Title: Yesteryear's Wizened but Wise Voices Author: Text: In the last several years, I have listened closely to seven survivors of the 1932-33 forced famine in Ukraine and to younger Ukrainians who have re-told their grandparents' narratives as they remember hearing them. The longer I live in Ukraine, the more my collection of heart wrenching stories continues to expand. Ronald Vossler has researched much on Ukraine's Holodomor [Terror Famine of 1932-33] and written a book titled We'll Meet Again in Heaven that recently aired on American television in
a documentary format. Knowing survivors' history should help to put perspective on the current Ukrainian political turmoil, if only people would listen to yesteryear's wise voices.
Naturally, I was delighted to read a new book The Last Flowers Before Winter by Diane McMurrin who has taken the time to ask questions of surviving Ukrainian widows existing merely on their scanty pensions in Kyiv. McMurrin's book describes their lives of pain during the Soviet period after she had gotten to know them personally. Many Ukrainians and Russians were commonly labeled "Enemy of the Soviet people." As a member of an advocacy group, 82-year-old Galina stated she was one of many persecuted under Stalin. These members seek redress for those repressed under communism, especially for families whose property was taken from them.
Many of these Ukrainian widows have since been "rehabilitated," which means, "erased from any wrongdoing in the eyes of the government." One widow shared that during Soviet times a ubiquitous phrase was: "Don't put your pig nose in our Soviet orchard. We must fight for the Motherland." Just another way to say, "Mind your own business, but die for the cause." About 40 stories in McMurrin's book relate to family tragedies that occurred before, during and after WWII on Ukrainian soil.
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Valentina Yuuchenko | One 80-year-old widow, named Zoya, was a nurse, as many women were needed to give aid at the front during WWII. Zoya became acquainted with another nurse, while at Kengir prison camp when stationed in Kazakhstan, who had frequent letter exchanges with author Solzhenitsyn. This nurse's experience in the prison eventually became a chapter in one of Solzhenitsyn's books, Forty Days in Kengir.
Those interviewed by McMurrin were typically nurses while a few women fought in the army as snipers who shot after having been parachuted from planes. Eighty-year-old Natalia, as
a nurse at the Front, knew all too well what a Katyusha rocket sounded like when it exploded. Other widows told of stories of either escaping from the Germans or eluding them so as not to be forced into labor camps to aid the Germans against the Soviets.
A widow, named Nina, while fighting during WWII was trapped in a foxhole with her communist trained children. She told them, "Komsomols, nobody taught you how to pray, but now we must pray and ask God to help us." One widow's father came home from fighting at the front and found that while he was gone a German soldier in occupied Ukraine had "secretly" fed Maria and her siblings. Maria's father, who was active in the church, often reminded his children to pray for the German man who had saved their family from starvation. Another woman related that during WWII all they had to eat was what they scoured up from the frozen potato fields that they cooked with different grasses and whatever other bits of wheat they foraged.
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Vera Sherotina |
Eighty-year-old Margarita witnessed the loss of some of her Jewish friends at Babi Yar among other tragedies. Margarita sadly admitted, "All I've had in my life from the Soviet Union has been just pain, pain, pain." Margarita added that by 1947 highly trained people made very low salaries and a common insult was,
"I hope you marry an engineer." Those people fortunate enough to drive cars or make clothes made more money than engineers. Octogenarian Loida admitted that being a Christian during the communist era was very difficult. "If humiliation wasn't enough, destruction of their [Christians'] property was encouraged."
Some of those voices Diane McMurrin listened to came from families with close connections to Russian royalty. One 83-year-old woman named Marianna had a maternal grandfather who played piano with Tchaikovsky and a paternal grandfather who was a favored guard of Czar Nicholas and friend to the Czar's children. An 82-year-old woman by the name of Maria still owns a Bible published when Alexander II was Czar. Vera, an 86-year-old widow, related that her grandfather had a Bible he read in the Old Slavic style by candle light behind closed doors because, of course, anything Christian was forbidden.
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Olga Dolgih | Fortunately, when Roger and Diane McMurrin arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine 15 years ago, they brought Handel's Messiah to a musically gifted group of Ukrainians. Handel's well-known piece had never been rehearsed or sung before by Ukrainians who survived communism's many purges. According to Diane's introduction, she and her husband began the Widows Food Program many years ago by delivering bags of food to twenty pensioners. The McMurrins had learned the names of needy widows through the government pension office.
At first the recipients were suspicious of the McMurrins' charitable gifts. The widows thought amongst themselves, "Why would strangers bring a gift of food?" They had been conditioned during Soviet days that it was illegal to give charity and so they thought these gifts must have some negative consequence such as losing their apartment or worse! After gaining the trust of the widows, the McMurrins, along with the help of many others, are feeding and visiting hundreds every week. To learn more about the McMurrin widows' ministry, log on to the website: http://www.musicmissionkiev.org/. From there, you may find out how to obtain a copy of Diane McMurrin's book, The Last Flowers Before Winter.
Many lonely widows and widowers still live in our midst who have valuable stories that could be tapped, if only we were curious and asked. For some old-timers, the stories may flow, for others it might be halting and slow. True, older people can be ornery or needy and with lengthening years, these characteristics become more exaggerated. That's the down side. The upside, however, of peering carefully into the past is that it can open up communication with family relations you never knew existed. You will learn more about Ukraine's history if you listen to the steadying voices of the older generation. We must all learn from them! Your relatives' stories may not be as dramatic as those whose lives Diane McMurrin has touched, but it will help to keep perspective about what is happening in the nation of Ukraine today.
Kristina Gray teaches at Wisconsin International University of Ukraine (WIUU) and is a frequent contributor to the Ukrainian Observer.
Editor's Note:
Persons wishing to acquire copies of Diane McMurrin's book may do so by visiting the website (http://www.musicmissionkiev.org/) from which copies may be ordered for delivery by October 1, 2006. Also, copies will be available at all stops of the upcoming Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus tour in the United States, starting on Sept. 15, 2006.
(For complete list of dates and locations, go to http://www.musicmissionkiev.org/tour_dates.cfm)
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