The great effort of Yevhenia Leshchuk’s soul
LVIV—The year of Ivan Bohun’s birth still remains a mystery. It is only known that he was Colonel of Podillia, then of Kalnyk (Vinnytsia) and Pavoloch, and the Acting Hetman of Ukraine. He also stunned the whole world in 1651 with his heroism, when he successfully led a major part of the Cossack troops out of the encirclement in the Battle of Berestechko. Historians also say that wherever Bohun was there was victory because the Cossacks trusted and loved him. We also know that the hero was executed on Feb. 17, 1664.
To mark the 345th death anniversary of the acting hetman of Ukraine, the Volyn-born and Lviv-based poetess Yevhenia LESHCHUK published a big 12-page commemorative wall calendar — at her own expense at that. Incidentally, Leshchuk also authored the calendar’s concept and artistic design. She calls this publication “the last ray of her soul” and sincerely believes that “it will serve to strengthen young people’s moral and spiritual health.”
“As long as I remember myself, since my childhood, I have kept Ukraine, Berestechko, national heroes, and Bohun deep in my heart,” the poetess told The Day. “I heard from legends and tales that Ivan Bohun had been Ukraine’s most loyal servant and I began to compose poems and songs about him at that very time. I would look for literature. A noble gentleman and a daring Cossack warrior, he became a legend still in his lifetime. He emerges in literature as a brave, clever, extremely popular, strong, sly as a fox, gallant, and persistent.
“It is not known for sure where and when he was born. It is only known that he originated from the Ukrainian gentry and was very well-educated: we can even say he was an engineer, for he knew very well about fortifications. It was extremely difficult to find materials on Ivan Bohun. I had been collecting them for about 40 years. I could see in the now free Ukraine that there had been neither decent monuments to nor due respect for Bohun over three and a half centuries. All this worried me very much, and I kept thinking about how to honor this outstanding son of Ukraine. So I began looking for Bohun’s portraits in historical museums. I would phone in to arrange a photo session or send a photographer there.”
Did anybody help you?
“No, I did everything on my own and I paid everything from my own pocket. Then I published an album of the found portraits together with the recordings of the songs I composed in honor of the hero. In 1995 I made up a photo-cum-poetry album named ‘Berestechko: a Sacred Path.’
“I sent out leaflets that urged the public to help erect a monument to Ivan Bohun. I established the Bohun civic foundation because I believed in people. I sent out audiocassettes with my songs and calendars. This was reported in newspapers, and I received many letters of thanks.
“All this touched off a wave of interest in Bohun throughout the world. But the bank account received some negligible contributions, mostly from the poor, which made it impossible to do anything. It was not until 2002 that a young Lviv-based sculptress, Maryna Melnyk, made Ivan Bohun’s bust, which the Bohun foundation gifted to the Cossack Graves museum. Now it is installed in the museum’s first room, welcoming visitors from all over the world.
“Moreover, I wrote hundreds of letters to all kinds of governmental bodies, requesting them to help build a bonze monument to Bohun. But I kept receiving the same answer for years: there is no money. It was so depressing. So I decided to create at least some spiritual monuments: in 2003 the Siversky TV studios turned out the frequently shown documentary Ivan Bohun based on the Lviv TV studio’s film A Bow to Ukraine. They added some more shots and my works to it.
“In spite of a dire financial situation, I gathered all my years-long materials and published the photo-and-poetry album ‘The Eternity of Ivan Bohun’ to mark the 340th anniversary of the hero’s execution. This helped me redouble my efforts. Yet, although approved in Kyiv at the Ukraine’s State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting and by Lviv publishing houses, the album book has not yet been supported. I have also repeatedly asked the Marka Ukrainy publishing house to issue postage stamps and envelopes bearing the portrait of Ivan Bohun, which was finally done in August 2006. It cost quite an effort to have a commemorative coin minted in the hero’s honor. As late as in 2007 the National Bank issued the Bohun coin made of highest-purity silver — it flashed over the world like a silver monument to Ivan Bohun.”
You are describing this so easily, even poetically, but it must have been very difficult in reality.
“Hundreds of telephone calls that cost a pretty penny, deep worries over delays, an inadequate pension to boot… All this undermined my health. But the real trouble is that there still is no monument to Bohun! My physical condition is precarious, and I must hurry up. I have remitted the 4,000 hryvnias that the foundation collected, plus some money from my pension and from Academician Mykhailo Pavlovsky, to the granite works. Four granite memorial plaques depicting the hero were made under my supervision on the basis of Poida’s portrait of Bohun. One of them was given free of charge to the Cossack Graves’ school, a school that we would like to be named after Ivan Bohun.
