Irina RATUSHINSKAYA: “When I learned that Marchuk is being criticized for his past I could not remain silent”

“MARCHUK NEVER NAMES THOSE HE HELPED, BELIEVING THAT DOING SO WOULD BE UNETHICAL WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT”

Dear Anatoly:

I wrote the article because I wanted to. I decided to do so after reading Literaturna Ukrayina of March 5, 1998. There was Mariya Matios's sizable interview with Yevhen Marchuk. The issue was brought to London by one of my friends in the fall of 1998. He wanted to know if my name was mentioned there with my consent. It was then I made up my mind. At the time we were already packing the computers and moving from London to Moscow. It would take half a year. Once settled there, I got back to work and suggested to Marchuk that I write something by way of testimony if he needed it.

I had to do to so, if only for reasons of elementary decency. After all, he had treated me with an open heart and done what he could in my case — I also suspect that he had gone far beyond his authority in doing so. And he had never heard a word of thanks from me, not until our telephone conversation when he called me in London. Of course, when I learned that they accuse him of his KGB past I knew I had to bear witness that of all people, that he was not one of the torturers. I had to write what I knew about him. From the interview I understood that there was no one else prepared to testify in Kyiv, even in Verkhovna Rada. Marchuk does not mention their names; he considers that invoking their names would be unethical without their consent. Now that's precisely in character for him, from what I remember. I noticed the trait back in 1986, and with KGB people observing the norms of ethics was anything but common, so it was easy to remember.

Why the “worthiest” (of the former prisoners of conscience) remain silent is their own business. Most likely because they don't want others to suspect them of collaboration with the KGB. And this accusation would be sure to figure in subsequent political attacks. Proving differently would be exhausting, if at all effective. After all, the KGB archives have never been opened. In other words, simply testifying for Marchuk would cost dearly, especially if the one to testify were another politician. On the other hand, we kept silent all those decades; this was something the Soviets firmly instilled in our minds. It did not work on me, yet it is not for me to judge those who remain silent. There could be circumstances of which I know nothing.

Why all the hurry with release and why me and Marchenko of all the prisoners was decided in Moscow. Marchuk received orders and the only thing he could do was to decide whether or not to carry them out. By then Marchenko's book had come out in the West, and so had mine. Our works had been published in several countries and had an impact. No one could deny our existence.

I don't know why Ukrainian samizdat was less known there. The Ukrainian Diaspora is quite large and has many wealthy people. At any rate, in 1986, Ihor (i.e., Ihor Herashchenko, Iryna's husband and comrade-in-arms — A. L. ), Ukrainian and samizdat activist, tried to get a book of Ivan Stus's verse in Kyiv and couldn't. Conspiratorial habits? I don't know. I was locked up at the time.

I take no part in the political games in Ukraine, besides how could I, a Russian citizen, tell Ukrainians whom they should vote for? I hope to God my fellow citizens here in Russia are wise enough to vote so that they won't be sorry afterward.

Now your questions.

EVERY ODESA COURTYARD IS A COMEDY STAGE

1. I was born in Odesa, in 1954, into a Russian family. One of my grandmothers was Polish and had me baptized as a Roman Catholic, but made no emphasis on my religious education. She taught me the Ten Commandments, although I didn't know that at the time. And so when I became a conscious believer it was through the Orthodox Church.

My father was an engineer and mother a schoolteacher. “May you have to live on your pay!” was a traditional curse, but this was the way we lived in a communal apartment and had all the conveniences outdoors and an almost always dry tap on our third floor, so we had to use the hydrant nearby, if it worked, or carry buckets a couple of blocks and back. Well, this was standard procedure in terms of Odesa lifestyle. This and work took up all of my parents' time, so they did their best to teach me to cope on my own as early as they could. Also, they taught me not to tell lies or act like a sissy. Perhaps they wished they had chosen a different tact when I was arrested. But I am still grateful. They did the right thing.

And there were plenty of books at home. Mom and dad saved on everything but books and I quickly turned into an avid reader. They could afford a television when I was 12.

