Didivtsi and Mykola Kostomarov

A short distance from Pryluky, almost in the center of the village of Didivtsi is an abandoned building that attracts attention primarily because it is markedly different from the modern houses and village homes dating from Soviet times. It has one story, four columns embellishing the faНade, and a coquettishly rounded awning above the entrance. It reminds one of old noblemen’s homes and their residents. The remains of an old park (the writer Vasyl Horlenko, who spent time here more than 120 years ago, described it as “a magnificent garden”), half-ruined outbuildings with carved window frames, vaulted basement, and an old tin roof — all this brings visitors back to the distant past, when the owners of the estate used to live here.

In 1875 Professor Mykola Kostomarov, the celebrated historian, romantic writer and public figure, married Alina Krahelska in the church in Didivtsi. Theirs was an amazing story. Mykola Kostomarov writes in his Autobiography that their wedding was supposed to take place on March 30, 1847. Alina was one of Kostomarov’s students when he was teaching history at a Kyiv model boarding school owned by Mme. De MОlan. In the summer of 1845 she and her mother were vacationing in Odesa. Kostomarov was also there. Apparently, the teacher and his student fell in love and decided to get married. They became engaged in February 1847.

Then everything went topsy- turvy. Two days before the wedding a student named O. Petrov filed a report with the Third Directorate about the existence of an underground society known as the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood in Kyiv. Kostomarov, as the author of The Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian Nation, which predicted the renaissance of Ukraine as part of a federation of Slavic peoples, was regarded as the brotherhood’s ideologue. He was arrested by the gendarmes and sent to the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, along with Taras Shevchenko, who was supposed to attend the wedding. Shevchenko’s punishment was conscription, as we know, and Kostomarov was exiled to Saratov.

Alina visited her fiancО while he was an inmate of SS. Peter and Paul Fortress; she was prepared to share his misfortune. Then her mother, who didn’t want a son-in-law who was a “political criminal,” stepped in. In fact, she threw her daughter’s wedding ring into the Neva River. Alina and Kostomarov corresponded and in 1851 Alina gave in to her mother’s pressure and married M. D. Kysil. Twenty-six years later Mykola and Alina met again in Kyiv, during an archaeological congress. Professor Kostomarov, one of the participants of the congress, had the opportunity to walk down the streets of the city of his youth. In 1875 Kostomarov fell seriously ill. He was bedridden in his St. Petersburg apartment, convalescing after a stroke. His mother Tetiana Petrivna was dying in the next room. Alina came to the northern Russian capital; she thought it her duty to help her old friend by looking after him. By this time Aline had been widowed. Kostomarov’s close friend, Danylo Mordovets, would later write in his memoirs that Alina’s arrival at Kostomarov’s during his time of ordeal saved the professor. Even though Kostomarov lost his mother, whom he called a “loving but grumbling nanny,” he found a wife, who was “an extremely kind-hearted and virtuous woman of rare intellect, who quickly joined the scholarly interests of her husband.” (D. Mordovets, “Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov v poslednie desiat let ego zhyzni,” [Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov in the Last Ten Years of His Life] Russkaia Starina, no. 12, 1985, pp. 1-3).

In late April 1875 Alina and Mykola went to live in the Kostomarov family manor in Didivtsi. Doctors predicted that Professor Kostomarov would not be his brilliant old self after the stroke. While he had indeed lost his previous youthful vigor, life in the country helped restore his weakened health. “It is so nice here, so wonderful,” Kostomarov wrote from Didivtsi. “I am surrounded by greenery and blossoms, huge floral snowflakes cover the tops of the apple, pear, and blackthorn trees; there is invigorating warmth in the air, nightingales sing everywhere, cuckoos are singing, orioles are calling, girls are singing, frogs croaking; festivities are in full swing...The strawberries are ripening and cherries are creeping through the window...”

Pedantic about his studies, every day he worked for four hours, assisted by Alina. Kostomarov dictated his Autobiography: it was the period for reminiscing. He was also preparing new historical studies for publication (The Ruin and Mazepa) and his wife meticulously made clean copies of the text. Mykola Kostomarov hated the scorching sun and ordered the windows to be kept open while he worked. One summer Alina suffered for his love of fresh air, when she came down with pneumonia.