“On Feb. 14, 2008, in the presence of pupils, the public, kobza players, officials, and priests, Archimandrite Oleksii blessed a commemorative plaque after a memorial service in the school of the village of Pliasheve, Radyviliv district, Rivne oblast. Conversely, the brave Cossacks of Siverska Sich in Novhorod-Siversky have not yet managed to unveil the three commemorative plaques which they received from the Bohun foundation.
“I wish this would come to the knowledge of Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine and Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossack Army. I hope that the Ministry of Defense will soon help to issue orders and medals with the silhouette of Ivan Bohun—they will be awarded for most outstanding gallantry in defending Ukraine.
“Last year I suddenly realized that there would be no monument at all by Ivan Bohun’s 345th anniversary. I was sad. Then an idea came up to create the final spiritual podium for the hero—to publish a wall calendar with the great man’s portraits and song lyrics as an epitaph, a mental candle, to mark Ivan Bohun Memorial Day.
“In the spring of 2008 I drew up a layout of the calendar on the basis of my album book The Eternity of Ivan Bohun. In July I submitted the materials to the Kameniar publishing house. The progress was slow. That was hard work with major obstacles. As my childhood friend Yevhen Sverstiuk said in my 80th birthday greetings in the newspaper Nasha vira, “fate itself decreed” that I be “called upon to immortalize Ivan Bohun’s glory in the generations of all times.” He also noted that it was “the great effort of a soul.” I am grateful to him for understanding. Yes, it was very difficult to chip away at this rock in a petrified surrounding. And I am thanking God for helping me throughout these years to do this in memory of Ivan Bohun. I am grateful to Him for helping me finish this job, which I have offered up, like all those before, to young people in order to strengthen their moral and spiritual health. Presenting soldiers with Bohun’s glittering sabers, I wished them to be always staunch defenders of their native land, as Ivan Bohun once was.”
How many copies of the calendar were sent to various nooks of Ukraine?
“Five hundred. They brought me the printed matter at the end of the year. That was a lot of work! Other people were celebrating Christmas, and I had to stay in. I had to pack each calendar in a cardboard box, stick an address on top, and mail it. I sincerely thank the post office people who helped me very much. I was to finish up by February 17: on that day in 1664 Ivan Bohun was treacherously killed near Novhorod-Siversky. I made it. I was glad that Ukraine remembered the hero and I was, so to speak, behind this remembrance. I wish there were a monument. I even wrote to Ivan Vasiunyk and he answered me, as I had heard so many times before, that it was impossible to put up a statue. So let this calendar be my spiritual pedestal for Bohun.”
Are you tired of this long, exhausting and self-denying work?
“I am a bit tired. There have been so many difficulties that mercilessly tormented me in all these years, but there always was a higher force deep in my heart, which supported and called upon me to go on. So I kept saying, ‘I must!’ I have one more dream: to assign the glorious name ‘Ivan Bohun’ to one of Ukraine’s Black Sea warships in the future, when all political storms blow over.”
THE DAY'S FACT FILE
Yevhenia Stepanivna LESHCHUK was born on Sept. 7, 1928, in the village of Kvasiv, Horokhiv district, Volyn oblast. A doctor by profession, she is the author of 22 books of poetry (Mother’s Flowers, Following the Birds, My Swallows, Berestechko: a Sacred Path, The Breaker, A Farewell to Winds, etc.). Ms. Leshchuk’s works make part of 11 anthologies, including seven international ones. As an amateur composer, she published a book of her own songs. The Lviv Television Studios has produced several films based on her works and scripts. A member of the Ukrainian National League of Writers. An Honorary Citizen of Volyn. In 2001 Leshchuk was awarded the International Peace Prize. Her poetry was especially widely acclaimed in Italy, which conferred a number of international prizes on the poetess, including a Silver Rose for high poetry. In 2002 Leshchuk was awarded the title of Honorary Member of the Universal Academy (in the field of poetry) under the UN auspices. She was awarded an Order of Princess Olha, 3rd Class.
Ms. Leshchuk is an active public and political figure. She facilitated the opening of the Lesia Ukrainka Museum in Yalta and the house museum of Lesia Ukrainka in San Remo, Italy. She was the first to raise the question of immortalizing the memory of Ukraine’s national hero Ivan Bohun. She is the founder and manager of the Bohun charitable foundation.