I started writing poems in the second grade; before that I would just think verse, for it seemed so silly sweating over every letter when you could just think the words and memorize them. Creativity was peculiar to Odesa. Those who couldn't write, drew or painted or composed or played music or joined drama groups or signed up for the merchant fleet or told funny stories. Maybe it's the sea or climate. Whatever it was made one express oneself. When you were told that every Odesa courtyard is a stand- up comedy stage it was not a joke but statement of fact. Aware of this, I knew better than show my poems to anybody. But I was soon found out through my university friends, for the rate at which I produced the lyrics for KVN songs was too obvious. They demanded that I show the rest. I agreed easily enough. Actually, I never impose on anyone with my poetry, but if they ask me I show them or recite for them. Of course, some of my friends copied some of the poems they liked best and then showed their friends, then someone composed guitar music and started singing them, and that was already samizdat.

2. I entered the university after they banned KVN on television. KVN had moved to university audiences, and our physics department was very fertile ground. Actually, the currently popular Odesa “Gentlemen's Show” got started there. The team's captain, Vyacheslav Pelyshenko, also Serhiy Ostashko and Oleh Rosyn are all from the physics department. Naturally, I was on the team. And then we started the Humoryna Funny Show, only to discover that it was yet another taboo to last for long tedious years. We were lucky, for the dean and rector were on the lookout, warding off all blows from the outside, while doing their utmost to let us have as much freedom as was practically possible at the period. It was very strange. Soviet power in full malodorous bloom all around us and the university leadership consciously ignoring our ideology. In fact, they were proud of us.

3. I met Ihor when I was 5 and he was 6. Our fathers were friends and now and then our families would have a party or outing. At the time Ihor had three very important assets in my eyes: he was an enthusiastic travel companion on our rooftop ventures; he was fond of Greek myth, and knew a lot about beetles and caterpillars. We had a lot of fun together until it came to discussing Kyiv, Odesa, and which city was better. At this point the two buddies became ardent patriots, each ready to defend the native city tooth and claw. I still wonder how come we never got into a fist fight. As time passed I discovered more and more virtues in Ihor, and in the fall of 1979 we married. I moved to Kyiv to live with him and renting an apartment for a young couple for a long term was anything but easy. By the time of my arrest we had moved eleven times.

MY COURT DECISION RAN TO 21 PAGES

Ihor was Design Engineer First Class in the Academy of Sciences and my dissident experience started there. He was an underground publisher. He and his friends published books using makeshift photo techniques, bound them, and distributed them through an underground library network Ihor organized himself. It was financed by passing the hat, and they received samizdat materials from friends in other cities. Not by mail, of course. And the assortment ranged from The Bible to George Orwell and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. We also exchanged articles with amateur journals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And we signed every article we wrote. That part of our activities was in the open. And we would write letters of protest against violations of human rights (each with a copy sent to the Kremlin, signed and with a forwarding address). Others could sign them, too. Some of those letters gathered signatures being sent from one city to the next. And the times were turbulent: mass political arrests, trouble in Poland, and the Afghan War. And if you look up newspaper files, it was all done “following numerous requests” and with the “wholehearted approval” of the Soviet public. Well, we refused to be part of that public. Of course, our letters were acts of civil disobedience and that was what I heard from the public prosecutor in the courtroom. This and my participation in the human rights demonstration in Pushkin Square in Moscow. And my court decision ran to 21 pages, so listing all the charges would take too long.

And mind you that neither Ihor, nor I were members of any “formal associations.” And what was there at the time? Helsinki watch committees. But the Helsinki agreement not only concerned human rights, but also recognized the postwar frontiers. In other words, the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and not only them. This was something Ihor and me could not accept. We did not want to be members of a Helsinki group that dealt only with human rights. I think people in Ukraine will understand us.

In the three years I spent in Kyiv I did not make many acquaintances in literary circles, and I knew better than hang around the official literati. They were people who had taken one road, and I had other problems as the KGB was already tailing me. Why should I bring my tail there? Unofficial men of letters were a different story. By the way, my warmest regards to Mykola Rudenko and Serhiy Turkulevych. Ivan Svitlychny is no longer among the living and I never met Ivan Stus. I know Yevdokiya Olshanska by correspondence and I hope we will meet her someday. But most of my informal literary friends are not from Kyiv.

4. I don't know how the KGB got hold of my poems, but I could understand their concern. They reported to the Party, and what did that Party want? It was after world domination. And hence it wanted a monopoly on all information, so that not a single line would ever be written or printed without the censor's approval. And it did not matter what that line would be about. Uncontrolled information, regardless of its nature, was assumed anticommunist because it existed contrary to that monopoly. Pasternak and Brodsky were not condemned because they were political in their writings, but precisely because they had the courage not to be controlled.

