Letter to the frontline

“Жди меня и я вернусь” – “Wait for me, and I will come”, wrote Konstantin Simonov in 1941 in his letter from the front to his girlfriend and later wife, the Soviet movie star Valentina Serova (who, however, did not wait for him, but mixed up with Marshal Rokossovsky). The poem, that became public only months later, together with the music of Matvey Blanter, became one of the unofficial hymns of the Great Patriotic War, and kept up the soul and hope of millions of soldiers and soldier’s wives.

In the now-running Ukrainian patriotic war, the tables turn, and women left at home send letters to the frontline, to urge their beloved ones to endure, and to foster patriotism in every Ukrainian. This is how the letter is introduced by filmmaker Ivan Kravchyshyn, who, together with his wife Natalia, designed and photographed each page of it, and whose films – such as Політ золотої мушки (The flight of the golden fly, 2014) – fit together with the visual world of the album..


Because the letter is nothing but a twelve-page album. On each page, a beautiful Ukrainian girl is looking at the reader, dressed in the costume of a different Ukrainian historical region. The pieces of the costume are authentic: most of them come from museums in Kolomea, Tarnopol and Prelesne, as well as from the private collections of Natalia Kravchishin and three of the girls photographed. On the back of each photo they give a detailed description of each piece of clothing, they mark their place of origin on the map of the traditional regions of Ukraine, and add archival photos to show how they were worn at that time.

To encourage our sons fighting on the front with girls dressed in national costumes, and at the same time to fasten national cohesion, may seem archaic to us, who saw similar publications from the time of the First World War. But the idea fits well with the nation-building endeavor of a belated nation. The photos, the girls, the costumes are beautiful, the typography tasteful, and the archive photos and texts well-rounded and informative.

What a pity that the letter has not been signed by the whole of Ukraine. The Bukovinian Romanian, Galician Pole, Black Sea Russian, Holichian Karaim, Crimean Tatar, Subcarpathian Hungarian soldiers perishing on the eastern front are looking in vain for the pictures of their loved ones in the album. These ethnic fragments shredded from here and there into Ukraine have been forgotten in the heyday of nation-building.

For them, pars pro toto, plays the Hungarian version of Wait for me and I will come, which may be a surprise to the speakers of the other languages, too. In fact, this is not identical with the well-known version of Blanter. Inasmuch as it sounds authentically Russian, it comes from the Hungarian composer Henrik Negrelli. You can make a hit, singing it with a Russian text in a Russian company. The Hungarian translation was done by Sarolta Lányi, who probably did not have the front in mind, but rather her husband Ernő Czóbel, who kept her in countenance with his letters from the Siberian Gulag. It is sung by the great Hungarian actor Iván Darvas, whose mother was a Tsarist Russian emigrant in Prague, and who in 1945 served as an interpreter to the Red Army, and in 1956, organized a revolutionary committee against the Soviet invaders, for which he spent two years in prison and worked for years as a factory laborer; and then in 1965 he featured in the pro-Soviet cult film The Corporal and Others, so he also might have had a multifaceted relationship with what he sings about.


Konstantin Simonov: Wait for me. Hungarian translation by Sarolta Lányi, music by Henrik Negrelli, sung by Iván Darvas

Жди меня, и я вернусь. Только очень жди, Жди, когда наводят грусть Желтые дожди, Жди, когда снега метут, Жди, когда жара, Жди, когда других не ждут, Позабыв вчера. Жди, когда из дальних мест Писем не придет, Жди, когда уж надоест Всем, кто вместе ждет. Жди меня, и я вернусь, Не желай добра Всем, кто знает наизусть, Что забыть пора. Пусть поверят сын и мать В то, что нет меня, Пусть друзья устанут ждать, Сядут у огня, Выпьют горькое вино На помин души... Жди. И с ними заодно Выпить не спеши. Жди меня, и я вернусь, Всем смертям назло. Кто не ждал меня, тот пусть Скажет: - Повезло. Не понять, не ждавшим им, Как среди огня Ожиданием своим Ты спасла меня. Как я выжил, будем знать Только мы с тобой,- Просто ты умела ждать, Как никто другой.

