well-being of his family. At the same time, however, they are the reflections of a creative artist. They offer a rare glimpse of the person who has been called the most intellectual and the most intelligent Ukrainian writer of the 1920s. In all, thirteen of the existing thirty-two letters have been published in Vitchyzna(54) and Druzhba narodov.(55) They were written in Russian (to accommodate prison censors) during the period from 16 February 1935 to 2 June 1937. The first two letters are from Kyiv, shortly after Pidmohyl'nyi's arrest. The others are from the Solovecki Islands prison camp. Two letters are to his mother and sister in Kharkiv. The rest are to his wife and son.
The letters are often quite emotional in tone, particularly where Pidmohyl'nyi's son, Roman, is concerned. But they also give many indications of the writer's literary and intellectual activity. In the first of the published letters Pidmohyl'nyi writes his own literary obituary. He asks his wife to collect all of his published works and provides her with a list. Although incomplete, the list none the less provides new information for bibliographers. In subsequent letters Pidmohyl'nyi occasionally mentions his reading and writing. For example, in the letter of 6 July 1935, he says, `With great satisfaction I have read here only one, unfortunately, volume of Plutarch's Lives (in an English translation). With Lycurgus, Solon, Numa Pompilius I recalled so clearly my childhood - the school, third or fourth grade' (Vitchyzna, 96).
In other letters Pidmohyl'nyi writes about studying English and translating Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and two acts of Shakespeare's Henry VI. In September 1935 he writes that he has read nearly ninety books. Clearly Pidmohyl'nyi was striving to survive his sentence by immersing himself in intellectual activity. In addition to reading and practising his English and French, he was also creating original works. In a letter dated 13 April 1936, he tells his wife that he has been working on plans for a variety of new projects: `I began, for example, to write a series of short stories, but I gave up on them (I finished one). Then I began a novella, but it was too light-hearted, even humorous. I wrote the first chapter and gave up. All this was very painful for me. I drew up plans for a novel about the 1930s, but I cannot write it because I do not have sufficient knowledge of the functioning and technology of a factory, which needs to be included' (Vitchyzna, 102). Later he speaks of a novel about collectivization:
From the very beginning, when I arrived here, there arose in me a desire or rather a need to write about collectivization. This subject is very poorly covered in Ukrainian literature … I have written two chapters and I'm ready to continue … Right now I envision this thing as a `full-length' novel with 32 chapters and 15 characters. I want to write it very simply, but I also want to avoid literary stereotypes. It will have a few basic threads, continuously developing. I will attempt to portray the people as well as the conflicts in their beliefs, feelings, and characters as clearly as possible without simplifying them. My assignment is to narrate as little as I can so that, to the degree that it is possible, even the details would be revealed in the action, both external and internal. As you can see, my intentions are very good. I've even chosen a title: Autumn 1929. (Vitchyzna, 102)
He also mentions another work: `In 1935 I wrote a novella, which I sent to Kyiv. It's a small thing, consisting of 20 chapters under the title Budynok No. 32 [Building No. 32]. It's the life of the building in various cross sections, with many characters, but, in the final analysis, it's a story about myself' (Vitchyzna, 101).
Even allowing for the possibility that these letters were meant to calm anxious relatives and impress the prison censor with the prisoner's determination, diligence, and mental discipline, Pidmohyl'nyi is obviously trying to exercise his creativity. Furthermore, his descriptions and analyses of his projects give a good indication of the kind of writing he is planning. They also show what sort of writer and thinker he is - perhaps nowhere more than in the following requests, which he makes in a letter dated 7 March 1936:
To Katia: (1) From the library get Spinoza's work On the Improvement of the Understanding(56) (there is a new Russian translation) and in the first 6-7 pages find the passage where the author says that he has not yet completely freed himself from the passions of greed, sloth, and desire. Please copy the whole passage and send it to me. (2) Look in the album of postcard reproductions from the Tretiakov Gallery and find out whose work is the painting Nekrasov Ill in Bed. If possible, buy this postcard and send it to me. I think you can get it at the stationery, where they sell reproductions and frames. For Katia:(57) (1) Find out if this is correct Latin: sancta simplicitas (holy simplicity), and what is the first line of Cicero's oration against Catiline, that begins quo usque etc.?(58) (2) If possible, get a picture of the Xolodnohors'kyi bridge in Kharkiv, one that shows the figures at the beginning of the bridge. Perhaps Iura can take the picture himself, if no such card can be bought. Or let him write a description of the bridge and the figures, as well as how the bridge is illuminated at night and the view from the bridge in the direction of Merefa - this I ask him to do even if he does find a postcard. 3) What is the name of the tenor in the play Zaporozhec' za Dunaiem? The one who sings the duet `Chorna xmara?' Her name is Oksana, what is his? (Vitchyzna, 99-100)
The intellectual portrait of Pidmohyl'nyi that emerges from these letters is one of an exceptionally erudite man with a wide range of cultural interests. As a writer he consciously emphasizes the techniques of realism, reducing the role of the narrator in favour of exposition through action (that is, showing rather than telling). He plans and structures his works carefully and requires a detailed knowledge of the material he describes. The impression given in his letters is borne out by his works.