And all samizdat — be it on yoga, religious, or even Marxist literature (as in the case of Leonid Pliushch) — had to be found, seized, and rooted out. I have never written any political poems. Just read the five poems that were found particularly incriminating in my case. Yet at the very first interrogation, back in 1986, the investigating officer told me, “Your poems were confiscated in the course of searches in Odesa, Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, and Tashkent...” Besides, they had not even been published anywhere abroad. But quite honestly, I was pleased. I did not know that my verse had spread so far and wide. I was 28. Just as I don't know when they made me a Pen Club member. Ihor shouted the news in the courtroom.

I was arrested September 17, 1982. Ihor and I were seasonal workers picking apples on the Lyshnia state farm. Ihor had lost his regular job because of his human rights activities, and my job as a private tutor, completely independent of the state, would begin in October. We were promised to be paid in apples, and we had two weeks' work ahead. And then they came for me. I was summoned to the farm's office early in the morning, allegedly to receive additional instructions before work. I was pushed into a white Volga. And they even showed me their side arms, for they were arresting an especially dangerous state criminal. I still regret that we never got our pay: three tons of apples! The state farm took advantage of the situation, and when Ihor asked to be paid they told him to go to hell. There was nothing he could do; he had enough problems after my arrest. Seasonal teams were exposed to ruthless exploitation. Well, there is no great loss without some small gain. A lot of manual work outdoors had put me in ideal physical shape by the time of arrest. I remember wishing one thing: sleep. If anything, I had ample time to sleep in a KGB prison cell.

I followed Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's advice: keep you mouth shut. I did. From the first until the very last interrogation. They put me in a mental ward for two weeks and I vaguely remember the time, for we were allowed to stay in bed, and that was all I needed. I slept and had sweet dreams. They tried to experiment with me, alternating between stool pigeons and solitary confinement cells. But thanks to the Lyshnia state farm I slept every chance I got.

How did my friends behave? Well, I was lucky. The KGB combed Odesa for incriminating evidence. They questioned everybody at the physics department and conservatory, they put my friends under surveillance (nothing in our telephone conversations, for Ihor and I had known better than trust the phone). Can you imagine my joy? Half a year of pretrial inquest, half a year of silence, and prison brutality. And then I was familiarized with my case before the first court hearing: 13 volumes! And I saw that none of my friends, colleagues, former teachers, dean of the faculty, relatives, and there was not a word. They had interrogated and bullied people in Kyiv, Moscow, Leningrad, and with the same result!

Some of my acquaintances had made unpleasant statements, and I don't care to remember their names. But who they were to me? They said what they were supposed to, that I was a bad Soviet citizen. And I really was. I never wanted to be Soviet. In fact, I was so much anti-Soviet that it sufficed for seven years in a strict security camp plus five years in exile.

Of course, my family was very upset, but they all showed remarkable courage.

MY HATEFUL MOTHERLAND My hateful motherland! There is nothing more shameful than your nights! How lucky you were With your holy fools, Your serfs and executioners! How good you were at spawning loyal subjects, How zealously you destroyed All those who could not be bought or sold But who were condemned to love you! If your frightened ones are innocent, Why are your nightingales silent? Why on the profaned crucifixes Do your tears freeze? How I dream of your crucified ones! How quickly in their footsteps I must follow You — akin, accursed — And go to a similar death! By the most terrible road you possess — The brink of hatred and love — Dishonoured, wretched, Mother — and — stepmother, bless me.

5. My general impressions from prison camp life? Hang on and fight back. Also, how lucky I was to have the fellow inmates I did. I have written on the subject at length. It is a book called Gray Is the Color of Hope. Also, it answers your sixth question.

IF THEY DRUMMED MY NAME INTO GORBACHEV'S EARS IT WAS NOT MY FAULT

7. Just because I wrote a couple of poems I received seven plus five years. No other woman did, not after Stalin's purges. Not one veteran nationalist or Helsinki Group member. Why? Ask the Communists. I never even thought of finding out why someone else should get a shorter term than I did. Actually, no one coveted my “record term” at the time, so why bother now after seventeen years?

