“Finally I found you, Stepan!”

A small cemetery in the place of the former village of Volosovka, abandoned by man and God alike, which was destroyed because of its connection with warriors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), experienced a real pilgrimage this fall. During the feast of Intercession, on The Day when, as it goes in the famous song, exactly in Volyn “the UPA army was born,” tombstones to three privates of the people’s army, which fought for independent Ukraine, were sanctified. This action was organized and sponsored by the editor-in-chief of the Volhynian weekly Visnyk i Ko, the honored journalist of Ukraine Yevhen Khotymchuk. That is because everything started with the unusual story of his family:

“I knew long ago that my mother’s first husband was named Stepan Parkhomchuk. I felt that the name Stiopka was always sacred for her. Once, on Easter, my mother and I went to church and she said that Stiopka was an insurgent. I asked: ‘A partisan?’ No, answered my mother, he was one of the insurgents, the guys who struggled for Ukraine. At that time I didn’t understand why one had to struggle for Ukraine, but my mother didn’t want to say anything more. However, when Ukraine’s independence came, she told me that Stepan Parkhomchuk died not far from our native village Rudka-Kozynska, in the Rozhyshche raion, a few dozen kilometers from there. The less time she had to live on this earth, the more insistently she asked to bring her to his grave. However, as it often happens in our daily life, I refused: later, another time. In May 1994 mother died and I never brought her to the grave of her first, deeply-loved husband. All these years I was haunted by a thought of why I did not find time. The guilt tortured my soul.”

Last fall the editorial staff from Visnyk i Ko, headed by Khotymchuk, found a small, five by seven centimeters, picture of young Afanasia and Stepan. They gave it to the editor on his birthday as the most precious, as he now says, gift of all: enlarged to the size of a newspaper column, this picture has now been colored.

Khotymchuk explained the significance of that gift: “Now this picture hangs at home, in my office. When my brother disassembled our old house in the village, I asked only for two things: the wardrobe and the old bed where mother gave birth to me. These things are many dozens of years old, and they are not only well preserved, but are the most precious relics for me. And the picture of mother and her first husband is before my eyes all the time.”

The lovers, with innocent eyes, still did not know what terrible troubles waited for them in the future. And every day these looks touched the son’s soul, reproaching him that he hadn’t found time to fulfill his mother’s last request, not coming to the grave of the one she loved so much.

Later he was told that Stepan Parkhomchuk was buried somewhere in the village of Trysten. Khotymchuk started looking for the old burial last fall, after the cold days had come. He had one orientation point: there was a cross made of stainless steel on the grave of the insurgent Stepan. Aunt Nina Parkhomchuk, the wife of Stepan’s brother, took care of it for many years. But during the last ten years, since her husband died, she couldn’t visit the grave.

Khotymchuk told The Day about how people perceived his search: “In Trysten there are two cemeteries and many abandoned graves. Therefore, we would have looked for it for a long time if it had not been for people’s assistance. Opportunely, we heard several amazing stories about UPA warriors who suffered and perished, but didn’t surrender. However, we didn’t find Stepan’s grave in Trysten, and someone told us: perhaps he is buried in Volosovka? Though I was from that district, I never heard of such a village. As it turned out, it was a rather big village near the forest, and due to its location it was doomed to connections with Bandera supporters. They always found shelter here. Later on the cemetery we saw many graves where very young guys were buried, it is likely they were insurgents as well. When the new government came, Volosovka was divided: a part of the people was taken to endless Siberia, and another part was moved to other villages. Later people from Lovyshcha, Kupychiv, Trysten and other villages came to me and said they were originally from Volosovka. But it disappeared from the face of the earth long ago.”

Late fall, in the severe cold, after the flu he caught in his search for the old cemetery, Khotymchuk at last found the location, where in the place of Volosovka the beloved of his mother was buried. “Among high dry weeds there were old graves with bent crosses. And one of them was made of stainless steel. I embraced it and cried: ‘Finally I found you, Stepan!’” 

At first Khotymchuk only wanted to put up a tombstone on the grave of Parkhomchuk, and simply put in order the two neighboring tombs of his companions-in-arms, as well as lay cobbles around them. The village is long gone, but its former inhabitants are still buried there. The newer graves were in order, most of them had tombstones, and only on the site of burials of the UPA warriors man-height weeds and bushes grew.

“The closest relatives grew old or forgot, and for the younger generation those events are a puzzle. I felt very bitter. The guys were not happy during their lives, and were in oblivion in the other world. At first I was guided by my obligations as a son: I wanted to pay homage to the man who was dear to my mother. But I became so imbued with the situation that I decided I would put up tombstones on the graves of strangers as well, because, after all, Stiopka was also a stranger to me. But these were people who struggled for Ukraine’s independence. How much they must have loved Ukraine, and at this they didn’t have any hopes that they would see that Ukraine free! From recollections I know that Stiopka’s father used to say: ‘Guys, you won’t build Ukraine in forest bushes! You use a whip against a butt!’ Stalin’s and Hitler’s power was immense, and they opposed that power, they were attacked from all sides: both by the Germans and the NKVD. Stepan Parkhomchuk and his companions, by the way, were killed by red partisans. But they — unfortunate creatures or heroes — believed in Ukraine and fought for it.”

Unexpectedly many people came to the abandoned old cemetery in the place of the former village to the sanctifying of the insurgents’ tombstones. Not only from surrounding villages, but also from Lutsk and other places, in addition to most of the editorial staff of Visnyk i Ko, and the three sons of the editor-in-chief. One of them was holding the portrait of grandmother Afanasia and her beloved Stiopka, who played such a significant role in this entire story. As Khotymchuk says, there is a higher justice, because these guys lied in the weeds for 70 years, but their graves were finally found and put in order. After the service for the dead, they also sang insurgent songs.

The Day asked Khotymchuk if his family had any ties to the UPA: “Children of my father’s brother Volodymyr were messengers for insurgents: Vasyl and Iryna. Later they were exiled to Siberia for this and were prevented from coming back to Volyn. Already having become a journalist, I wrote a story about this family branch, about its fate, I entitled it Vyvezentsi (The Exiled). Living in Kryvy Rih, where they later died, brother and sister decided to rebuild the parents’ house in Rudka-Kozynska. Iryna uprooted the old orchard and was going to plant a new one, and live there. My mother told me how Vasyl came to his homeland, how going to the train station he couldn’t stop gathering apples from the father’s garden, stuffing everything with them, because it was the only me-mory about their parents. Mother said: ‘he was gathering those apples, and I was watching and crying.’ A first aid station was in their house, a school director lived there too. But it was never returned to them. And when sister uprooted the old garden, they all died right away, as if something was displaced in their world. And their house is empty and abandoned.”

After the tombstones appeared on the graves of Stepan Parkhomchuk and his companions, the editorial board of Visnyk i Ko decided to hold an action “Find a Grave of an Insurgent,” as there are many forgotten last shelters of freedom fighters on the territory of Volyn alone. And already it turned out that in the village of Khopniv, the Kivertsi raion, there are two graves of this kind near the school, but… a rubbish heap was made on their site.

“Stepan, I often think about it, gave life to me and my brother by his death,” meditates Khotymchuk. “These are the quirks life brings sometimes.”