1. Many of the facts of Pidmohyl'nyi's biography are common knowledge and can be found in a number of sources. Through the untiring efforts of Volodymyr Mel'nyk, many new facts about his life have recently been uncovered. Thus, the most complete and factually most reliable account of Pidmohyl'nyi's life is Volodymyr Mel'nyk's Valer"ian Pidmohyl'nyi (Kyiv: Znannia, 1991).
2. A copy of his graduation certificate is reproduced in Volodymyr Mel'nyk, `Naibil'sh intelektual'no zahlyblenyi,' Literaturna panorama, 1990 (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1990) 159.
3. Letter to the author dated 24 September 1992.
4. Zhovten': zbirnyk (Kharkiv: Vseukrlitkom, 1921) 156.
5. Quoted in Vasyl' I. Pivtoradni, Ukrains'ka literatura pershyx rokiv revoliutsii (1917-1923 rr.) (Kyiv: Radians'ka shkola, 1968) 94n2.
6. Iurii Smolych, Rozpovidi pro nespokii nemaie kincia (Kyiv: Radians'kyi pys'mennyk, 1972) 101.
7. Holodaiko [pseud.], `Lyst z Kyieva,' Nova Ukraina 1922, 6: 33.
8. The stories were listed under the following titles: `Sobaka,' `Smert',' `V epidemichnomu baraci,' `Ostap Shaptala,' `Povstanci,' `Komunist,' `Mynule,' `Za den',' `Kolysanka,' and `Koxannia.' `Mynule,' `Kolysanka,' and `Koxannia' are unknown.
9. Stefan Karol' [Mykola Khvyl'ovyi], `Khudozhnii materiial v Novii Ukraini,' Chervonyi shliakh 1923, 2: 309. Also in Mykola Khvyl'ovyi: Tvory v p"iat'ox tomax (Baltimore: Slovo & Smoloskyp, 1978-86) 4: 562.
10. Radians'ke literaturoznavstvo 1989, 8: 19.
11. Chervonyi shliakh 1923, 2: 281. Reprinted in Valeriian Pidmohyl'nyi, Misto, ed. Hryhorii Kostiuk (New York: Ukrains'ka vil'na akademiia nauk u SShA, 1954) 284-5.
12. Chervonyi shliakh 1923, 4-5: 289-90. Reprinted in Leonid Bilets'kyi, `Umovy literaturnoi praci na Ukraini (1917-1926),' Nova Ukraina 1927, 10-11: 70-1.
13. Chervonyi shliakh 1924, 1-2: 261.
14. The policy of Ukrainization, an attempt to make the culture and language of Ukraine Ukrainian, was adopted and implemented during the second half of 1923, in keeping with the resolutions on the national question adopted by the Twelfth Party Congress, in April 1923.
15. See Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Shchodennyk, vol. 2 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1983) 17, 213.
16. Chervonyi shliakh 1924, 1-2: 4-33.
17. `Trahediia nepotribnoi trahychnosty,' Chervonyi shliakh 1924, 4-5: 264-72.
18. Chervonyi shliakh 1924, 4-5: 283.
19. Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1925, 8: 7-13.
20. `Na stepax' (an excerpt from the povist' Dnipro), Nova hromada 1924, 35: 11-12.
21. See `Postanova Politbiuro CK KP(b)U pro ukrains'ki xudozhni uhrupovannia, vid 10/IV 1925 roku,' in A. Lejtes and M. Iashek, comps., Desiat' rokiv ukrains'koi literatury (1917-1927), 2nd ed. (Kharkiv: Derzhavne vydavnyctvo Ukrainy, 1930) 559-60. An English translation appears under the title `Resolution of the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U on Ukrainian Literary Groupings,' in George S. N. Luckyj, Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine, 1917-1934, rev. and updated ed. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1990) 277-8.
22. Leonid Cherevatenko, `Vse, chym dusha bolila,' Ievhen Pluzhnyk: Poezii (Kyiv: Radians'kyi pys'mennyk, 1988) 40-1.
23. He is, however, cited as a writer hostile to the ideology of the Communist Party in a speech to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolshevik) of Ukraine on 20 September 1926, by its First Party Secretary, Lazar Kahanovych. The speech is reproduced in Mykola Khvyl'ovyi: Tvory v p"iat'ox tomax, 5: 558-65.
24. Descriptions and detailed analyses of the Literary Discussion can be found in the works of two expert s on the subject, George Luckyj and Myroslav Shkandrij: See Luckyj, Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine (particularly chapter 5, pp. 92-111); Myroslav Shkandrij, `Introduction: Mykola Khvylovy and the Literary Discussion,' in Mykola Khvylovy, The Cultural Renaissance in Ukraine: Polemical Pamphlets, 1925-1926 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986) 1-30; and Myroslav Shkandrij, Modernists, Marxists and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1992).