Of course, the verdict made a strong impression on all those dealing with human rights all over the world. And the Pen Club did not abandon me, knowing that one of their people was in trouble that bad. And then they got my Chronicles of the Small Zone and three collections of verse from behind the barbed wire. They must have also made an impression. Anyway, I knew nothing at the time, spending most of the time in solitary. Even if they drummed my name into Gorbachev's ears it was not my fault. I would write open letters from the camp, addressed to the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, demanding immediate release of all political prisoners. Every time they would throw me in the hole, but copies of the letters would continue circulating, even though illicitly, through samizdat, and reach outside the Soviet Union to be published. This can be checked, and it will be clear that I never wrote about who was more deserving of being released. Thus, I am hardly the person to ask on this subject.

I CALLED FOR THE RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

8. The first thing I learned when finally at large was that all my friends were still inside. And so what I felt at first was that the respite I had dreamed of would have to wait. There were phone calls from Great Britain, the United States, and the first interviews. No, I was not “boundlessly grateful” to Gorbachev. All his fuss about perestroika amounted to nothing until all political prisoners were set free. They were being tortured and they had to be released while still alive. I had a long list of names. Then there was my first televised appearance in England, the day after arriving, and I broached the same subject, just as I would do when meeting with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, at all my other public appearances, news conferences, meetings with politicians in England, America, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Costa Rica, Australia, and New Zealand. My first book of prose, Gray is the Color of Hope, was dedicated to the same subject. And I spoke about it when receiving literary awards. A bit monotonous for a poet? I also recited my poems, the ones I had written in camp.

The list of names was getting shorter, but so torturously slowly. How could I complain that I needed a break? There was Vladimir Bukovsky doing the same for so many years without a day off and never complaining. And there were Yuri Yarym-Agaev with his Democracy Center (they had the complete lists), and Anatoly Scharansky who had started once on the other side of barbed wire. People were working hard and non-stop.

There is little I can say by way of personal emotions after release. The first couple of days I found it hard getting back to the array of colors, smells, and sounds. I had grown accustomed to an entirely different environment. Also, I had to get used to walking. After a block or two I would start gasping for breath. And it was some time before I could understand where I was waking up every morning. But there was always Ihor at my side.

I met Margaret Thatcher under a Christmas tree. We had landed in London on Christmas Eve. She started praising Gorbachev, saying he was so modern and broad-minded. I told her about the political prisoners and suggested she raise the matter with this modern-thinking man. And gave her a neat folder with names. A bit pushy on my part, but she understood.

I met Ronald Reagan twice. He said he had developed a fancy for my poetry even while I was imprisoned. He read my poems in English, of course. Why a poet, a woman at that, should be kept in jail? He took this as a personal offense. He had an old-fashioned American concept about men having to protect women first. He discussed the matter with Gorbachev, even though pronouncing Ratushynska was a problem, but he had rehearsed. He told me about rehearsing, making me laugh, saying the biggest problem was getting the emphasis right.

Before our meeting some of his people made it clear that we could easily become US citizens. All we had to do was ask, and the President would give it to us (We were stripped of Soviet citizenship while visiting England.) We politely avoided the subject. We really liked Reagan, and I think he felt the same toward us. But liking and asking for citizenship were different things. What if a war broke out? How would we feel then?

The second meeting took place before his trip to Moscow. And of course I had a folder with a list of names with me. That time he skillfully got Petro Ruban out of jail. In Moscow he simply pretended he did not know that the man was still behind bars and declared he wanted to hold a reception for Soviet dissidents and gave a list of invitations, adding that he would be surprised if someone were barred entrance to the US Embassy. At the time Petro Ruban was in solitary, down with a pneumonia. He was whisked to Kyiv, was formally released “at his place of residence,” and was told he could go to Moscow anytime and how we would get there was his business. Petro was a man if iron will. He did not go to bed and made the trip. He came to the reception running a temperature, so he could raise the subject of political prisoners. Others had been released by the time as well, but we were mostly worried about Petro, because pneumonia in a cold solitary prison cell was lethal and every day counted. Reagan understood and handled the situation with a cowboy's practiced skill.

9. The topic that concerns me most in literature and daily life is that we have inherited a minefield. In fact, it is the title of a novel I am finishing. A minefield of hurt ethnic feelings and grievances perfectly justified historically, but very much an unhealthy obsession in our times. Everybody has reason to take offense at everybody else. Even the Scots scowl at the Nigerians. But what about Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, or Polish children? What should they do? If they want to be friends with each other will they be accused of high treason in their respective countries? If they inherit their parents' hatred, won't this minefield start exploding all over the place, at the same time, right under our feet? In short, an ethnic vendetta held nationwide. What is to be done about it?

