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  • My Vasyli Stus

    My Vasyli Stus
    http://hetq.am/eng/articles/19956/my-vasyli-stus.html


    15:28, October 27, 2012

    We have an Armenian poet who was anxious about the fate of Armenia, who was
    ready to sacrifice his life to Armenia, who used to say about those always
    awake the following `Offspring sleeping in coats'. Exactly like this was
    Vasyli Stus for his Ukraine.

    My friendship with Stus has a history of 35 years.

    I had friends, who sacrificed their lives in the battlefield for the sake
    of immortality of their country. Up to now I love them and keenly
    appreciate their deeds. But what Stus did for his country was much more
    than just to sacrifice his life. Stus was not simply a soldier. He was a
    whole ideology, type of prototype. I also had friends, who used to be my
    ideological comrades-in-arms-wise and reasonable, self-sacrificing and
    self-denying friends. But Stus is quite another world for me. He is beyond
    comparison, beyond all criteria; my dear, incomparable, perfect Vasyli Stus.

    Politics is the very sphere where, if you are the carrier of moral values,
    face difficulties in achieving success remaining loyal to your type. May be
    it's difficult in other spheres as well, but it's definitely more vivid in
    politics.

    *I disperse sorrow and suffering by thought,*
    *So that I could stay who I am now*

    V. Stus (translated by R. Papayan)

    Stus was one of those exceptional political figures in the every step of
    which lay morality-Christian morality. The latter always exalts and
    ennobles a man. It is a state when your virtue is nourished on itself. Such
    people are usually very modest and humble. Life-style and behavior of
    pokers are alien to them and beyond human understanding. Their self-display
    works spontaneously, naturally and demands no victims or sacrifice.
    Morality was Stus' credo, his creed, the source of his power.

    I got acquainted with Stus in the place, where people display themselves
    vividly. In such conditions it was impossible to play a hypocrite, to
    simulate continually; it was a place where a human being could be entirely
    revealed. In such severe conditions of prison and detention Stus was really
    a discovery for me, in the finest sense of the word. He never made
    mistakes; he never lost the game in the battlefield of soul and thought.
    Stus was never led by the slogan `Aim justifies the means'. He was beyond
    all this. Stus faced his destiny knightly, chivalrously and, as he used to
    say in one poem, `Whether my cross is heavy or light, I am not asking'.
    *The cemetery of Stus in Kochino*

    In conditions of absolute supremacy of wolf laws of GULAG Stus remained an
    ordinary man till the end.

    *People, sentenced to death,*
    *Were given guns; those, who gave them guns were just implementing their
    last will,*
    *And they started shooting to death other prisoners sentenced to death,*
    *So that they could get reconciled with the thought of their downfall*

    V. Stus (translated by R. Papayan)

    This is how Stus formulates the world the casual inhabitants of which we
    used to be; a world where you have to be a superman to endure a world of
    punishment, suffer a world of privation, hardship, at the same time being
    able to read a poem instead of sharing emotional state of prisoners
    described by Stus=85 and not only to read, but also to write-as Genius.

    Once in the punishment cell of the 19th camp of Mordovia Stus read out to
    me his poem called `You are here, here'. He read it out in the original-in
    Ukrainian. I didn't understand it but it made me feel creepy all over. His
    poem sounded like a prayer. Stus introduced to me the gist of the poem. I
    understood it and again it gave me goose pimples just to hear it. I was
    shocked. At the moment I have its Armenian translation right in my eyes. I
    am reading it, I am deeply touched, and I am admiring it. I wish I could
    hear Stus' Ukrainian prayer `You are here, here'. Instead I would like to
    read out to him my delayed prayer by the greatest Armenian poet Sevak.

    *Help me, Mariam,*
    *To remain pure, unblemished*
    *In this marsh-like dirt-filth,*
    *That is called by one word-murmur*

    In the 35th camp ofPerm to God's will I met Stus' close friend-Evgen
    Sverstyuk. Stus, certainly, told me about Sverstyuk. On seeing him, I
    immediately understood that he also belonged to the indomitable
    Stus-dynasty of statesmen. When you meet people, who are the carriers of
    these values, a simple contact with them becomes a real festival. Both of
    us then were in need of talks and recollections about Stus and we did it
    quite frequently. Stus was always present in our talks. Later, we regained
    the joy of the `festival' by means of letters.

    `I clearly remember our first meeting in the 35th camp ofPerm region',
    -
    Sverstyuk wrote to me. `I remember how you introduced yourself to me; I and
    Stus were always together. I felt that Stus is still my friend, but he is
    already an apostle'.

    The civilized world nowadays judges the formerSovietRepublicstaking into
    account the political struggle carried on in these republics during the
    evil empire years. Let us say, the civilized world adopted the same
    judgment in the distant past as well. So now the very countries and their
    people have nothing to do but to cherish the destructors of ideological
    chains.

    This year is the 25th year of the atrocity committed against Vasyli
    Stus-atrocity that put an end to the life of a man who sacrificed his life
    to pay for the real price of the real freedom of his people.

    I am optimistic and I think thatUkraineand the Ukrainians give their due to
    my dear Stus.

    He was `Mother Ukraine's offspring sleeping in coats', wasn't he?

    *With awe: Razmik Markosyan*



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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