NEWS AND VIEWS: Kyiv conference focuses on life and work of Vasyl Stus (07/16/06)

NEWS AND VIEWS: Kyiv conference focuses on life and work of Vasyl Stus

by Oles Obertas

KYIV - The Ukrainian Samvydav Museum-Archives, Smoloskyp Publish-ers and Vasyl Stus Humanities Center, earier this year held a conference at the Smoloskyp Building in Kyiv on the topic: "Vasyl Stus: Twenty Years After His Death: Contemporary Reception and Reinterpretation." The event focused on the social, political, legal, linguistic, literary and other aspects of the dissident writer's works from the perspective of current events in Ukraine.

Being that many aspects of Vasyl Stus's works are connected to the hardships he suffered during his life, the conference participants agreed that it is impossible to interpret his literary works without knowledge about the author's life.

The February 3 conference, which was featured in a special issue of the journal Moloda Natsiya (The New Nation) in March, was a rare event, being that only three such conferences have been held since 1998. The aim of the conference, moderated by Rostyslav Semkiv, Oksana Dvorko and Oles Obertas, was to begin a scholarly discussion and form a circle of researchers of different generations including young scholars (mostly students and post-graduates), as well as respected literary critics of Ukraine, such as Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Vasyl Ovsienko, Dmytro Stus, V. Morenets, R. Veretelnyk, Tamara Hundorova, Vakhtanh Kipiani and E. Solovey, that would study the works of Stus.

Students and writers from all over Ukraine convened at the conference including: Maryna Harbar, Hryhorii Savchuk, Olha Cheremska, Olena Kozyr, Antonina Tymchenko and Viktor Kysil of the Kharkiv region; Hanna Vivat and Dmytro Shupta of the Odesa region; Ihor Isaiev, Nataliya Kandybka and Kateryna Chernykh of the Zaporizhia region; Volodymyr Kuzentsov, Nataliya Pokolenko, Valerii Babenko, Lesia Olifirenko and Serhii Nesvit of the Donetsk region; Yevheniya Naychuk and Iryna Nosenko of the Poltava region; Olha Dmytruk and Yulia Ostapchuk of the Rivne region; Roman Krylovets, post-graduate of the Ostroh Academy; Iryna Stamplevska of the Kherson region; Uliana Mishchuk and Yurii Khorunzhy of Kyiv; Larysa Podkorytova of Khmelnytskyi; Nataliya Purii of Drohobych; Olha Fedorchenko, post-graduate of Kerch, Crimea; and Halyna Shmilo of Lviv.

Often called the "Taras Shevchenko of the 20th Century," Stus has been studied by various generations. The participants of the conference were divided into three groups including: people who had known Stus from 1960 to 1980, scholars who had already begun to study Stus's works during his lifetime, and young researchers who are investigating the works of the prominent Ukrainian poet from fresh perspectives.

Members of the first group shared their recollections of Stus at a roundtable discussion, while the second group discussed working under the Soviet regime and its influence on their investigations. The third group collaborated on different approaches to Stus's works and discussed how this kind of teamwork can contribute to inter-generational dialogue.

Lively discussions among the representatives of different generations focused on the topic of Stus's "mental illness," the problem of perception and interpretation of Stus's works by students and others. Mr. Kipiani, a journalist, employed the Smoloskyp archives to research an interesting detail of Stus's biography: his nomination for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1985.

Mr. Kipiani covered the biographical aspect of Stus studies with the help of more than 1,200 documents from the Ukrainian Samvydav Museum-Archives that were presented electronically during the conference. Among these materials were articles about Stus's life and work, translations of his works, the texts of Radio Liberty broadcasts, documents of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council and Smoloskyp information services, and other important papers about Stus's works in different languages from Ukraine and abroad.

In addition to those present at the conference,"virtual" participants Osyp Zinkevych and Nadiya Svitlychna contributed to the gathering. Ms. Svitlychna sent a letter of greeting to the conferees.

She wrote: "... Having learned that the Vasyl Stus conference gathered so many people who are interested in his life, works and immortality 20 years after his martyr death, I greet you sincerely from America, where he had sent his 'Palimpsesty.'

"These 20 years have changed us and especially our country; a new generation, for whom Vasyl Stus is a kind of abstraction separated from this generation by his enormous talent, has grown. In spite of considerable publications, Stus has not yet been discovered by our contemporaries. A lot of themes are still waiting for their researchers, among them the role of Viktor Medvedchuk in Stus's life and death. The palimpsest character of his imprisonment works has not been studied yet; his imprisonment notes delivered from the hermetic closed hard-regime labor camp have not been examined. The archives in the Museum of the Movement of the '60s and other collections have not been investigated.

"For our generation, who were lucky to be contemporaries of Stus, he is remarkable as a fighter for human dignity, a talented and conscientious man of letters. We also remember him as a kind and impressionable man with quite mundane weakenesses and virtues.

"He has always been a brother, faithful companion, native spirit for my family, especially for Ivan Svitlychny. My mother recalled ill and weak Ivan to have mystically felt Stus's death before we were informed about it. Vasyl dreamt in his letter from prison, 'I pray God that I could meet Ivan, bow our gray heads in quiet friendly chat, hear clear Sverstiuk's voice, and then I really can die.'

"Now Ivan and Vasyl have met together 'outside the golden windows of stars in heavenly Kyiv, where even the eternity is a bit cramped for Stus,' according to Iryna Zhylenko."

During the conference the first documentary exhibition about Stus's life and work was opened and will be on display until the end of August of this year. The exhibit includes rare photos of the poet and his close circle. Many other unique materials are part of the exhibit, including one display that allowed visitors to hear the voice of the poet reciting his poems.

Concluding the conference was Stanislav Chernilevsky, 2006 laureate of the Vasyl Stus Prize with a presentation of the film "The Black Candle."

The next conference at the Smoloskyp Building will be dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in the fall of this year. It is expected that attendance at this conference will equal or surpass this recent event dedicated to Vasyl Stus, one of the members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and will properly honor the true heroes of Ukraine.

Oles Obertas is on the editorial staff of the monthly bulletin Smoloskyp Ukrayiny.

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