Anatolii DIMAROV: “I have lived all my life to refuse this award”

It has been difficult to get through to the writer’s apartment these days. The news that one of the oldest Ukrainian writers, the Shevchenko Prize laureate refused the Yaroslav Mudry Order awarded by the president became one of the news of The Day. Dimarov’s wife Yevdokia said that “they have made a mess that nobody needs.”

I have been in touch with the Dimarovs for about 10 years now since an important part of their life is connected to Volyn. Actually, the writer has shared with Den a lot of interesting and little-known facts of his unique biography. “Your newspaper supported me in hard times whereas others forgot about me!” Dimarov said when I gave him a call to ask about the story with the order. He said that he had predicted (since he had been given hints) that he would be nominated for the order on occasion of his 90th anniversary. However, he confessed that he did not want any order or medal and had warned about it. Once he declared his position he had no right to step back.

“Personally I think that any writer whose heart aches for their people should be in opposition to any government. This is my strong belief. I do not want to pretend to be smarter than others who were given high governmental awards and accept them. I also have an order given by Viktor Yushchenko, he was a bad president yet he had the Ukrainian spirit. However, that order and its reconsideration contributed to this decision,” Dimarov said. He accepted that the best gift would be the state support in publishing his books. He has written five books over the years of independence but published them for the money donated by not indifferent people and the number of copies was low. The state was only able to publish his book he got the Shevchenko Prize for and published the first volume of his memoirs Prozhyty i Rozpovisty (Live and Tell) in a limited edition for the Crimea. Nearly every time when I visited Dimarovs’ apartment it was filled with his books he had to sell himself. Now it has been decided to publish several volumes of his books. However, Dimarov does not believe in it that much.