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12 WWW. UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 2012 VOLODYMYR IVASIUK: THE SYMBOL OF AN ERA by Olesia Wallo On my visit to L'viv this summer, as I was strolling down the Shevchenko Avenue, I stopped to admire one of the city's newest monuments — an 8 - foot bronze statue of the celebrated Ukra i- nian composer, Volodymyr Ivasiuk. Sculpted by Serhii Oleshko, it shows a slim and youthful Iv a- siuk, casually dressed, who loo ks like he is on his way to some nearby destination — perhaps the l o- cal philharmonic, which is just steps away from the Shevchenko Avenue. In fact, this was precisely the idea behind the monument's location: Svia - toslav Vakarchuk, the frontman of the popular band Okean Elzy , suggested placing the statue en route from the conserva tory to the philharmo n- ic — a path often taken by L'viv's students of music and likely used by Ivasiuk himself. Sviatoslav V a- karchuk was also the one who generously spo n- sored the monumen t. Unveiled in late 2011 , it is the only statue to a composer out of L'viv's fifty - some mon u- ments. But, of course, Ivasiuk's significance for L'viv goes beyond his credentials as an incredibly gifted musician and song - writer, the author of such popular hits as "The Red Rue" ( Chervona ruta ) and "The Fountain" ( Vodohrai ). After his fateful disappearance in 1979, the shocking di s- covery of his body in the woods outside L'viv, and the not unfounded suspicions of the KGB's hand in his death, Ivasiuk's funeral in L'viv resembled a political demonstration in which thousands of people had gathered to protest the suppression of Ukrainian culture. The well - known contemporary writer, Maria Matios, who was close to the Ivasiuk family in her youth and had attended the funeral, has recently published her memories of that day. In her Torn Pages from the Autobiography (2011), Matios reports what she had told her fellow st u- dents at the Chernivtsi University upon her return from L'viv. "I told them that all of L'viv was "hanging" off of the trees as well as the rooftops of trams and apartment buildings; that L'viv's o lder res i- dents were saying out loud that Ivasiuk was mu r- dered because he wrote Ukrainian songs which took over the world, wiping out the competition of Russian songs; they were saying that L'viv had not heard or seen anything like it since the funeral of I van Franko; I told them about the speech given at the Lychakiv cemetery by the then President of the L'viv Writers' Union, Rostyslav Bratun', who L’viv monument to Volodymyr Ivasiuk. spoke not of a conservatory student's death but of the death of a great Ukrainian composer; (...) I told them about the eerie feeling of unreality when the Lychakiv cemetery exploded in the song " Chuiesh, brate mi i ? " ( "My brother, do you hear?" ) — at that moment, it seemed that my hair stood on end for it was the first time in the 19 years of my life that I had heard singing at a ce m- etery." ( Vyrvani storinky z avtobiohrafii , 156 - 7) In the Soviet 1960s and 1970s, when d i- rect forms of political protest against the t otalit a- rian regime were largely unavailable, Ukrainians, especially the younger generation, found oppos i- tional potential in various forms of popular cu l- ture, including Ukrainian and Western music and even soccer. In his memoir, rock musician Il'ko Lemko re calls how the fans of the L'viv soccer team Karpaty would turn out by the thousands to march across the city after some games chanting Go, Karpaty! and Freedom to Ukraine! inte r- changeably. Volodymyr Ivasiuk's famous music and especially his momentous funeral made him into something of a symbol of that era.
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