25. Shliaxy rozvytku suchasnoi literatury (Kyiv: Kul'tkomisiia Misckomu UAN, 1925) 37. For an interesting alternative view of Pidmohyl'nyi's speech at the public debate (a speech that he did not finish, because, as a note to the stenographic transcript explains, `he wasn't feeling well'), see `Shliaxy rozvytku ukrains'koi literatury,' a parody of the debate by Omel'ko Buc, reproduced in Mykola Khvyl'ovyi: Tvory v p"iat'ox tomax, 5: 480-2.
26. Volodymyr Mel'nyk, `V ochax vidbylosia stolittia,' Literaturna Ukraina 15 October 1992.
27. Kul'tura i pobut 8 August 1926.
28. `Vse, chym dusha bolila,' 64-5.
29. Larysa Masenko, `Zahublenyi skarb,' Valeriian Pidmohyl'nyi and Ievhen Pluzhnyk, comps., Rosiis'ko-ukrains'kyi frazeolohichnyi slovnyk, (Kyiv: Kobza, 1993) 3.
30. `Bez sterna (Maksym Ryl's'kyi),' Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1927, 1: 39-53.
31. Viacheslav Briukhovets'kyi, Mykola Zerov (Kyiv: Radians'kyi pys'mennyk, 1990) 22.
32. Preface, Vybrani tvory by Ivan Nechui-Levyts'kyi, (Kyiv: Chas, 1927) 1: v-viii.
33. `Ivan Levyts'kyi-Nechui (Sproba psyxoanalizy tvorchosty),' Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1927, 9: 295-303.
34. Reported in Cherevatenko, `Vse, chym dusha bolila,' 41-2.
35. Review of Opovidannia, by Tymofii Borduliak (Vetlyna) (Kharkiv: Knyhospilka, 1927), Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1927, 7-8: 187-88.
36. `Panait Istrati v Kyievi,' Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1928, 2: 166-9.
37. Vasyl' Chaplenko, `Dvoie v odnii kimnati,' Blyz'ke j daleke ta inshi tvory (New York: privately published, 1978) 60-9.
38. Olena Zvychaina, `Kryve dzerkalo,' Avangard (Official Journal of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Youth Association) 1955, 5-6: 63-72.
39. Olena Zvychaina, Ty: Povist' iz zhyttia ukrainciv u zolotoverxomu Kyievi v 1927-29 rokax (Munich: Ukrains'ke vydavnyctvo, 1982), ch. 18.
40. Gorod, trans. B. Elysavetskyj (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1930).
41. Plans for the translation of unspecified works are mentioned in Chervonyi shliakh 1929, 1: 245, and in Orest Zilynskyj, ed., Sto padesát let chesko-ukrainskych literárních styku, 1814-1964 (Prague: Svt Sovtu, 1968) 56.
42. `Pys'mennyky u proletars'koho studenstva,' Literaturna hazeta 15 March 1929: 7.
43. `Xiba ce misto?' Literaturna hazeta 15 March 1929: 7.
44. Rabichev, `Kul'turna revoliutsiia ta zavdannia profspilok u haluzi kul'troboty,' IV Vseukrains'kyi z"izd profspilok, 1-8 hrudnia 1928 r.: Stenohrafichnyi zvit (Kharkiv: n.p., 1929) 332-47.
45. Bohdan Kravchenko [Krawchenko], `Nacional'ne vidrodzhennia ta robitnycha kliasa na Ukraini v 1920-yx rokax,' Suchasnist' 1984, 1-2: 114.
46. Chervonyi shliakh 1929, 3: 144-6.
47. Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, `Spohad pro pryjom Stalinom ukrains'koi delegacii 1929 roku,' Suchasnist' 1984, 7-8: 4-12.
48. Universal'nyi zhurnal 1929, 1: 45. Reprinted as the Afterword to the novel Misto, in Misto (Kyiv: Molod', 1989) 441.
49. Slovo i chas 1991, 2: 22-5, and Literaturna Ukraina 31 January 1991.
50. Zhyttia i revoliutsiia 1930, 3: 5-76; 4: 4-38; 5: 9-55; and 6: 30-66.
51. See Mel'nyk, Valer"ian Pidmohyl'nyi, 34.
52. Leonid Cherevatenko, `Z zhyttia lyxoho suspil'stva,' Dnipro 1991, 2: 177-8.
53. `Shliax na holhofu,' Vitchyzna 1991, 1: 150-8.
54. Vitchyzna 1991, 2: 94-105. In subsequent references, this issue of the journal is identified as Vitchyzna.
55. Druzhba narodov 1989, 9: 185-92.
56. Tractatus de Intellectus emendatione.
57. This may be a misprint. Perhaps Pidmohyl'nyi was referring here to Nataliia, his sister.
58. 58. Pidmohyl'nyi is referring to Cicero's first oration against Catiline, which begins: `Quousque tandem abutêre, Catilina, patientiâ nostrâ? Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata jactabit audacia? (How far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shall thy frantic rage baffle the efforts of justice? To what heights meanest thou to carry thy daring insolence?)' (Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. William Duncan [London, 1816] p. 114-15).