Justice must be restored with regard to a Ukrainian writer. He deserves it with his sincere and dedicated endeavors. It is high time those that do not know him learned about Bohdan Lepky (1872-1941) — writer, translator, critic, publisher, and public figure whose name was erased from national literature by the Soviet regime.
One of the streets in Krakow, where he lived almost permanently from 1899 to his death, was named for him (Bohdan Lepky was briefly a member of the Polish Senate in 1938-39). At present, one of Kyiv’s streets could be named for him, even though he never visited the city, the more so that November 9 marked the 130th anniversary of his birth.
It is worth paying attention to his unobtrusive recommendations, and his creative legacy includes collections of verse and stories. He translated many works by Shevchenko, Franko, Stefanyk, and Kotsiubynsky into Polish and German. In fact, his literary heritage among modern men of letters is second only to that of his mentor Ivan Franko. He was the author of a fundamental study of Shevchenko’s life and work. He published a collection of Ukrainian classical literature in Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia numbering over twenty volumes, while also translating Russian, Polish, German, English, and Scandinavian authors into Ukrainian. He was a member of Ukrainian scholarly institutes in Warsaw, Krakow, and Berlin. He also wrote an autobiography, The Story of My Life.
Bohdan Lepky was born in Krehulets, a village in Chortkiv district (Ternopil province), then under Austria-Hungary. His father Sylvestr Lepky was a local parish priest, respected by the congregation for erudition and humanity, he wrote excellent lyrical poems under the pen name of Marko Murava. His mother Domna Hlibovetska was a talented musician. Bohdan was five when his two sisters and brother died of diphtheria, and he miraculously survived. In Berezhany, he attended the local gymnasium [high school] for eight years. Among the students were the future composer Denys Sichynsky (author of the opera Roksolana; his younger brother Levko would become a noted composer in the 1920s, eulogizing the Ukrainian Sichovi Striltsi or Sich Sharpshooters), gifted painter Yulian Pankevych (he would teach Bohdan Lepky but the latter eventually chose literature, after studying at the Art Academy of Prague), and Sylvestr Yarychevsky, a Ukrainian poet also to be banned by the Soviets.
The Lepkys moved to Poruchyn (two miles from Berezhany): “Our life passed serenely in Poruchyn district.” Bohdan spent his youth in a place where “everything reminded one of the times when people fortified their homes and property against the intruder.” Living in the village community, listening to stories and legends about past epochs and traditions gave the young susceptible and inquisitive Bohdan the literary impetus.
Shevchenko poetic soirees were held in Berezhany and the poet’s anniversaries were secretly marked. In his sixth year at the gymnasium, the students were finally allowed to publicly celebrate Shevchenko’s anniversaries. Bohdan painted the poet’s portrait and recited “My Thorny Thoughts, My Thorny Thoughts, You Bring Me Only Woe!” Senior students had their own secret library. Books were borrowed, passing from one home to the next. Bohdan Lepky wrote that “people hungered for Ukrainian books, then in critically short supply.” The Austrian authorities considered the Ukrainians inferior in all walks of life — as did their Polish counterparts
At the gymnasium in Berezhany, “so many noted personalities emerged during one century,” he wrote, probably due to “the spirit prevalent at the Berezhany Gymnasium, that combination of freedom with a sense of duty.” Here, too, one finds a recommendation addressing modern Ukrainian teachers: “The principal saw to it that the teachers demanded neither too much nor too little from their students, and that the students did not take advantage of the teachers’ benign attitude. If a young teacher could not cope with the boys in his class, it was apparently because he lacked pedagogical talent. The clever principal knew that the best performance was shown by teachers that went about their instruction relying on their experience, who put their hearts into the job, who did not have to worry about the school administration deciding at any moment to neglect their teaching methods. The school principal never brutally imposed on the teacher’s individuality, just as no teacher would ever neglect their students’ individual characteristics.” After graduating from the Philosophy Department of Lviv University (1895), Bohdan Lepky spent four years at the gymnasium, teaching Ukrainian and German language and literature.
World War I broke out in August 1914. The Lepkys had to immigrate to the West (at home life was getting increasingly dangerous as the front line crossed the east of Halychyna and Volyn, bringing death and devastation). Bohdan always wrote about what he saw, about war — ravaged Ukraine and human suffering, always recalling his childhood and youth in eastern Halychyna.
“I also had my native land,
Where flowers blossomed in the leafy grove,
The forest singing its mysterious song,
Surrounded by vast, well-tended farmland,
With crops enough for daily bread and Easter cake...
I also had my native land.”
Although he never visited Kyiv, then part of the Russian Empire, Bohdan Lepky was strongly attracted to the place, as evidenced by his poem “Dreams Dispersed.”
“Over the Dnipro, high atop the hill,
Towers Kyiv, our golden domed Zion,
So beautiful and regal, as though enthroned,
Sitting there, seeing a magical dream.”
Eventually, the poet visited his native land, greeted by overwhelming misery and devastation: “human bones, skulls, and smoking debris.” Nevertheless, he was optimistic and voiced it through his poetic character St. Andrew:
“Brothers, keep your faith,
Stay firm in your beliefs,
Don’t be like the weed
That can be tramped by anyone at will.
