The outstanding Ukrainian writer Oles Honchar would have been 90 last Thursday. He began his writing career as the author of novellas and short stories that appeared in 1938. By 1947 he had published The Standard Bearers, a trilogy of novels that became a milestone in Ukrainian literature. As Ivan Drach writes in the foreword to the seven-volume edition of Honchar’s collected works, “there are individual, even rare, books that not only leave a mark on the soul of a reader but on an entire nation. The Standard Bearers is one of these books.”
In 1974, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Serhii Danchenko, the chief director of the Maria Zankovetska Theater in Lviv, asked Honchar for permission to adapt his novel The Standard Bearers for the stage. The writer’s widow Valentyna reminisced that Honchar “remained at a distance, he didn’t take part in this. This was the job of the theater that he trusted completely.” Myron Kypriian was appointed production designer, and, as far as music was concerned, Danchenko hit upon a fantastic idea.
The Lviv poet Roman Kudlyk, who is today the editor of the journal Dzvin, recalls: “One day Serhii Danchenko, who was the director of the Maria Zankovetska Theater, revealed his intention to stage a play based on Honchar’s novel The Standard Bearers.
‘And I need a composer.’
‘But I think there are lots of good composers in Lviv.’
‘What would you say if I invited Ivasiuk?’
“I was very excited by Serhii’s idea. I offered to introduce them to each other, I located Volodia [Ivasiuk — Ed.], who was a bit alarmed by the invitation, but he agreed. Some people took a dim view of the choice of composer because composing music for theater productions is a specific kind of work. But Ivasiuk did a really superb job!”
This period is the subject of the novella “A Monologue before the Son’s Face,” which was written by Ivasiuk’s father Mykhailo. He writes that “it was a real treat for Volodia that Danchenko was dramatizing the novel The Standard Bearers and invited him to compose the music for the play.” Volodymyr wrote to his father around Jan. 20, 1975 (the letter was received on Jan. 23). “I am working on The Standard Bearers and showed something to the director a few days ago. Everything was unanimously approved, and when I go to Kyiv one of these days I will record the soundtrack. The premiere is going to be a serious event because Honchar and some comrades from regional party committees will be there.” In an interview Ivasiuk said: “Of course, this is a very demanding job because the book is now a classic, which our people like very much. It is being staged for the first time. The process was very difficult. There were long talks with the director, who helped me a lot. I composed and recorded the music with a symphony orchestra in Kyiv.
“This work is also interesting in that there are three songs in the play to texts that Honchar had created long before he wrote the novel. As far as I remember, the director said, these were poems that laid the groundwork for the future novel.”
Volodymyr’s sister Halyna Ivasiuk-Krysa recalled how difficult it was to record the soundtrack. There was no place in Lviv to do this, so Volodymyr went to Ukraine’s capital.
According to Kudlyk, the production was still in the making but “all the actors who were taking part in it and those who were not were singing the song about the regimental colors — not during rehearsals, just to themselves. We instantly memorized this sunny and serene song, which is unforgettable for its solemnity and lyricism, and we were looking forward to the performance.”
The well-known actress Larysa Kadyrova, who played the role of Shura Yasnohorska, recalled: “The music in this production is simply wonderful. Volodia Ivasiuk came to the theater to see every rehearsal. He was also there when we were rehearsing the scene of Yasnohorska’s arrival at the front. There was no music yet, I was reciting a monologue. And he came up to me and asked how on earth I could cry on command. Well, nobody told me to cry, but the role suggests this: imagine you are happily anticipating meeting your beloved, the one you’ve been waiting for so long, unaware of wounds, bombs, blasts, and all the terrible things that war brings. And suddenly all this is cut short, and you realize that this is impossible (Shura learns that Briansky has been killed in action). And then, like it or not, you begin to sympathize and this strikes your inner chords.
“And Volodia said, ‘That’s wonderful!’
“And I asked him, ‘How do you compose music, such enchanting melodies?’
“‘I take them from the air, from sounds and water. They whisper all this to me.’
“The song that he composed is a wonder. It was the quintessence of the whole play. God bestowed a musical talent on him, and he took to it like a fish to water.
“I would say the song ‘Regimental Colors’ was the play’s leitmotif. Theater critics had high praise for the Lviv production, and The Standard Bearers won the Grand Prix at the All- Union Competition of Theatrical Productions,” Kadyrova said.
The above-mentioned episode is accompanied by beautiful music, which bears the seal of a genius. Like almost all of Ivasiuk’s instrumental works, this work was simply lying in the composer’s archive, which had been preserved by his father. It was not until 1989 that the elder Ivasiuk gave the work to the talented violinists Liudmyla Shapko and Pavlo Chobotov, who added “Melody” to their repertoire, thus revealing another facet of Ivasiuk’s talent to his many fans. Ukrainian Radio still has a recording of the radio production of The Standard Bearers, in which this music is performed by a symphony orchestra.