Wait for me, and I’ll come back! Wait with all you’ve got! Wait, when dreary yellow rains Tell you, you should not. Wait when snow is falling fast, Wait when summer’s hot, Wait when yesterdays are past, Others are forgot. Wait, when from that far-off place, Letters don’t arrive. Wait, when those with whom you wait Doubt if I’m alive. Wait for me, and I’ll come back! Wait in patience yet When they tell you off by heart That you should forget. Even when my dearest ones Say that I am lost, Even when my friends give up, Sit and count the cost, Drink a glass of bitter wine To the fallen friend – Wait! And do not drink with them! Wait until the end! Wait for me and I’ll come back, Dodging every fate! “What a bit of luck!” they’ll say, Those that would not wait. They will never understand How amidst the strife, By your waiting for me, dear, You had saved my life. Only you and I will know How you got me through. Simply – you knew how to wait – No one else but you.

Francis Joseph in Czernowitz

August 18 is the birthday of Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. On this day, the Austro-Hungarian pilgrim house in Jerusalem hangs out on its façade the huge double Austro-Hungarian flag made in 1880, which was seen in 2014 in the Weltuntergang exhibition in Vienna, in the room dedicated to the Austro-Hungarian gunners fighting in the Holy Land. We, however, were able to pay tribute before the statue of the old monarch on this illustrious day only in the “Jerusalem along the Prut”, as Czernowitz was called in his day.


That a statue of Francis Joseph still stands in the capital of the former model Hapsburg province, Bukovina, in itself would be a sensation in the Ukraine, where hardly any monument from the “brave old world” has survived the Soviet regime. Especially not a statue of the ruler of a previous empire, if even that of John Sobieski, King of Poland, who had a much better renown as the scourge of the Turks, whose monument was exiled in 1945 from Lemberg, together with his people. The real sensation, however, is that this statue was erected not a century ago, but quite recently, in 2009. This shows how times are changing in Czernowitz, and how the nostalgia for pre-war Galicia, as the last golden age of the country, has taken over all of Western Ukraine.

Vlodko Kostyrko: Golden Galicia, 2009. From the exhibition Mythos Galizien, Vienna, 2015

The other special feature of the statue is that it was not erected by the city or by the Ukrainian government. Not even by an association, like the  “Verein zur Verschönerung der Stadt Czernowitz”, which in 1998 restored the memorial plaque of 1908 on the “Habsburghöhe” behind the university, originally dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Francis Joseph’s reign. But rather by a private citizen, on his own expense. Maybe for the reason that if the statue caused politically too great a scandal, the city could wash its hands of the matter. But also, if the bold gesture proved successful, it could bring significant political capital to the one who erected it. And this is what happened. The statue was erected by Arseny Yatsenyuk, the recently resigned president of the Ukrainian parliament, at his own expense, according to the inscription, “as a gift to the inhabitants of Czernowitz”, just before announcing his candidacy in the Ukrainian presidential elections, which he would win only five years later, in 2014, after the Kiev Revolution. Yatsenyuk comes from an old Czernowitz family, his father is a vice-dean in the university of the city, originally named after Francis Joseph, where he also graduated, thus the donation can be also considered as a gesture of a local patriot to his hometown. Nevertheless, the leaders of the local and provincial government, as well as the Austrian Embassador in Ukraine also participated in the inauguration of the statue on 3 October 2009. On that occasion, Yatsenyuk emphasized in his speech, that he was inspired “not by a nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but the recognition of the achievements of the Empire”.

This statue can be also considered the restration of a previous monument. Until 1918, a few streets further south, in the so-called National Park stood the statue of Francis Joseph, which was the model of the sculptors the present one, Segei Ivanov and Volodymyr Tsisarik. The statue depicted the monarch not in a solemn, representative posture, but as a walking figure. This is how the citizens of Czernowitz saw him on his third and last visit to the city, in September 1880, when, after having participated on the Yom Kippur Day ceremony in the Great Synagogue, he traversed on foot the streets of the “Little Vienna” lying on the eastern border of the Empire, and he even spoke to passers-by, which increased in no small measure his popularity in the city’s historical memory. The modern monument omits the pedestal, thus allowing the emperor to mingle again with the passers-by.




