A poet’s message

Exhibits of the project “I Was Burning for You, the Ukrainian People...” include manuscripts, first editions of the poet’s works, his personal belongings, and photos. Some items are unique, like Symonenko’s handwritten Main Notebook, part of the collection of the National Museum of Literature of Ukraine (NMLU). The notebook comprises poems written in 1961 and 1962, including now-classical “Swans of Motherhood.”

“There were several variations of this poem, the notebook has a different version penciled in,” head of the NMLU exhibition department and creator of this display Oksana Derkach told us. “Symonenko’s mother Hanna Shcherban donated this manuscript to our museum when we traveled around Ukraine collecting exhibits in the 1980s.”

Other exhibits include manuscripts from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine’s Shevchenko Institute of Literature’s collection, in particular Symonenko’s letter to his friend Vasyl Didenko who authored lyrics of “Mist over the Valley,” a hit song of the 1960s. The brief letter shows how much the poet cared about his friends. Symonenko published several of Didenko’s poems in Molod Cherkashchyny newspaper where he worked. For an unknown reason, Didenko refused to receive his royalty. “I will assign the fee to your father, seeing that you just do not need the money,” Symonenko’s letter to Didenko reads. The poet signed his letters to friends with simple words “Yours, Symon.”

Black-and-white photos depicting Symonenko’s life bring out a strong emotional response from visitors. They show the poet enthusiastically talking on the phone, resting together with the Zhaivoronok Choir singers, taking a boat ride or just smiling widely. These pictures were taken by Ihor Osadchy, Molod Cherkashchyny’s staff photographer. Subsequently, Osadchy produced photo album Three Years with Him, depicting Symonenko and his friends. The photos on display at the museum of literature include those taken at the poet’s funeral following his tragic death aged 28. The unique pictures show Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Ivan Svitlychny, and other Sixtiers. Artist Alla Horska led the funeral procession carrying an armful of viburnum.

It was Horska who painted the famous portrait of Symonenko, featuring black background, his profile with open forehead, blood-red viburnum and bayonets. Shocked by the poet’s death, the artist created this painting in a few days after the event. Artist Volodymyr Yevtushevsky created a lighter portrait of Symonenko, showing the poet surrounded by mallow flowers which symbolize Ukraine. Even the frame is covered in mallow flowers, which run around the world, just like Symonenko’s poems which have become part of the folk culture.

The poet saw just one poetry collection published in Soviet Ukraine in his lifetime, called Silence and Thunder, as well as works for children. His poems were actively published abroad, for example in the US and Germany. “The Ukrainians abroad saw the poet as a ray of light. His uncensored works were published in every place which had Ukrainian diaspora presence,” Derkach stressed. The poet’s legacy was kept under wraps in his homeland into the 1980s. Despite the public nominating Symonenko for the Shevchenko Prize posthumously in 1965, the authorities rejected this nomination, and he received this award only in 1995.

Chief message of the exhibition “I Was Burning for You, the Ukrainian People...” can be expressed via lines from Symonenko’s poem “I Gaze into Your Lovely Eyes,” where the poet addresses Ukraine, which he sees as a miracle and a prayer: “Let America and Russia keep silence when I talk to you, Ukraine.”

“We regularly hold Symonenko-themed exhibitions, and each of them is different in concept from the previous one,” Derkach said. “This time, we have focused on the principle that the Ukrainians’ fate is up to them, as we are responsible for our own country. Meanwhile, Symonenko is associated with Ukraine and is a model of conscience.”

The exhibition will run until February 15.