In Didivtsi Kostomarov did not shun company. On the contrary, he was fond of visiting neighboring villages: he was still a researcher of folk culture, interested in wedding rites and folk games, including those involving jumping over bonfires on the feast of Kupalo (Midsummer’s Eve). He often received guests at his estate. The Tarnavskys lived in Kachanivka, the Skoropadskys (Trostianets), Halahans (Sokyryntsi), and the Kulishes (Motronivka) all lived within a fifty-verst radius. However, the artist Mykola He, who had always lived in the village of Ivanivsky near the station of Plysky, and the writer Vasyl Horlenko, who owned the village of Yaroshivka not far from Trostianets, appear to have been his closest friends.

Mykola He was a student of Kostomarov, and he mentions this fact in his memoirs about the Kyiv gymnasium: “Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was our favorite teacher. There wasn’t a single student who didn’t listen to his stories [from] Russian history...N. I. never asked any questions, never graded us; we even graded ourselves every month, and if truth be told, we did so conscientiously. Kostomarov’s classes were holidays of the heart for us. Everyone looked forward to those classes, and the impression was that his replacement, a teacher by the name of [A. I.] Linnichenko did not teach history for the entire year; he lectured on Russian authors and told us that after Kostomarov he would not teach history. He made the same impact at the women’s boarding school and later at the university. That model women’s boarding school was where my wife was enrolled and she told me all about this. My wife and I met him in Paris in 1857, after his exile. I recognized him from the back by his nervous movements. We ran after him and he recognized us; since then we were friends until his dying day” (Nikolai Nikolaievich Ge, Pisma. Stati. Kritika. Vospominaniia sovremennikov [Letters, Articles, Criticism. Reminiscences of Contemporaries], Moscow, 1978, p. 227).

Hanna Zabello, He’s wife, was enrolled in the same boarding school as Alina Krahelska. In other words, Kostomarov must have taught all three: Alina, He, and He’s future wife.

The artist was a frequent guest at Didivtsi, as was Kostomarov in the village of Ivanivsky. Ekaterina Junge, the daughter of Fedor Tolstoy, the vice president of the Academy of Art (the Tolstoys are known to have played a prominent role in Taras Shevchenko’s life after his return from exile) recalled one such visit. Junge was visiting Didivtsi in the summer of 1881; during this period she visited He together with Kostomarov. “He and Kostomarov discussed God knows how many subjects during those two or three days. Remarkably, no arguments intruded on their lively and extremely interesting discussions, because the interlocutors were always in agreement with each other.” Nor was it surprising that Kostomarov and He remained friends in St. Petersburg. The artist frequented Kostomarov’s open house on Tuesdays; the historian, in turn, was fond of attending He’s Thursday gatherings. On Sept. 9, 1871, He reported to the art academy’s council that, in addition to other works, he had painted a portrait of Kostomarov’s mother, T. P. Kostomarova. In 1877 he completed the portrait. Visitors to He’s manor could see the painting in the sitting room, until the portrait was purchased by Pavel Tretyakov for his art gallery.

As for Horlenko, his friendship with Kostomarov was primarily an opportunity for the historian to learn more about the history of a “vanished family” (“vanished,” because the Horlenkos had supported Mazepa and then suffered repressions; Colonel Horlenko’s estates were confiscated because of his involvement with Mazepa). Horlenko, a brilliant cultural specialist and critic, is the author of an interesting outline entitled “Two Trips with Mykola Kostomarov,” which contains vivid descriptions of their travels over two summers: in 1883 and 1884. Kostomarov was fond of traveling; as a historian he was attracted by the vestiges of the past. Horlenko recalls their trip from Didivtsi to Lubny and Pereiaslav. They went through Pyriatyn, visited Mharsk Monastery, where they marveled at “the beautiful shrine with its tall, ancient iconostasis and portraits of the Little Russian [i.e., Ukrainian — Trans.] saints Yosyp Tukalsky and Iosafat Horlenko.” (V. Horlenko, Pivdennoruski obrazy ta portrety [“Southern Rus’ Icons and Portraits] Kyiv, 1993, p. 115). From there they traveled to Solonytsia, in the Sula River valley, where Severyn Nalyvaiko’s Cossack regiments had once fought Stanislaw Zolkiewski’s Polish regiments. Today there are no reminders of these past battles. In place of Yarema Vyshnevetsky’s [Jeremi Wisniowiecki] castle in Lubny there were traces of foundations, trenches, and even fragments of marble columns.