The original statue was destroyed by the invading Romanian army. Later National Park was built over. Its area is now covered partly by the city stadium, and partly by Guzar Street. This is why the founders choose a nearby site for the new monument, the former Ferdinand Park next to the former Roman Catholic cathedral.

The choice of the site is full of significance. The church of the Heart of Jesus was built by the Jesuit order between 1891 and 1894. The Jesuits arrived in 1885 from Silesia, which at that time still belonged to Germany, while their provincial, Frank Eberhardt – after whom the street in front of the church was named by the grateful city – from Berlin. They undertook the pastoral care of the local Germans, who amounted to 80% of the city’s Catholic population, so this is the time when the earlier Catholic church, the Holy Cross on Main Street definitively became the “Polish church”. When later the secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ceded Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, and in 1940, before Stalin took his share, Hitler “repatriated” the Bukovina Germans, the church lost its adherents, and the Soviet regime converted it into a state archive. Still today the stumps of the moulded steel supports of the shelves can be seen drilled into the walls.






The church was emptied after the change of regime, and in this year returned to the Catholic church. I just saw it first opened. Inside, a real abandoned places feeling receives us, with crumbling plaster and broken-down organ choir. However, the archival use preserved the church from the worst danger, the penetration of water and fungi. Not much is missing to make it again the Catholic cathedral of the city. And if they do so, the square will also revalorized, and the emperor’s statue will once again stand in a central place of Czernowitz.






That the square already plays an important role in the city’s memory is shown by the small “folk memorial” standing next to it. The wooden panels leaned against the cross decorated with fresh and artificial flowers and wreaths announce: “Here stood the chapel of St. Anthony, preacher of the Word of God from Italian Padua”. The 13th-century Portuguese Franciscan St. Anthony of Padua is still extremely popular in Catholic folk religion as the patron of lost things, affairs and people, of whom over the last century there were plenty in Czernowitz. This “substitute monument” is a remarkably Ukrainian genre. These are established when still there is no money for a real monument, but they already want to indicate the sanctity of the place. As the plaque in Simferopol which announces that “the Armenian church will be reborn here”, or the barely visible stone in the market place of Zhovkva, that “the Shevchenko monument will stand here”.


We line up in front of the emperor’s statue, we take selfies with him, which a century ago would have been impossible to the passers-by of Czernowitz, and not only for technical reasons. Then we congratulate him with the song “God, keep our emperor”, written by another Franz Josef, by family name Haydn. The modern passers-by of Czernowitz stop by, and listen benevolently to our veneration.


F. J. Haydn: Gott erhalte unsern Kaiser

Holy Saturday in Lemberg

Святі воїни, holy warriors, proclaim the two icons of the two warrior saints, dressed in black and red, the colors of Bandera, on the facade of the Icon Museum in Lemberg/Lviv. The two icons are parts of the decoration of the exhibition St. George the Dragon-Slayer and the warrior saints on icons from the 14th to the 19th century, but in these colors, and without the poster of Saint George announcing the exhibition are rather symbols of the current public climate of Lemberg, and profess the immortal glory of the heroes fighting for the Ukraine героям слава –, like so many other things, from the fairy tale books through the pubs to the cemeteries. The permanent exhibition shows the most beautiful pieces of Ruthenian icon painting in Galicia, from the museum’s collection of seventeen thousand pieces. This is a strange and unknown world to the eyes accustomed to the Russian icons, just as intense and fascinating, but with less stiffness, much more popular features and playfulness, and a lot of Western influences. Icons of saints’ life stories with the scenes of everyday life, Passion cycles with rustic side episodes, Last Judgements with the encyclopedic representation of sins and punishments. In the Saturday of the Orthodox Easter they close two hours earlier, they are preparing themselves for the Resurrection Mass and dinner. Христос воскресе – Во истино воскресе, we say goodbye to the attendant nanny. I would like to take a picture of a Resurrection icon in memory of the feast, but I cannot find any at the exhibition. The resurrection did not figure among the themes of the painting of the future Ukraine.