I CAN'T DISTRUST PEOPLE “ACCORDING TO CATEGORY”

11. In the West we tried to make the best of the situation. I worked for Northwestern University for two years, and then we moved to England. We liked it better there; closer to our native land anyway. All told, we visited some twenty countries. We bought a house in London, and I wrote books. The royalties turned out more than adequate for our needs. Ihor went into business. Parallel to this he graduated from Guildhall University, majoring in jewelry design. That was really his forte; he had been fond of making all kinds of neat little things since childhood. He had one-man shows. And then we concentrated on my medical treatment and the birth of the twins drew the line under our race with time. Besides, we were not planning to stay in England for good. We knew that the day would come for us to return home.

We did not feel isolated from our native culture. But we had two babies and could not travel. Instead, we were often visited by friends and the guest room was practically never empty.

After the boys were six we started getting ready to leave. After all, I could have my works published abroad while in Moscow and we wanted to go home.

12. Why Moscow and not Kyiv or Odesa? You know that I did not live an idle life when in Odesa and then in Kyiv. I wrote poetry and operated in the human rights field rather effectively, so much so that I got indicted in Kyiv. In the West, I also handled matters relating to Soviet political prisoners, among them Ukrainians, of course. Yet this is not enough for me to be treated on an equal footing with them. Is it because I am Russian and all my poems and novels are written in Russian, my mother tongue. In fact, Moscow was Ihor's decision, because no one in Russia asks any questions about his Ukrainian parentage. He is just one of the people, so am I, and so are our children. And they will know Ukraine; their daddy will see to it.

13. The Soviet Union, all its military and security ministries and agencies, were commanded by Communist oligarchs, a very narrow circle. They were bad administrators and turned the economy into a shambles. The man in the street lived in misery, and a handful built fortunes. One could buy newspapers and others could buy television channels, get the media under control, feeding the audiences pink elephant stories in between soap operas and weather forecasts. But this takes a lot of money and money can be received from abroad. They pay good money there if one handicaps the domestic producer, so that foreign firms have no competition here, turning Russian into one huge outlet. A great prospect, isn't it?

I hope that Russia will have the presence of mind to see who is telling lies and who is decent enough to prevent the nation from selling them down the river.

And I don't care who that person will be or whether he was a member of the Communist Party, for so many were: doctors, teachers, athletes, servicemen, and writers. I chose a different road myself, but I cannot blame them, for being a party member meant that there would be less interference with one's work.

Sometimes it is hard to tell who did what. It is easier to condemn indiscriminately. You look at your colleague, once a member of the (Soviet) Writers' Union, meaning that his books were published and he was allowed trips abroad. If you have a rich imagination what will you think? We all know that the Party took jealous care of the Writers' Union. But there were people among its members like Lesiuchevsky and Mykola Rudenko. With Lesiuchevsky everything is clear: an inquisitor and a resourceful one. As for Rudenko, he lost his health in prison camps and exile. But how about those known not for reporting to the KGB or serving terms in prison camps only for the books they wrote? Allowing for the assumption that one is innocent until proven guilty, they were decent people. Or maybe we should use the word decent only with regard to former prisoners of conscience, just to make sure? Does it mean that I should not be friends with Vasily Aksenov or Bella Akhmadullina just because their works were published under the Soviets? Vasily was stripped of Soviet citizenship and Bella was not even expelled from the USSR for reasons best known on high. Well, to each his own. Both remained decent. They always were. I mention only their names, for listing others would take a week.

In a word, I can't distrust people by categorizing them. And if they run for office I will first read their campaign programs. Second, I will try to find out whether they have ever lied and who is financing them. Then I will put the bits and pieces together and will know who is who. And I will cast my ballot accordingly. This is important to me. Because if we vote wrong, the consequences will be devastating. If we vote right the prospects will be dazzling, because we have a great potential. And what is good for my country is good for me.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Irina Ratushynskaya has published five books of prose and over ten collections of verse. Her Gray is the Color of Hope is a novel about a prison camp in Mordovia (1987) published and reprinted fifteen times in the West, and translated into ten languages. It was published in Ukraine in 1994, by a private publishing company. The novel Odessity (Odesa People) (1996) was published in four countries but never in Ukraine, and the same is true of her other novels. Ratushynskaya's verse appeared in over seventeen poetry anthologies of the world's famous poets. She is the recipient of six prestigious international literary awards, including the Templeton Prize, making her the second laureate, together with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in the former USSR.