When compiling his collection of poetry, Returning to Europe (Warsaw, 1931), Polish writer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz included in it his translation of Yevhen Malaniuk’s lyrical epistle To Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, a line from which has been quoted in the subheading. In the collection it is preceded by Iwaszkiewicz’s poem Prague dedicated to Malaniuk. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian original of Malaniuk’s poem has not been discovered. The manuscript mailed to Iwaszkiewicz from Prague was obviously the only copy.
In most probability, Yevhen Malaniuk’s sincere lyrical declaration of brotherly love came as a follow-up to a previous letter to Iwaszkiewicz. Nonetheless, it has occasioned this discussion of the friendship of the two Slavic writers. It began with their first meeting in the early 1920s. A group of Polish writers of the Scamander literary association visited the Polish camps of the Ukrainian People’s Republic interned army in Kalisz-Szczypiorno, where fate also brought Yevhen Malaniuk. It was then that he befriended Polish writers Tuwim, Podgurski-Okulow, Wenzynski, Slonimski, and Iwaszkiewicz.
That meeting and Malaniuk’s subsequent occasional visits to Krakow resulted in his first translations from Polish and an article titled At a Neighbor’s: Profiles of Polish Poets published in Lviv-based Mamai magazine (1923). Later, after reading poetry from the pages of Scamander reprinted in the camp magazine Veselka [Rainbow], Malaniuk praised Iwaszkiewicz, Tuwim, and Slonimski: “Confident are the hands of A. Slonimski that hold the banner of Scamander, a banner of poetry and virtuosity. He is assisted above all by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, a litterateur par excellence. Occasionally, as a mighty gust of wind, the powerful and wild poetry of Julian Tuwim sweeps through the magazine, leaving on its pages a whiff of the sea and lands that smell of an outlandishly scorching sun.”
It did not take long for Iwaszkiewicz to offer his comments on Malaniuk’s poetry. On the pages of Scamander (1923, Nos. 29-30) he published a review of a poetic collection called Ozymyna [Winter crops] by three emigre poets M. Selehiy, M. Osyka, and Yevhen Malaniuk (Kalisz, 1923). In particular, speaking of Malaniuk’s poetic contribution, he said, “Yevhen Malaniuk is calmer and more pleasant. A weighed concept and focused perception are his characteristic features. His form might be too monotonous, his rhyming too banal, yet more than once has he managed to move me with a truly poetic word.” It is worth noting that this was the first review of the collection, and Malaniuk could not help but stress this on the pages of the camp magazine Veselka, noting not without purpose that “The first review of Ozymyna belongs to the pen of not a Ukrainian but a Pole and that until then none of the Ukrainian periodicals on the other side of the border mentioned a word about this book.”
In the fall of 1923 Malaniuk went to study in the Czech Republic, and the only contact he maintained with the Polish poets was by mail. This is when he wrote the mentioned lyrical epistle To Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz.
After graduating from the Podebrady Economic Academy, in 1929 Malaniuk settled permanently in Warsaw, and his acquaintance with Iwaszkiewicz developed into cordial friendship. As this author learned from the poet’s son Bohdan Malaniuk, the Iwaszkiewicz family frequently visited the Malaniuks. Moreover, Bohdan recalled gleefully as every summer he, then a child, stayed with his parents at Iwaszkiewicz’s country house outside Warsaw.
The two poets were no doubt linked by their infatuation with poetry, but they had one more common page in their lives, namely Yelysavethrad, where they almost simultaneously received gymnasium education. Iwaszkiewicz studied in the local male gymnasium from 1904 to 1909, while Malaniuk in the local college from 1906 to 1914. Later Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz said sadly: “I wish I could visit old Yelysavethrad, since there I left a part of my boyish heart, there my gymnasium years began.” Incidentally, old Yelysavethrad with its robust Polish community echoes in his famous novel Glory and Praise. This is how the writer himself tells about it in his reply to Odesa researcher Volodymyrsky: “Of course, I knew good Odesa from stories, and because my relatives and friends lived there, and I remembered street names such as those of Richelieu, Deribas, and Langeron for their peculiarities. At the same time I lived in Yelysavethrad and studied at the Yelysavethrad Gymnasium from 1904 to 1909. Yelysavethrad was, so to speak, in the sphere of Odesa’s influence, and there were many Odesa residents and publications. Residents also moved to and fro. I knew the family of Yury Olesza in Yelysavethrad before they moved to Odesa. The entire story of Hania Voloska (Hanka Walska) revolves around Yelysavethrad (not Odesa), Petersburg, New York, and Paris — almost like in my book.”