One year in Subcarpathia

On 17 January, when the Subcarpathian photos of László Végh were published in Magyar Nemzet, I shared them on the Facebook of río Wang. Now, in preparation for our late April Galician tour, I saw them again, and I thought I’d also share them on the blog. So that they can be seen by more people, and not only in Hungarian.

Olena moved several decades ago from Moscow to Kőrösmező/Yasinya

“Thanks to the József Pécsi Scholarship of Photography, the photo reporter of Magyar Nemzet has repeatedly visited Subcarpathia. He met with soldiers returning from the battlefields, families mourning for their relatives, Tatar refugees from the Crimea. And with extraordinary hospitality.

One does not start a major photo report without preparation, so I also started to inquire on the subject before going to Subcarpathia. First, I contacted a local journalist, who accompanied me to several places, introduced me to a number of persons, and, when necessary, translated for me. He was my fixer, as those persons with a local knowledge are known in the journalist jargon, who, in the course of a major field work, guide and assist foreign journalists and photographers.

The first time I went there was March. I clearly remember the day. I went to Verbőc/Verbovec, to the funeral of a soldier fallen in the Eastern Ukrainian conflict. After three hundred and sixteen kilometers I arrived at the border. Passport. Documents. Control. Arrival in Subcarpathia. Bad roads. The imprints of the past, everywhere. Grayness. Pouring rain. And, on the way out of Bereszász/Beregovo, police fines. Not little ones. Nearly an hour of delay. Exhausted, I returned to my quarters.

Funeral of Viktor Márkusz. He served at the 128 Mountain Infantry Brigade

However much I tried, the first few times I could not find the local rhythm. Then I was presented to more and more people who helped me. For example, Aunt Slava, whose son is a 22-year-old soldier on contract. She is in permanent contact with the Subcarpathian soldiers at the front, she knew the answers to all my questions, and helped me in everything. Otherwise, she teaches Ukrainian language in the Hungarian class of a bilingual school.

And quite often I had good luck. For example, in Kőrösmező/Yasinya, where I accidentally set out in the wrong direction to the mountains, this is how I stumbled upon Olena, who moved from Russia to Subcarpathia. Or when one evening, on the way to our lodgings, we caught sight of a flickering candle in a neighboring window. Our host, a Hungarian family, told me that an old lady lived there, Mária András, who prays every morning and evening like this. We managed to get in to visit her, and she allowed me to take some photos of her while praying. Or Uncle Frédi in Fancsika/Fanchykovo, who heard about my wandering about in Subcarpathia and shooting people’s everyday life. He told a friend of his in the village that he’d be happy to show me his doves.


And there were the Hungarian families who lost their loved ones in the war. I spent hours with them. On many occasions I did not even take my camera out, we just talked. On 16 September, Sándor Lőrinc was buried in Fancsika. When I heard about the funeral, I got into the car, and went to see the family the previous evening. I introduced myself, I told them who I was, where I came from, what I was after. I talked a lot to Sándor’s mother, Aunt Anna. I was also allowed to be present at the all-night vigil in a small room of the small house, at the coffin covered with the Ukrainian flag. The next day, at the funeral, there were many people, all the inhabitants of the village. And many Ukrainian soldiers, whom I had met in Verbőc in March. They approached me, and said they hope to meet us next time at some more cheerful event.

After the funeral I wanted to return to Budapest. However, Aunt Anna told me I cannot go before having dinner with them. I made excuses, but she would not let me go. They even packaged donuts for the road. Budapest is far away, it will be fine.