Stand firm and hard as rock,
Crashing all reviling force,
All hostile wrath and empty praise,
For such is our law, our revenge.”
His creative works are permeated with empathy, as in the poem “Father and Son.”
“Both father and son were led out of the yard
And herded all the way to the field.
The father was old, bent under his grief,
The son was a seven-year-old child.
The sun was just rising
As they stopped on a hill
With two poles embedded in the earth
And three soldiers digging a grave.
The son, seeing this, went dead pale
And trembled like a leaf in the wind,
‘Daddy, daddy, what are they doing?
‘Where’s mom, where’s my mom?’
The old man embraced him one last time,
‘It’s all right, don’t be afraid, son.
Jesus suffered and died for us all,
We will die for Ukraine.”
[translated by George Sklyar]
This poem belongs to a series dating from 1914-20, reflecting Bohdan’s painful experiences. In the documentary story “My Fault” he writes about Ukrainians and their lives torn apart by the occupation. “Everybody has a right to self-determination; we are the only exception. We have only one right. To die. There is only one road to freedom for us: death, on all European battlefields, in all camps and prisons, at the hands of the Bolsheviks and imperialists.” He wrote that “no one wants a free Ukraine, those on the Left and the Right are preparing a new yoke for us.” And further: “It’s my fault, my sin, my unforgivable sin!... Perhaps it would be best if I lay there with a bullet in my head or a hole in my heart, not seeing that gaping wound in your flesh, my beloved people!...”
We could at least now begin to acknowledge those who fought for an independent Ukraine, for a free Ukrainian people. But we are afraid even to say that we are Ukrainians. And we are! Just as all those living in France are French, those in Germany are Germans, and so on, because people belong to the country they live in. “We all grew in that land soaked in blood, the way oaks grow in the woods or flowers in the meadow, or wheat in the field, or weeds in the steppe; we must all return to that land for its sake, for it to exist forever.”
Bohdan Lepky’s untiring efforts and works deserve every praise. “The Rainbow Over a Vacant Lot” and “The Tale of my Life” are arresting stories about the life and folkways in Halychyna at the time. Seven stories about Hetman Mazepa form a series deserving separate notice. The author was perhaps the first to deviate from the Russian imperial view on the unfortunate Cossack leader.
His heart torn with pain, Bohdan Lepky left his native land. Reading his works of the period, one is also pained at heart. “Two Children” is probably the most touching of all. A war-devastated life story of a brother and sister lost among those fleeing West. “The girl was so lovely she looked like a painting, and the boy was a cripple. He had a tall forehead and a pair of clever eyes, but his head was sunk into his shoulders, as though from a heavy blow, never to be retrieved. Both were in tears, having lost their parents in the milling crowd.” A lady clad in silk noticed them, jumped out of a lacquered carriage, ran up to the girl and said she would take her along and treat her as her own daughter. The girl’s brother said she should go with the lady, but the girl clung to him and refused. “The carriage drove off and the children went on their way, the girl looking like a beautiful painting and the crippled boy.” Such a penetrating story ought to be included in the school curriculum; it is touching and humane, and children would eagerly read it from beginning to end.
Among Bohdan Lepky’s friends were Yurko Tobilevych (son of Ivan Karpenko-Kary), Vasyl Stefanyk, Polish poet W. Orkan, folklorist and composer Filaret Kolessa, Andriy Chaikovsky, author of historical and everyday life stories. He knew Solomiya Krushelnytska, Mykola Vorony, Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Olha Kobylianska, and others.
He recalls that they sang “Shche ne Vmerla Ukrayina” [Ukraine Is Not Yet Dead, the traditional, long banned, and now official national anthem — Ed.] when marking Kotliarevsky’s anniversary in Lviv, but showed a poor performance. A young tenor by the name of Mentsinsky stepped forward and said, “Gentlemen, that’s not the right way to do it. Let me show you how our national anthem should be performed.” And sang it all in a resonant clear voice.
Now what? They propose to leave only one couplet and the refrain. Who will be inspired by an anthem “edited” like that? And who wants the edited version? They say you simply cannot leave words out of a song without spoiling it.
“Our persistence and our sincere toils will be rewarded,
And freedom’s song will resound throughout all of Ukraine.
Echoing off the Carpathians, and rumbling across the steppes,
Ukraine’s fame and glory will be known among all nations.”
[Translated by Ihor W. Slabicky (c) 2000]
How can anyone dislike such lines? Perhaps we should start by learning our anthem’s lyrics from beginning to end? Aren’t we ashamed to watch our athletes standing in a stadium and listening to the Ukrainian anthem, almost all keeping silent, not knowing the words? There are enough examples to the contrary in other countries. An independent country being afraid to sing its national anthem. Is this surprising? Not really, considering that this country is still “bashful” to acknowledge those who fought and died for our nation’s identity and freedom. After a long silence let us remember Bohdan Lepky “not with softly spoken, kindly words, but with resounding deeds in our rejuvenated, free Ukraine” — as he called for doing in memory of Taras Shevchenko.
