CHERKASY — This book was published in Cherkasy, at the cost of the local budget, in commemoration of the anniversary of Mykola Nehoda’s death. Of course, de mortuis nil nisi bonum — speak no ill of the dead. His Stepom, stepom… (Through the steppeland soldiers went to war…) marked the peak of Nehoda’s creativity, later made into a song by Anatolii Pashkevych. It became a requiem for the Ukrainian people. You can’t listen to it without tears. Most his researchers agree that this song alone would make his name. The noted Ukrainian writer Oles Honchar wrote: “The poet Mykola Nehoda and composer Anatolii Pashkevych made themselves immortal with the song Stepom, stepom…”
There are quite a few other popular songs to Nehoda’s lyrics, among them Letiat bili chaiky (White Seagulls Flying), Zemle moia, zemle (My Beloved Land), Nad kolyskoiu syna (Over My Son’s Cradle), Za polem rozlohym (Across the Vast Field), Tone more neozore (Over the Boundless Sea).
Shevchenko’s personality was the key motif in his creativity and his best work is Duma pro Kobzaria (Ballad about the Kobzar), about the poet’s last trip to the land of Cherkasy in the summer of 1859. Shevchenko and the people is the theme of Nehoda’s poem Amangul and the poetic series Tarasovymy shliakhamy (Following Taras’ Roads). He is the author of the historical drama Hetman, features Halyna Burkatska and Danylo Narbut, the documentary story Hovorytymu z vikamy (I will Converse with Centuries), novels Kholodny Yar, Otaman Mamai, Bozha kara (God’s Wrath), and the autobiographic story Spovid pered soboiu (Self-Confession).
During the launch of the book Nash Mykola Nehoda. Spohady (Our Mykola Nehoda. Reminiscences), journalist Mykola Zhuk asked those present whether they knew who had started persecuting Volodymyr Sosiura, former Petliurite, for his poem Love Ukraine! No one did, and Zhuk said it was none other than Andrii Malyshko. In the summer of 1951, Sosiura spent four days being lashed out at by a plenary meeting of the Writers’ Union and Malyshko launched the campaign condemning Sosiura’s “ideological perversions.”
“I remembered this story after I read Mykola Snizhko’s reminiscences about Mykola Nehoda (Snizhko was Vasyl Symonenko’s sworn brother). By the way, without Nehoda there would have been no Symonenko (Nehoda was head of the editorial office’s party cell and a member of the Writers’ Union). Symonenko wrote in his diary that Nehoda was making his life very difficult, but one must know the circumstances in which he wrote this, said Petro Zhuk. In his Okraitsi dumok (The Crusts of Thoughts) wrote (Sept. 25, 1963): “Now I’m even more lonesome in Cherkasy, for the kind of people we used to have at Moloda Cherkashchyna are no longer here. I might say that the friendly path between me and Ohloblin has overgrown with thick weed. One of them needed me for as long as I could help him and the other one proved a perfect weathercock. I have no doubt that he will persecute me with the same gusto he praised me previously. Anyway, we have our road to follow.”
After Vasyl Symonenko’s death his diary was published abroad. This served as a litmus test for many men of letters at the time. As for Mykola Nehoda, he wrote an expose published by the newspaper Radianska Ukraina under the title “The Everest of Baseness.” In it he attacked “the so-called friends of the poet” who let the diary be published abroad. Later there was the novel Kholodny Yar in which Nehoda turned out to use excerpts from Yurii Horlis-Horsky’s currently well-known story. True, he returned to the theme of Kholodny Yar later and wrote Otaman Mamai about Yakiv Shchyrytsia, a scholar from Borovytsia, in the vicinity of Chyhyryn, who was popularly known as Mamai. In the foreword Nehoda admits that “I wrote a novel with which I atone for the memory of all those who perished at Kholodny Yar, all those courageous fighters for Ukrainian freedom and independence.” In other words, he plucked up the courage to tell the truth about the heroes of Kholodny Yar.
In a word, it is clear that Nehoda cut a rather controversial figure. Below are comments by friends and colleagues.
Mykola SNIZHKO, journalist, author of the book Ovody Vasylia Symonenka:
“Many years after the commotion caused by ‘The Everest of Baseness’ abated, Nehoda realized (the weathercock turning the other way) that he had made a very bad mistake that writers of the sixties still cannot forgive him. Pondering this sad story, I believe that Nehoda was a hero (perhaps antihero would be the right word) and a dramatic one at that. He was the child of his times, so he may have not known what he was doing — that was his personal drama rating a story by Pushkin, for we see Nehoda beside Symonenko the way Salieri was beside Mozart.”
Dr. Volodymyr POLISHCHUK, lecturer, Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy, compiler of the collection of reminiscences:
“The late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s obviously marked a very difficult, even painful period for Mykola Nehoda. During that period the poet revised his inner and surrounding world, his place in the world. All these bleeding wounds and disillusionments were aggravated by the openly or discretely hostile attitude of his truth-seeking ‘friends,’ including colleagues who had suddenly taken an overly principled stand. This was especially true of Vasyl Symonenko and the novel Kholodny Yar. At one time I tried to take a most unbiased stand in analyzing these issues and Nehoda’s literary career. I wrote the article ‘Let Time Pass Judgment.’ I know that Mykola Nehoda accepted it, along with my criticism.”
Vasyl NECHEPA, kobza player, laureate of the Shevchenko Prize:
“When I studied at school I saw a picture of a young Soviet partisan scout by the name of Mykola Nehoda. This picture was painted by the artist Kuznetsov in 1944, after Mykola, then 16, left the forest. I will always remember Mykola’s large eyes. After the war Mykola Nehoda corresponded with Pavlo Tychyna. The noted poet wrote to Mykola and wrote about him. In 1949, Nehoda finished a 10-grade school without attending classes, enrolled in Kyiv University, but after the third year transferred to Moscow Institute of Literature, together with Lina Kostenko. He presided over the Cherkasy Regional Literary Association for 15 years and the local Writers’ Union organization for 10 years.
“We met in 1977. Cherkasy was hosting an all-Union youth and student competition meant to select laureates for the festival in Cuba. I sang Dibrovo zelena in the final round. I was proclaimed the winner, and I still have the certificate, although somehow I never got to Cuba. At the time I thought that song was my discovery, but then I learned that Mykola Nehoda had written it in 1957, as though especially for me.”
Oleksandr SOLODAR, poet:
“The situation wasn’t that simple. In Cherkasy, Nehoda was known as a laureate of the Symonenko Prize, honorary citizen, and Shevchenko Prize nominee. In Kyiv the attitude to him was entirely different. They never forgave him Horlis-Horsky and many other sins. I believe that he was one of those authors who rubbed elbows with the powers that be, who sang glory to whoever was in power, and retained their place by the official feeding trough. This took place when Ukraine was in the making as an independent state. That’s why he felt mistreated by everyone. Later, he changed his attitude and started being published at the cost of the budget — I mean his Pyrizhky z paslionkamy, Pisnia na rushnykovi, and so on. Anyway, this is my personal opinion, and I’ve long been planning an article about a creative individual and the powers that be.”