Fate decreed that both writers witnessed and Malaniuk participated in the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1920 in Kyiv. It was obviously its tragic course that made Iwaszkiewicz leave for Poland in late 1918. Thus, both writers also shared Yelysavethrad, Kyiv, and Ukraine.
The poets could have met once again, but life made this last meeting impossible. In the early 1960s, Malaniuk came to Warsaw to meet with his wife, who lived in Prague (the Czech Embassy in the US refused to give the poet any guarantees regarding his presence in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic). He was warmly received in Warsaw by writer Maria Dombrowska, better known to the Ukrainian reader as Mariyka Pidhirianka, but Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz refused to meet with him. From what his son told me I know that Malaniuk was very distressed by this. Such conduct by Iwaszkiewicz, then chairman of the Union of Polish Writers and a Sejm deputy, can be only attributed to the ruling ideology in the then Polish People’s Republic.
Nonetheless, only cooperation and friendship of the two writers will remain in the history of Ukrainian-Polish literary ties, evidence of which is this postcard mailed by Iwaszkiewicz to Malaniuk and discovered in his New York archive. It was written at a difficult time in the closing months of World War II. The Malaniuk family was forced to flee Warsaw and settle in a small Czech township of Kunsztat, where the letter from Iwaszkiewicz found Malaniuk.
“October 22, 1944. Dear Zhenka!
I wish I could write something definitive about your sister-in-law and family, but still know nothing. We remain in Stawisko, but for how long I don’t know. We had many guests who passed through our house, but have already left one by one. Gozhytsia is in KrakЧw, Andrzejewski and Koliszewski are in Zakopane. My daughter has married, and they both are in Rabce. Few of the literati have died, but the losses are heavy: Kaden, Milaszewski, Izhykowski, young Baczynski. The others are here, on the periphery or in Krakow. We feel like this: Hania (Iwaszkiewicz’s wife — Author) is ailing and will soon undergo an operation. I would like to know how you are doing. Thankfully, my family is complete, only my sister Hanna has died in Warsaw. Taube lives in Milaszewowk. I embrace you heartily and request letters. Your Iwaszkiewicz.”
Warsaw was still under a governor-general, and strict censorship determined the style of the letter. Iwaszkiewicz writes that many of their common friends from Eastern Poland passed through his house, fleeing the front to the West. Those who remained were hiding in the province. Obviously, the Iwaszkiewicz family had to remain in town because Iwaszkiewicz’s wife was ailing, of which he tells Malaniuk. Meanwhile, the sincerity of the author’s feelings does not require comment.
The mentioned archive of Yevhen Malaniuk in the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in the USA also contains a typescript of an undisclosed edition of Malaniuk’s poem with a dedication to Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz. It is unknown when the poet compiled the poems written in different years (1920, 1927, 1930) into a single cycle, much like it is unknown why the readers never came to read the poet’s Triptych. Subsequently, poems of this cycle were published as separate works in collections of poetry The Ring of Polycrates (1939) and The Last Spring (1959). It is not ruled out that Triptych was written after the release of Iwaszkiewicz’s collection Returning to Europe with a poem Prague dedicated to Malaniuk. In any case, there is no doubt that Triptych was compiled between the two World Wars. At the same time, I consider it appropriate to present to the readers an abstract from the poem, which mentions Krakow (Malaniuk further writes about Prague and Kyiv).
Triptych
To my compatriot
Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz
Krakow
In a sweet-sounding moan into the distance.
The lights grow dim, the shadows rise.
In Sukienitsy, at Czartoryiskis’
A bygone miracle comes to life:
Grey-haired troops step from canvases,
With rusty words filling the air.
The night engulfs as if in waters,
And Krakow glimmers from their depths.
‘tis when Orlyk’s shadow roams
This heavy underwater stillness.
Krakow, Prague, and Kyiv are the three Slavic cities that meant very much in the life and friendship of the two writers. Meanwhile, the notes proposed here are but an approximation of the theme of the two writers’ friendship. Fifteen years of correspondence between Malaniuk and Iwaszkiewicz in Warsaw remains largely unread. Much interesting for the research of this page in history is hidden in Iwaszkiewicz’s archive in Warsaw. Thus, the search will continue.