Fancsika/Fanchikovo. Funeral of the Hungarian soldier Sándor Lőrinc, fallen in the Eastern Ukrainian conflict

Wherever I went during this time in Subcarpathia, I encountered a friendly welcome. And not only with Hungarian families. I also visited Tatar families who had fled from the Crimea, and with whom we talked through a computer translation program. The kids really enjoyed it that sometimes we did not understand each other, and we explained ourselves by gestures. Activity. I had visited soldiers, volunteers, who collected food and clothes for the Subcarpathian soldiers on the battlefields. In Aknaszlatina/Solotvino, among the ruins of the old salt mine, we stumbled upon Uncle Yura, who had worked there, and is now a night watchman in the mine area. We also met Uncle Béla, in whose garden there is a huge “crater”, because the ground had collapsed above a former mine.

The number of Hungarians in Subcarpathia has been drastically reduced. In the census of 2001, about a hundred and fifty thousand declared themselves as Hungarians. There are many mixed marriages in which the children no longer speak Hungarian. In the bleak economic situation, only those who are able try to find work abroad. It is much harder who decide to stay. They live on little money from day to day, but they believe that it is not hopeless to stay, and that they will have a future in their homeland. Which, by the whims of history, has changed hands five times in the last hundred years.”

Tales about the Maidan

It was two years ago now, on 16 January 2014, that the parliament of Kiev, under pressure from President Yanukovich, outlawed the hundreds of thousands-strong protests in the Maidan, by then in its second month. Soon the first deadly clashes began between the protesters and the corps of the Berkut, the riot police.

The Western internet portals now mainly remember the anniversary with the photos of Maxim Dondyuk, who achieved his greatest international success with his coverage of the bloody month of the Maidan. In 2015 he was among the Prix Pictet Prize finalists, and won several other awards. The commemorations emphasize the the kinship of his photos with paintings and tales:

“The figures of the Ukrainian civil war appear in iconic settings in his photograph, as if the light and darkness, good and evil clashed with each other.” (Index)

In an interview given to Photography last year, the photographer also points out that his most important sources of inspiration had been not other photos, but paintings, and even battle scenes. The tale-like character of his pictures, however, is not unique. Similar images were taken at the height of the clashes by Mustafa Nayyem, whom we quoted that night, and many other Ukrainian photographers as well. It was apparently a general tendency to take pictures of the Maidan as signs of a supernatural vision, a legend, an apocalyptic struggle between light and darkness.

That this attitude was indeed general, is well illustrated by a fairy tale book published a few months later in Lviv/Lemberg, by the Old Lion publishing house, where the story book on the Ukrainian war was also published later. This book, illustrated in a dreamlike manner by Hristina Lukashchuk – a young writer-architect-designer, author of the highly acclaimed psycho-erotic novel Kurva (Whore, 2013) – also presents the Maidan as a clash between good and evil. It fits the events into the framework of a naively static and mystical, half-Christian and half-pantheistic Ukrainian nationalist worldview, as solemn and devout as cheap prints in folk fairs, through which they take on a universal dimension, and become a heroic example to be followed by the little readers. Its mythology, though in different ways, helps both them and us to understand Ukrainian reality.

Tale about the Maidan

“Once upon a time, very, very long time ago, there was still no heaven, no earth, only the deep blue sea, in the middle of which rose a beautiful green maple tree. The doves of God sat on the branches of the maple tree, and there they cooed, holding council on how to create a wonderful world, and a wonderful man worthy of this wonderful world. They decided to go down to the depths of the sea. When they went down for the first time, they brought a yellow pebble to the surface. This became the Sun. They went down for the second time, and brought up a green net. It became the vault of heaven. They went down for the third time, and brought up a blue stone. It became the Moon. They went down for golden sand: this became the tiny stars. They went down for dark mud: from this they created the black Earth. And this earth produced wheat and rye, and all other crops. And they named this blessed fertile land Ukraine. And in this land a hard-working people settled: the Ukrainians.”

The male representative of the hard-working Ukrainians settling in this land has a striking similarity to the young Stepan Bandera, the father of Ukrainian nationalism, and founder of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which collaborated with the Nazis and made did their dirty work in the form of Polish and Jewish genocide. Which is understandable, since he is considered the original coordinates of Ukrainian history by the official Ukrainian historiography and state ideology.