In August of the following year (1884) a carriage resembling a chariot took Kostomarov and Horlenko to Pereiaslav. “We visited all the churches,” recalled Horlenko, “of which the Dormition Church was the most interesting, located on the site where Khmelnytsky and his army officers swore allegiance to the Russian tsar; also St. Michael’s Church founded in the 11th century, and St. Mary the Protectress, built by the Myrovych family...We met a local resident by the name of A. O. Kozachkovsky, a friend of Shevchenko. We saw an interesting sacristy and church plate that had been transferred from the old Dormition Church. The graveyard of that church is extremely picturesque, with ancient stone crosses, which opens up to a panorama of the distant blue hills on the right bank of the Dnipro...”

Horlenko’s outline is imbued with a farewell mood, as Kostomarov would die several months later. Horlenko recounted his conversations with the historian in some detail. Kostomarov was planning a play about Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and he was especially interested in the hetman’s second wife, Helena, who was severely punished by the hetman’s son Tymish, on his father’s orders, after her affair with a Lviv watchmaker was learned. Kostomarov wanted to start the story with Khmelnytsky’s triumphant entry into Kyiv in 1649 and then develop the hetman’s personal drama against the background of the grand historic events of the mid-17th century. This plot, planned to the utmost detail yet never committed to paper, is mentioned by the authors of other memoirs (including Mordovets), but Horlenko’s is the most detailed. While Kostomarov told his guests in Didivtsi about his play, he was secretly writing another drama entitled The Hellenes of Taurida, inspired by the history of the kingdom of Bosporus and his travels to the Crimea. Unfortunately, the play about Khmelnytsky was never written, and literary critics know next to nothing about the plot of Hellenes.

Kostomarov’s story “Skotsky bunt” (The Revolt of the Cattle), about which I have written in The Day, may be connected with the author’s experiences in Didivtsi. Mordovets, however, states that Kostomarov wrote this story in Pavlovsk, not Didivtsi, in the summer of 1880.

In their memoirs the celebrated historian’s contemporaries willingly share their impressions of Kostomarov as a person; they all agree that he had a phenomenal memory, along with numerous “professorial” oddities. While in Didivtsi, Kostomarov would board a carriage every morning and ride for three versts to swim in the Udai River. He was fond of strolling in the woods, picking wild flowers, and inserting a flower in his lapel or the brim of his hat. He disliked the heat and fought with his family to keep the windows open, and contrary to his doctors’ instructions, he would douse himself with cold water. He was a picky eater: he wanted his fish alive before it was cleaned and fried (the same applied to chicken broth). Already half-blind, the professor often walked into his garden with a child’s ax, determined to chop up the wild hop bush; many a young tree would fall beneath his axe. But he was easily forgiven. In his twilight years Kostomarov was extremely careless. He loved to watch the night sky and the stars, and he was especially fond of the moon. Almost every day he would dash from one local church to the next, where he prayed long and earnestly. Without exaggeration Didivtsi provided many happy moments to Kostomarov in the last decade of his life. He would return to St. Petersburg with a healed body and soul. His wife Alina wrote, “Didivtsi is a modest nook, unpretentious, but no matter where you look, something lures you to it — and this is not my personal opinion, everyone who visits says the same thing...There is life here, but there (in St. Petersburg — Auth.) it is affected decoration.”

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The prominent Ukrainian scholars and public figures Borys Oliynyk, Viacheslav Briukhovetsky, Myroslav Popovych, Yuri Shapoval, Serhiy Krymsky, and Roman Lubkivsky have written a letter to President Viktor Yushchenko, expressing concern about the state of Kostomarov’s manor in Didivtsi. They have requested the Ukrainian president to help set up a museum at Pryluky to perpetuate the memory of this celebrated historian and writer.