UKRAINIAN COSSACK PAINTING

I have some friends who will immediately counter my assertions, claiming that this oil painting is Russian, but for me this looks like a stereotypical Ukrainian Cossack village celebrating a marriage. Note the bright red pillowy pants and blue hats. Note the colorful wreath of flowers on the bride's head. The good-luck storks on the chimneys. And the church in the background looks like St. Michael's to me, white walls with golden domes. No matter, it spoke to me and I had to have it. If anyone can identify the painter, Traslova, please let me know.

ROSENHEIM

After World War II ended in Europe, there were hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Germany. Many had escaped westward in front of advancing Soviet troops, while others had been used as slave labor. My mother's family had drifted about in the last years of the war, from Ukraine to Austria, to Czechoslovakia, back to Austria, whereupon they escaped a short period of forced labor by the Russian and went to the Displaced Persons camp in Rosenheim, Bavaria. The are had once been used as labor camps for the BMW plant. It now held thousands of mostly Polish and Eastern European displaced (although there seems to have been a very diverse group there). The family seems to have remained there until around 1948, and eventually they were relocated in Baltimore in 1949. While in the camp the Ukrainians organized many different groups, as well as schools and other activities. Depending on who you talk with, one group was for young Ukrainians (my Mom called them Scouts; some historical research called the Youth Brigades). Some research has been done on these camps, but not nearly enough. Although I may be wrong about the locations, I am guessing all of these pictures (and some I posted in past years) are from Rosenheim, 1947.

Did this group live in this tent? Was it a former army tent? It looks fairly permanent, with orderly road and small fence with garden. Could it just have been a backdrop for this picture? I don't know, but I do know that the young lady sitting in the front with her legs crossed is my mom, Lydia Oxana Chmielwskyj. Perhaps some of the ladies are still alive and maybe one will see this and identify individuals, although they would likely be in their eighties and even nineties now.

Looks like a group of scouts/youth members raising a flag. Beyond that, hard to tell.

Hard to tell what this group is working on, but the lady on the end of the table nearest the viewer is my mother. I would guess it might have something to do with cooking, but just can't make it out.

A dark shot, hardly more than just a silhouette.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is also a picture of the Rosenheim camp, a row of older Army tents. Was their a river running through it?

MOM AS BABY

Herewith a picture of my mom, Lydia Oxana Chmilewskyj (Tidd), about one year old or less in a baby carriage, in the Ukraine. [Sometimes I see her last name also spelled Chmilewska].

Mom with her father, Jaroslav Chmilewskyj.

Mom at age 5 or 6.

UKRAINIAN AMERICAN SCOUTS

My mother Lydia was an enthusiastic supported of both the Girl and Boy Scouts, often volunteering to help at summer camps for both organizations. She was a good hiker and camper. Even my Dad said she was great on the trail, and they even hiked much of the Appalachian Trail, until mom got sick. Dad finished the quest after she passed. I knew she was active in the Ukrainian Scouts (which were unified). Apparently, which I didn't know earlier, my mother also continued to be active in the Scouts after moving to Baltimore, Maryland. Here is a 1950 picture of her at age eighteen, standing to the far left with a group of fellow scouts, and several women in traditional dress (was there a festival?). No doubt many of these people were Displaced Persons who escaped the ravages of World War II to find new homes in America. [I encourage anyone who sees this and knows any of the individuals to identify them, and I will include their names.]

SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS

Watched tonight the Soviet-era Ukrainian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), which follows the life of tragic Carpathian farmer Ivan, who is unable to break from the depression and pain of his Romeo-and-Juliet love affair, after his girl Marichka drowns while he is working with the sheep herds. I wish my mother was here to answer questions raised in the movie about the culture and customs of the the Hutzul people, highlanders whose music sounds a lot like a mix of Scottish and Austrian. My mother gave me several pieces of Hutzul pottery and carvings, and she loved the area, having camped and hiked in them many times, she said. Although the cinematography is often rough, there are extremely beautiful scenes, especially of the clothing. Clearly life is hard in the mountains, but there seems also to be a somewhat straightforward approach to life. The movie seems to mix in mythology, culture, and a bit of black magic. No doubt I misunderstood many of the messages, but it was interesting to watch what may be my first Ukrainian film.

TARAS SHEVCHENKO

Testament (Zapovit)

When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes ... then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields --
I'll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I'll pray .... But till that day
I nothing know of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.

— Taras Shevchenko,
25 December 1845, Pereiaslav Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961

RUSSIAN LOVE

I seldom read memoirs, and even less frequently family histories, but found journalist Owen Matthews’ Stalin’s Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival an enjoyable and instructive account of his parents’ family histories and heroic five-year struggle against Soviet intransigence to obtain the marriage they so desperately desired. It is a tale of a family from Ukraine, whose paterfamilias---a dedicated, well-liked Communist propaganda officer who backed the wrong horse in a political struggle---is secretly carted away and executed, with his wife soon to be thrown into and broken by the gulag, and whose two young daughters bravely survive life on the run or in orphanages. The hero of the story, Lyudmila, despite her hardships (including a crippled leg), is inspiring---you just fall in love with her (and maybe it is partly biased by her son's love, but it doesn't matter). Despite the terrible heart-rending stories, I am always heartened and amazed by the bravery of some people (such as the orphanage director who decides not to separate the sisters) in helping others for whom they owe nothing, but they do it anyway. It recounts the brutal famine, murders, and expulsions heaped upon Ukraine (the destruction of the kulaks during the collectivization of farms); the tough, desperate battle of the Soviets against the Germans; the totalitarian oppressiveness of the Soviet state. It recounts the love affair of the author’s English father with Russia, the attempt by the KGB to turn him, and then the difficult years of trying to obtain the release of his fiance from Russia. Just as interesting, possibly even more so, is the search by the author (a large part of which is facilitated by the letters between his parents during their separation) to uncover his family history (even uncovering a KGB file on the tirla and execution of his grandfather), and his descriptions of his work as a journalist (and his personal life) in Russia.
The book made me think of my mother. She was from Lviv & Kiev, Ukraine; she told me stories of the famine and occupations, and of the horrible execution of Jews from Kiev. She was a tough, independent, determined woman, who also became an exile and made a family in a new world. She didn't tell me all of her experiences, but there were always little signs. For instance, she often ate a entire apple, stem and seeds and all, as her disbelieving children looked on, and then she explained how they ate grass soup for months. She told me how a shell-hit horse was stripped clean in the streets as if the starving Ukrainians were piranha, of watching a house they had just run out of explode behind them. I could relate more, perhaps later, but I can say that I really miss my Mom. There was mention of cherry soup, which my mother made for me.
The book does not have a fairy tale ending, but it opens a window into life in Russia. I am sure some will quibble, but I found it interesting. Anyone interested in life under the Soviet regime will find it worthwhile.