A poet who was afraid to step on ants: Controversy of Pavlo Tychyna’s personality

A poet who was afraid to step on ants. Chairman of the “parliament” and a minister of the totalitarian Soviet Republic. A modernist with exquisite, experimental, and “musical” writing. Author of naive and fun propaganda poems. All this was contained in one man: Pavlo Tychyna (1891-1967).

Poetry with a taste of music

Tychyna started his career in literature in the 1910s, a time when modernism had already established itself in Ukrainian poetry, though its main achievements were still to come. Readers were struck by the melody and music of the texts by the new hero on the literary scene, as well as his “pantheistic” picture of the world, his spontaneity and metaphor, and his dramatic thinking. What added to his popularity was how Tychyna effortlessly combined new literary trends and experiments with elements of tradition, as if “removing” the discord between “progressive” and “conservative” readers. That is why his early publications were quickly and widely admired, and his first book, “Solar Clarinets,” was almost immediately considered a classic.

Not Zeus, not Pan, not the Spirit-Dove,

Only the Solar Clarinets.

I am in the dance, a rhythmic move,

In the immortal – all the planets.

Pavlo Tychyna was born in 1891 in the village of Pisky near the city of Chernihiv. This city was, at one time, one of the main centers of medieval Kyivan Rus and Cossack-era Ukraine. It was in Chernihiv that young Tychyna studied first at a theological school and then at the seminary, and also sang in the bishop’s choir at the Yelets Orthodox Monastery. I believe it was one of those cases when religious education pushed a talented person away from religion in its canonical sense, but it still deeply impacted his views and his thinking and perception. Music, especially singing, remained with Pavlo Tychyna forever. Learning from the artist Mykhailo Zhuk added more “multimedia” range to the poet’s views. Zhuk, by the way, is believed to have introduced Tychyna to the Chernihiv intellectual circle. Interestingly, Chernihiv was also where Pavlo Tychyna became a member of the underground student organization Brotherhood of Independents. This group aimed to fight for Ukraine’s independence from the Russian Empire.

A poet at the cemetery

The First World War shook the empire more than the activities of any underground movement. In 1917, a revolution happened, the tsar monarchy fell, and the Ukrainian People’s Republic emerged in Ukraine. It was first an autonomy, then declared independence. After several years of bloody fighting, it was conquered by the Bolsheviks and became part of the Soviet Union. During all this, the poet Pavlo Tychyna became engaged with literature and journalism in Kyiv, the capital of the new state.

Life in Kyiv was erratic from 1917 through the 1920s. People would enjoy bohemian evenings in artistic cafes — the next day, the city could be assaulted with artillery and the shooting of civilians. Today, one could read poetry or develop a concept for an avant-garde exhibition, then tomorrow one must go into hiding from the new government. At that time, the government in Ukraine changed irregularly. Three different armies controlled Kyiv in a single day. Among those who fought in the territory of Ukraine included Ukrainian troops, Bolshevik units from Russia (and from Ukraine and other countries), Germans, Austrians, Poles, White Russians, Entente units, Makhno’s anarchists, and a whole bunch of uncontrolled and politically flexible mini-armies led by “otamans.”

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Pavlo Tychyna was quite vocal about his commitment to Ukraine’s independence. In particular, he wrote some well-known patriotic poems dedicated to the fighting of that time. So when Kyiv was captured by the Russian White Army (who sought to exterminate everything Ukrainian and killed many Ukrainian activists), the young poet hid from the monarchists. There is evidence that he hid in a crypt in one of Kyiv’s cemeteries.

This image of a poet hiding in a cemetery is very symbolic for Tychyna. In many recollections and testimonies, he appears as a frightened man, submitting to the powers and authority. At the same time, he was delicate and compassionate. Fragility, fear, poor health, the love of life — it is difficult to say what was most present in him.

The writer Ivan Senchenko recalls how, during a meeting with an already elderly Tychyna, he was struck by his strange “dancing” walk in a Kyiv street. When he looked closely, it turned out that the poet was simply afraid to step on ants that were running along the sidewalk going about their insect business. Tychyna himself recalled how he almost fainted from mystical experiences in the caves of an Orthodox monastery in Chernihiv.

Other examples of his “weirdness” include the fact that, for a long time, he hid his common-law wife Lidia Paparuk in his apartment, unbeknownst to his friends. Speaking of love — some researchers claim that the poet regularly fell in love with pairs of sisters and that he wrote one of his most famous poems about it:

Oh, Miss Inna, Miss Inna!

I’m alone. The window. The snow…

Your sister I loved so deeply –

Childishly, preciously.

Loved her? – A long ago. The meadows were in bloom…

Oh, Miss Inna, Miss Inna,

Love’s smile blooms just once and it fades.

Snow, snow, snow… (…)

 

The golden ‘20s

It’s possible that hypersensitivity, in a certain sense, contributed to the 1920 appearance of perhaps the most powerful book by Pavlo Tychyn “Instead of Sonnets and Octaves.” Built as if according to a “classical antiquity” structure (stanza – anti-stanza), it actually consists of expressive vers libres with complex rhythmic structure and vivid imagery, marked by strong anti-war, anti-totalitarian, and humanistic vibes.

