"And we sang carols... And Ukraine was near us..." (12/31/78)

"And we sang carols... And Ukraine was near us..."

TORONTO, Ont. - A letter, dated November 8, from Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets who is now in exile was recently made available to the Ukrainian Central Information Service here.

Excerpts from the letter appear below.

"... What should I write about myself? Lviv was my cradle, I was born there, went to school there, completed my university studies there (Slavic studies), and from there the machine took me away to a foreign land. On the eve of the separation - on Christmas day - I walked past all the churches in Lviv with the Kiev poet, Vasyl S. (now in Kolyma). The churches are filled during the holidays, the crowd spills out onto the streets; this is a moving river, the people make way for those who are freezing outside the church. But this is the only river, because everyone is in the spirit of the carols, the voices become stronger and tears cover the eyes. There is an unbelievable longing for the churches in the foreign lands, especially during the holidays. In Mordovia, a small community of us sat at a plain table by a candle made of the wax which covers cheese. Sometimes we were able to obtain a branch of a fir tree - and we had a Christmas tree. From pearl-barley - 'kutia' to which we added honey, poppy seeds, nuts - anything we had saved for the holidays from the scant parcels we received. And we sang carols ... And Ukraine was near us, and all our distant and close countrymen...

"Memories did not abandon us for a minute, because in the closed spaciousness of the foreign lands one lives only through memories. Here it is as though it was freer, the space here is boundless, but it is so boundless, so distant, that it is insubordinate to the feet. The Bouriat steppes are difficult to describe - one must see them. Here the horses appear to be toy horses, and the village - a peculiar card in infinity. Perhaps that is why it is so foreignly foreign here. 'Ukraine' is in our room. Ihor decorated the wooden partition with various cards - Scythian mementos, portraits of Mamays, Ukrainian clothing, scenes of Lviv and several postcards of paintings by Yaroslav Surmach. Books. A portrait of Taras. An icon of Mary embroidered by my friend, two more icons. And several of my embroideries - 'servetky' and 'rushnyky' ...

"The first days when I was here alone, I longed for my language, for the sound of a native word. This longing I know from long ago, for me it is intolerable.

"...I would like to be with you, near you, as I was in my childhood with my grandfather. He is from Malnivska Volya - there is a village by that name near Malniv (there are an ancient church and a unique icon there) in Lvivshchyna (formerly Drohobychchyna), from a small settlement where there are several white houses. It was there that I spent the summers of my childhood, becaue I visited my grandfather every summer. There, in that 'preserved settlement,' the secrets - thanks to which I am unfolding the past - of the Ukrainian holidays, traditions and rituals were revealed to me. Because in our past, in memories, and in the Bible, there are some five centuries.

"I do not regret that fate led me to such unexpected travels. I suffered in remote places like a simple city dweller, such a vegetative existence, but how long can one 'exist'? In my, in our homeland the people are the same as before, only drowsier, like autumn flies, they become revived during the holidays, they emerge from somewhere, and no one is alone...

"...I would like this letter to reach you before St. Nicholas' feast day, and for it to serve as a gift - most sincere words and wishes of health, Kozak strength and faith. May the good sprits of the homeland protect you. And may the memory of the homeland warm you in the distant foreign country, because all of us - I and my husband, our daughter (Zvenyslava), our parents, our friends and acquaintances will think of you often, will keep in touch with you thousands of kilometers away - we greet you! Your Iryna."

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