November 29 marked the centennial of brilliant Ukrainian novelist Hryhory Kosynka

Kosynka appeared on the literary horizon in 1919. At a high school evening literary course he was asked to write a composition in verse on the subject “The Golden Years of Childhood.” What he produced was prose but permeated with sparkling childish lyricism. Perhaps best described as a novella, it recalls a dream and is called “Off to Harvest Beets.” Critics believe it to be Kosynka’s first literary work. And Kosynka was a pen name. His real name was Strilets (literally, sharpshooter). What made him change this proud name for a modest inconspicuous pseudonym (Kosynka literally means a triangular kerchief or scarf)? A literary critic pointed out that it was the man’s humble view on his own creativity; others said that striltsi, the Sharpshooters, was a notion belonging to a hostile army (the Sich Sharpshooters who fought for Petliura against the Bolsheviks — Ed. ) and that the pen name with a folk coloration was an attempt to protect oneself from the wrath of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Most likely, he chose the pseudonym because he hated pomp in any form, even if reflected in his own name. He peeled things pompous off his life the way one peels potatoes, thus showing what could only be regarded as criminal disloyalty to the vital principles of the Soviet epoch where flag-waving was the only survival tactic.

To the bathos of “party-mindedness” Kosynka opposed the naked truth in literature. And the truth of life and revolution at the time was that (a) only a handful could experience all the joys of life and live comfortably, and (b) a person refused to out up with something he lacked personally. The omnipresent principle of universal seizure and redistribution was treated by Kosynka like a diagnosis and not like a political commissar would. Thus his position, in contrast to that of his time, was militantly apolitical: the “redistribution of benefits” (in other words, class struggle) could be motivated only psychologically (on the verge of physiological impulsion), but never ethically, because all talk about so-called justice was meaningless (see clause {a} above).

His short story style was ultra- realistic, without any symbolic frills. The plot and characters were clear-cut, strikingly true to life, profoundly psychologically motivated. Short sentences, his pet suspension points (after both an exclamation or question mark). And he was very fond of interjections, because one could put so much meaning into them. Also, he was careful to avoid specific verbs, using eloquent pauses and multiple meanings.

His works were also clearly an alternative to Bolshevik agitprop. What could pass unnoticed in Aesopian language became apparent in the ambivalence of his psychological portrayals. Soviet literature noticed a Bolshevik that abided by anything but idealistic principles (“The Questionnaire”) but failed to notice the same in a kulak (“Politics”) or a private in the White Guard (“A Story without Moral”). In the whirlpool of “redistribution” all are equal because all get something: “In the morning [after the battle] a scared and cowardly two-legged animal woke up and raced downtown; he ran and pushed, getting in crashed glass, with a happy smile... Oh, he was so fond of political upheavals! The main thing was finding a comfortable place with the new master...” (“Three Way Battle”). According to the ideologists Kosynka — who was born into the poorest of peasant families and had to start working practically as soon as he learned to walk; that he described peasant children relying on his own experience (“they are so pale, probably not because they have plenty of fatback to eat”), and whose children “dreamed of milk” — was a “kulak agent in Soviet literature.”

Of course, he could only end in being shot. He was arrested on November 1, 1934, charged with involvement in a “terrorist White Guard group.” On December 18, the press carried an official announcement of his execution. However, this was a death sentence passed by the epoch. The important thing was that in his works Kosynka not only leveled the pathos of class struggle but also revealed its essence as not just dirty pool but a crime: “The door was kicked off the hinges with a rifle butt and Yurchyk [the teacher] realized that they came for him... yes, his death came before dawn... Yurchyk sat up in his bed. Gray figures warily stepped into the room, rifles trained on him. ‘Are you Yurchyk?’ a drunken nervous voice inquired. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘You bastard, you Ukrainized the school and propagated labor principles.’ The officer’s voice was trembling and he barked coarsely at the gray figures, as though in a hurry to leave, ‘You wanted Bolshevism, pigeon.’ ‘But I...’ Yurchyk started and never finished. Another short command was barked. And the silver thread was severed.” (“Before Dawn”). Yakiv Savchenko noted in the 1920s that Kosynka was “the most bloodthirsty” of his colleagues, that with him “social conflicts invariably end in death. While the first pages of a story are warmed by the tender colors of nature, the closing ones are washed in blood. All Kosynka heroes are one large ‘Kaidash Family’ allowed to shoot at each other; he describes them very much like Stefanyk, using brief, strong, and terrifying statements, while making the whole thing hopelessly fatal and deadly in his own Kosynka way.

Hryhory Kosynka was formally rehabilitated in 1957, due to the “absence of incriminating evidence.” The NKVD could not prove anything against him, because his principal offense was the one once ascribed to the noble metals: always remaining its true organic self, without responding to the environs. Perhaps a virtue which a wise man considered the greatest asset, instructing in his last will to carve these words on his gravestone: “The world tried to catch me and never did.” And the hunt is still on. It is eternal.