The name of the legendary Ukrainian composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk has turned into a bartering chip in the hands of politicians and a tool used by spin doctors, whereas honoring his memory has become another cynical campaign stunt. In early September, Mykola Romaniuk, head of the Chernivtsi organization of the Party of Regions, addressed the media people present at its regular meeting and said that a monument to Volodymyr Ivasiuk would be erected in a public garden near the National University. He stressed that this was not a one-time party project and that it had nothing to do with the presidential campaign.
“We couldn’t do this without Ivasiuk’s relatives’ knowledge and consent, although we did have ready designs and sketches of the monument. When we discussed the matter with Ivasiuk’s relatives, they said, ‘We’ll build this monument ourselves.’ In other words, his family didn’t want the Party of Regions to erect in Bykovyna a good monument financed by philanthropists,” said Romaniuk.
The local PR organization explains this attitude of the Ivasiuk family by the composer’s sister Oksana being married to Viktor Pavliuk, first vice governor of Bukovyna and deputy head of the regional Our Ukraine organization. Romaniuk pointed out that the Party of Region had not abandoned the idea of honoring the memory of the author of Chervona Ruta: “We have another Chervona Ruta memorial project, with the monument to be unveiled in Filarmonia Square, and my colleagues and I will carry it out by all means. Yan Tabachnyk will help us present this project. I’m sure it will turn out beautiful. We wanted to make a present to Bukovynians to commemorate Ivasiuk’s 60th anniversary. It didn’t work out. We’ll do something different that will,” said Romaniuk.
Volodymyr Ivasiuk’s younger sister Oksana, associate professor at the Department of Ukrainian Literature, Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, declinend comment at the time, but later she made an exception for The Day:
“Chernivtsi hosted the 20th jubilee festival Chervona Ruta in mid-September. It attracted a number of admirers of Volodymyr Ivasiuk’s creative legacy and young performers from various countries. It commanded keen public attention in Ukraine.
“Ten or fifteen days later, the [local] Party of Regions leader made a statement about the construction of a monument to Volodymyr Ivasiuk and specified to the media that it would be unveiled in a public square, near the university. I read this in a newspaper and was dumbfounded, because this public garden already has a monument to Sydir Vorobkevych, a noted Ukrainian composer, writer, and public figure. It’s true that there are two almost identical monuments like this in Chernivtsi, but the one in the public garden by the university (which the PR intends to replace with a monument to Ivasiuk) was erected by my father Mykhailo Ivasiuk.
“It was in the early 1990s. In that stormy period, when people were in misery, the Bukovynian community passed the hat around and built a monument to Vorobkevych, thus paying tribute to his talent.
“Honestly, my first thought was it was another political hot air session, because the whole idea sounded so weird. That was why I declined comment. But on November 25, Mykhailo Ivasiuk’s birthday, the [local] PR leader once again raised the matter of the monument to Ivasiuk in a campaign speech, saying they wanted to make a present for Bukovynians, but the [Ivasiuk] family refused it. Let me stress that no PR people discussed the idea with me, and no one asked my opinion or showed me a single draft design. I think that people who make such statements don’t know what the cultural process is all about and that such projects can’t be carried out overnight, in a slapdash way, just because someone wants them.
“Such projects mustn’t be used as campaign stunts. The way Mykola Romaniuk and his Party of Regions are acting is unethical. This is obviously a political speculation that involves my brother’s name. My guess is that Mykola Romaniuk has never set foot in the Ivasiuk Memorial Museum. By the way, the last time I saw Romaniuk was 10 years ago in Prague where I was teaching at the university. We met with him and his family in a pub and spoke only about beer. That was my only meeting with him. After his statements I have no trust in him. Even if the PR asked my opinion about the monument to Volodymyr Ivasiuk, I would say a resolute no!”
A memorial plaque dedicated to Volodymyr Ivasiuk will shortly be unveiled on a wall of a building of the Bukovynian Medical Academy. It is designed by the noted sculptor I. Salevych who organized a triennial event as part of the festival Chervona Ruta and created a composition dedicated to the composer in 1988. He spent a long time working on the composer’s sculptural image, assisted by a number of consultants. He often visited the museum with sketches and other materials and spoke to Ivasiuk’s friends and other people who knew him.
