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A UKRAINIAN SUNSET by CHRISTINA HANCHER Poetry can do what little else can. It can make peo ple think, make people feel, show the beauty of the world, or show its ugliness. Poetry is an exercise of words that takes language to its highest reaches. For me, it reintroduced my family’s original language. My family had fallen away from speaking Ukrainian because for second generation Americans, English was just eas ier. My own Ukrainian had been in a state of non-growth since we moved away from my grandparents when I was five years old. But reading a Ukrainian poem this past year gave me a sense of my Ukrainian language, history and thought. It was a warm summer evening at my grandparents’ house. I was surrounded by mountains of musty books. I held one of them in my hands, the Kobzar, a volume of poetry by Taras Shevchenko. In the dining room where I sat, the aroma of stuffed cabbage hung in the air, mak ing my mouth water. Gently I carressed the worn volume, reluctant to begin reading. It was a beautiful night and I could have been outside enjoying a walk. The next day was supposed to be sweltering again. At the same time, I felt anticipatoin, it had been a long time since I had read something in Ukrainian and I wondered what it would be like. My grandfather, a man of medium build, was in his gray, worn sweater looking at me with his soft, blue eyes. He was delighted in my interest and ready to help with anything. In fact, he was ready to push. In quiet Ukrainian, he spurred me on, “Christina, come on. Open the book. Come on, it is not that hard. Well, read aloud so I can hear you. Come on, that’s a girl!” I sighed, opened the volume carefully so the pages did not crumble beneath my fingers, and began sound ing out the Cyrillic syllables, “Son-se Za-kho-dit’” (The Sun is Setting) by Taras Shevchenko. “Very good, Christina!” Dido smiled. "The Ukrainian national poet laureate would be proud!” I smiled weakly in return. The truth be told, I was not that proficient in Ukrainian, for lack of practice, and it was a very humbling experience to try reading. I could go through a good sized English book in two hours. A page of Ukrainian would take just as long. I realized how slow and frustrating this was going to be. The crickets began calling like Sirens outside the window. My grandfather egged me on. “Come on, let us try to read the poem now.” Reluctantly, carefully, I began to step through the sounds and to form familiar and unfamiliar words. My vocabulary was decent, but far from great. It was only enough to get the gist of a regular conversation and carry on an elementary one. What I lacked was an expanded, educated vocabulary. “What does ’li-noo’ mean?” I asked. My grandfather was thoughtful as he tried to give me a good translation. “The literal translation is ‘to fly’ or ’to float’ or something of that sort. Here it speaks of Shevchenko’s vearning for his homeland. You see in the phrase here ‘and with my heart I fly/lnto the dark garden of Ukraine/I fly, fly, dwelling on thoughts/And it is as if my heart rests.’” While I went over the phrase again, it struck me how beautifully Shevchenko expressed himself. Ukrain ian had always been for me conversational and practi cal. At times I would enjoy listening to the tones and resonance of the language, but never had I been exposed to such wonderful usage. The way Shevchenko’s words flowed off the tongue reminded me of honey — thick, warm, and golden. It gave a true feel for the Ukrainian language. I was reminded of a Russian woman who had once remarked that Ukrainian was one of the most mus ical languages she had ever heard. I read one of the lines aloud, “Li-noo ya, li-noo, doo-moo ha-day-yoo.” Outside the sound of crickets dimmed as I con tinued to read, slowly chewing out each word. It was getting easier to read with each word and before I knew it I had come to the last line. I took a deep breath and read aloud, “Pro moyoo dolenkoo, shchob yi ne chuly!” (About my fate, better they never hear). I paused, “But why, what happened to him?” Dido was somber. “When he wrote the poem, he was serving a prison term in Siberia because of his out spoken cries for the freedom of Ukraine.” I thought about Ukraine, her freedom, and my fam ily. I looked up at my grandfather and thought of his two brothers who were shot while fighting against the Bol sheviks after World War II, trying to make Ukraine free. I wondered if my great-grandfather had the emotions of this poem when he was in Siberia paying for his sons’ sins. I felt sad, not only for my family’s suffering, but because I took for granted the freedom to have the cul ture they had suffered and died for. After years of tyranhy as part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine is finally free, at least from Russian communists. There is pov erty, hunger, and much suffering, but the beauty of the language and culture survive. As the Ukrainian national anthem proclaims, “Shche ne vmerla Ukraina” (Ukraine has not died yet). Looking around the room, I noted all the Ukrainian artifacts — the carved wooden chandelier, the embroi dered tablecloth. No, Ukraine will always be alive as long as her heritage is remembered. My Dido pat me on the shoulder. “Good job! Now read it through again, all ’НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 1995 23
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