The song “Regimental Colors” has not been forgotten either: it is still part of the repertoire of the well- known actor Anatolii Khostikoiev. “My artistic career got off to a flying start, when I was assigned the first-class role of Junior Lieutenant Chernysh in Honchar’s The Standard Bearers. The writer entrusted the stage adaptation to none other than Serhii Danchenko. There had never been a production of this kind in Kyiv. Oles Honchar came to see our premiere, and with tears in his eyes he said that my Chernysh reminded him of when he was young,” Khostikaiev recalled.
The distinguished theater expert Rostyslav Kolomiiets described the premiere. “Immediately after Vorontsov’s epic prologue, the comrades-in-arms Chernysh (Anatolii Khostikoiev) holding a guitar, Briansky (Bohdan Kozak), and Sahaida (Fedir Stryhun), appeared on stage, singing a song: “Tomorrow I am going to Ukraine // which I left so long ago.// I’m kneeling down to kiss my regimental colors.”
“This was not the customary musical accompaniment but rather a kind of agreement between the theater and the spectators, who were not offered any gunshots, blasts, or patriotic declarations but a heart- to-heart talk about people caught up in war. They seemed to be singing for and about themselves, as if there were no audience.”
Valentyna Honchar recalled March 19, 1975, the day that The Standard Bearers had its premiere: “On the whole, the impression was good, although Oles Terentiiovych said the production could have been more dynamic. But what he liked most was the music.’
Ivasiuk wrote an emotional letter to his father after the first premiere (the second was to take place the next day), saying that the production was a total success and “Honchar shook my hand.”
There were rave reviews of The Standard Bearers, which noted the play’s naturalness, suspense, storminess, and even a certain “whodunit” flavor. The production went off with flying colors and, as Kadyrova recalls, wherever the Lviv company toured with the play, it always drew enthusiastic, sold-out houses. Unfortunately, soon after the composer’s tragic death, the stage sets were destroyed in a fire. Today only the radio version of the production remains, as well as some fragments of the original score that have been preserved in the composer’s archive, and which can be heard at the Volodymyr Ivasiuk Memorial Museum in Chernivtsi.
The museum has a billboard from the premiere. It is no ordinary billboard, as it is covered with the autographs of almost all the participants in the premiere, including Serhii Danchenko, who wrote: “Congratulations, Volodia! I want to meet with you again and again! Kost Hubenko wrote: “May Ivasiuk’s music always be so wonderful!”
Among those who wished Volodymyr success were the actors Vitalii Rozstalny, Yurii Brylynsky, Bohdan Kozak, Bohdan Stupka, Larysa Kadyrova, and Natalia Minosian. Somebody suggested Ivasiuk for the position of the theater’s full-time composer. Fedir Stryhun, who may have been under the spell of “Regimental Colors,” wrote, “I am going to Ukraine tomorrow!” Stryhun visited the Ivasiuk Museum in 2001. Reminiscing about the memorable production, he wrote in the guest book, “Let us love and venerate Volodia Ivasiuk, because in his lifetime he was underloved, undercherished, and undervenerated. We could not fully understand who was living next to us.”
The Standard Bearers was a great success for the young composer. Thereafter, Ivasiuk rose in rank from “writer,” as he was known in official quarters, to “composer.” But he was too modest and noble- minded to take advantage of his status. After returning to his native Chernivtsi, he said in a radio interview on Chernivtsi oblast radio, “This year I talked somewhere about the staging of The Standard Bearers at the Maria Zankovetska Theater in Lviv, the success of the play, the great relations between the Lviv spectators and the republic, and also about the fact that this production has been nominated for the Shevchenko Prize. This is just to summarize what has been done in the past year.” Not once during the interview did he talk about himself.
It was therefore strange and painful to hear the creator of the film Volodymyr Ivasiuk: His Life as a Torn Musical String say that Honchar was a young playwright and that the work on The Standard Bearers score exhausted the composer. Perhaps he was thinking of the year 1977, when Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture asked Ivasiuk to compose a cantata called “Sense of a United Family,” which he never completed. When it comes to geniuses, one should be careful with the facts.
Volodymyr Ivasiuk died in the spring of 1979, predeceasing Ukraine’s oldest composer Stanislav Liudkevych, also a resident of Lviv, who died that same year in September. Oles Honchar recorded in his diary on Sept. 10 that two great Ukrainian composers had passed away: the oldest, Liudkevych, and the youngest, Ivasiuk. “Ukraine is huge and has a lot of talents, but there is no one to replace them.”
Nearly 30 years have passed since the deaths of these two composers and more than 12 years since Honchar’s death, but there is still no one to replace these great individuals.
The Day is grateful to Natalia Moroz, the head of collections at the Volodymyr Ivasiuk Memorial Museum in Chernivtsi, for her assistance in locating materials for this article.