Fanciful metaphors, pretentious rhetoric, the search for large-scale generalisations, and a combination of avant-garde and “antique” elements — these characterized the poetry of Tychyna in the 1920s, the period of his greatest activity.

However, in Pavlo Tychyna’s “golden” ‘20s, political propaganda increasingly infiltrated his poetry. Sometimes sincere, sometimes already somewhat forced — the 1920s were like that for the culture of Soviet Ukraine as a whole. On the one hand, colorful experiments and rapid development were happening, while on the other, walls were rapidly being constructed, behind which it would be convenient to restrict, expedient to imprison, and easy to shoot down.

Playing with propaganda

In 1931, Pavlo Tychyna published the book “Chernihiv.” This was a very specific collection. Its poems were absurdly full of communist slogans of the time and typical newspaper buzzwords. The topics in the poems were also outwardly mostly propaganda stories about the achievements of Soviet industrialization, the decline of bourgeois countries, or the fight against “pests.” All of this, however, was embodied in an experimental, playful, avant-garde form, on the verge of language disintegration and folklore quotations. Political loyal pretentiousness suddenly turned into buffoonery in ancient intermedia style.

“Chernihiv” was probably the last book in which Tychyna was truly artistic and sophisticated while “repaying to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”

(…) We attack the masters’ foundations

this is industrial age

our pace and crowd are pontoon

labour and days are two-colored

reinforced concrete

Let Europe crock

we are with only one thought

one and only concern

traditions’ cessation

collectivization

Not her father’s not her mother’s

daughter of the masses and Lenin

this idea is in everyone’s thoughts

unbroken unbreakable

re-imagined (…)

 

The “Chernihiv” collection triggered accusations against the poet of “formalism” (a very serious accusation in the Soviet Union), and so, for several decades, the collection was “forgotten.” Likewise, many other Tychyna’s poems, especially his early ones, were banned, “forgotten,” or “edited.”

In the ‘30s, as is commonly believed, Pavlo Tychyna “broke down.” The Soviet government’s pressure on writers with even relatively independent voices increased dramatically. Hundreds of authors were arrested on crazy accusations including the “preparing of terrorist attacks” or “participating in underground organisations,” and then executed.

In the face of ruthless and unpredictable repressions, Tychyna, like many others, began to write “in a new way.” Yesterday’s sophisticated “musical,” modernist, and fanciful avant-garde artist now wrote endless propaganda texts, infantilistically overloaded with propaganda and inspired by cheerful rhythms. The change was so lightning-fast and striking that some spoke of an instant degradation, others thought that Tychyna was secretly mocking the Soviet government, and others thought that he was fighting with himself. In any case, there is a well-known story that the poem “The Party Leads,” written by Tychyna for a children’s publication, was unexpectedly published in the main Soviet newspaper Pravda and made a classic text by the poet.

Pavlo Tychyna never fully returned to his former self in poetry (even after Stalin’s death, during the Khrushchev Thaw). Only in some texts, such as “Skovoroda” (dedicated to the eighteenth-century Ukrainian mystic philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda) or “Funeral of a Friend,” could one recognise the “same old Tychyna.”

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Writing the Soviet anthem…

The frightened, delicate poet, one who could have expected an arrest at any moment, was gradually recognized as a classic of Soviet literature. He received many awards. He wrote the anthem of Soviet Ukraine (I think I belong to the last generation who had to learn this text by heart at school. Now, as part of decommunization, there is criminal liability for public performance of this anthem. It seems that Tychyna was out of luck again).

During World War II, Tychyna was appointed a Minister of Education of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). From 1953 to 1959, he became the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the Republic (parliament).

Tychyna now was well-off and had a comfortable life. But, as the story goes, he remained anxious and, at the same time, sensitive to people and culture. Wherever he could, he tried to help. For example, it is rumored that he secretly put money in the pockets of young poets during meetings. In the positions he held, Tychyna tried to resist the russification of Ukraine and the imposition of the Russian language in various areas of life.

The apartment where Tychyna spent the last few decades of his life, in the center of Kyiv, now houses a small museum dedicated to the poet with a flamboyant atmosphere and exhibits. In today’s Ukraine, Tychyna remains an object of controversy. Who was he: a great poet, a Soviet collaborator, or a poet who just wanted to survive? A man with a broken destiny or someone who was able to outwit the totalitarian machine in at least some ways? At least partially thanks to these paradoxes and controversy, his work is still read and studied. But even keeping those aside, it is impossible to imagine twentieth-century Ukrainian literature without him.

The publication is a part of the “Chytomo Picks: Classics and New Books from Ukraine” project. The materials have been prepared with the assistance of the Ukrainian Book Institute at the expense of the state budget. The author’s opinion may not coincide with the official position of the Ukrainian Book Institute.

Translation: Tetiana Mykolenko

Copy editing: Matthew Long, Terra Friedman King