Introduction
Summary
And may Ararat, at least, remain beneath our feet—
A sliver of solace amidst a deluge of apprehension—
Sooner or later the water will recede, and the meadows will become
green again.
—From a letter to my wife, Liuba, during my internal exile, February 11, 1987In my lifetime I have lived several lives, and they are separated from each other either by painful dramas or by radical transformations. And thus, the trunk of the tree of my life, as befits any tree, contains distinct rings. Two of those rings—the dissident and the inmate—are special, truly granted by God. It is a great blessing to have been instrumental in the demise of, as Yevhen Sverstiuk put it, an “empire of bent backs, humbly devoted faces, and raised arms.” For such a life, full of strife and challenges, you can only be grateful to Providence.
For the longest time I have had the feeling that every person is just one musical note on the heavenly keyboard, and once in a while that note is pressed by the finger of the Divine Pianist. It is a miracle indeed when you are the note that is required in His melody. But God will not hold his finger on your note forever. Inevitably there comes a time for you to humbly acknowledge that other notes are resonating nearby: your fervor declines, various health complaints begin to emerge, and then all grandiose plans go topsy-turvy.
Still, if one believes Ecclesiastes, both of these times have great meaning. My description of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, as indeed everything that I write in these memoirs, is obviously subjective. Will my account, however, be faithful to the truth? After all, so many years have gone by… . Sometimes I catch myself thinking that some basic things might have fallen from my memory. Some mistakes may well be inevitable.
But I assure you that there are no deliberate fabrications. Once you begin to write something, it's important to do so with a sense of civic responsibility. My memoirs might differ from those of others. After all, each participant in those events carries with them their own mental recording of those turbulent years and their own “hologram” of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
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- Information
- The Universe Behind Barbed WireMemoirs of a Ukrainian Soviet Dissident, pp. 1 - 2Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021