“This land was very, very rich. In one day you could not go around it, you could not run around it by horse. One end of it was washed by the deep sea, where wonderful monsters lived, in the other end high mountains rose. On the peaks of the highest mountains, hundred-year-old Hutsul women sat, and let white clouds fly from the smoke of their pipes. And the white clouds descended into the valleys, and became those stone idols, which watch over the peace of the Ukrainian steppe.”

A 110-year-old Hutsul woman. Verkhovina, 1926. Photo by Mikola Senkovsky.
(The explanatory pictures and commentaries are additions by río Wang)

“At the foot of the mountains, lakes slept. Through the clear water of the lakes you could see a colorful underwater kingdom, the water dwarves, fairies and mermaids. Between the lakes, the Ukrainians built tiny white houses, baked bread, erected high churches. They loved above all God and their land, and raised their children in love.”

The usual portrayal of mermaids in Russian luboks, 1866

“In winter, St. Nicholas arrived to the Ukrainian kids. To the good ones he brought gifts, to the bad ones, a birch-rod. And in the spring, the swallows flew up and down, carrying with them news of the rich crops, full granaries and a happy homeland.”


“The winter songs and spring round dances, however, did not last forever. Like wild animals, the envious neighbors watched the beautiful land with yearning. Like the black dragon, they rushed at once to Ukraine, to tear off a piece or two of it.”

The drawing leaves no doubt as to which neighbors are concerned. Whose symbol is the white eagle, the Wulf and Brezhnev-faced bear Misha?


“Ukraine has experienced many kinds of domination. Some came from afar, while others were elected by themselves. The centuries passed, one after the other, and the birds of Evil were gathering over Ukraine, like a black cloud. The leaders of Ukraine rarely managed to keep the sky cloudless. Indeed, very often they only had a black hole in the place of their hearts. It always happens so to those who turn away from God and from the people, and worship golden idols instead. The last leader was particularly greedy. He more and more exploited his country and his people. The poorer the people became, the brighter palaces he erected in his large greed.”

The vozhd’, as corpulent as Yanukovich, with a crowned ushanka on his head, is engrossed in contemplating the extorted treasures. The preciouss, the expropriated wildlife, the ships and factories, and the gold coins are easy-to-understand symbols of wealth. But what about the books? The bookshelf is not the usual epitheton ornans of this kind of tyrant. Except for Yanukovich! He was, as we have seen, a lover of books. It is very likely that his hallmark is this unusual status symbol.



“And the sky over Ukraine increasingly darkened with the black birds. People tolerated it for a long time. But finally they ran out of patience. One day, the Ukrainians went out to the Maidan. They demanded a righteous leader for themselves. They wanted to put an end to injustice and wickedness. Shoulder to shoulder they stood there day and night, the prayer, the song and the word were their only weapon. Thanks to them, the Maidan became a church under the open sky. They were so many, that when it got dark, it was revealed that the sky and its stars moved down to earth. And in the morning, the white wings of the doves brought the new day.”


“But suddenly the black birds of the Evil, the killing eagles [berkut] also appeared above the Maidan. They circled menacingly around the doves, and their circle became increasingly tighter. They shed fear and cold on the people, the chill of death. However, the Maidan did not empty, on the contrary, it was filled to the brim.”


“And then the day came when the eagles attacked. And that fight was not that of life, but that of death. However, the fearless ones, even though they were unarmed, did not retreat a step. They were held steady by their unwavering faith in Love. And the predators could not bear this. They finally fled, with falling black feathers. This was also seen by the leader, the blood-sucking tick, and he was frightened of the wrath of God and people. The people won. But the victory was bitter. Many heroes remained forever in the Maidan – beautiful young boys and their unbreakable brethren…”


“After the battle, the doves descended to the Maidan, and carried the souls of the heroes on their wings far, far away, up into heaven. Up to the Sun. Up to God.”


“And from the blood of the heroes, a new tree grew in the middle of the Maidan. Its crown reaches half of the world, and a new life is sprouting in its shadow. And above, in the deep blue sky, the doves of God are hovering.”