Journey to the Past

A young Canadian searches for his roots in Zolotonosha, Ukraine

By Adrian Lysenko

So many untold stories of Ukrainians were lost during the tumultuous events of the last century or were suppressed behind the iron curtain.  As a young Canadian whose roots are in Ukraine, I have sought to find a sense of historical wholeness by seeking out the stories of my family that were lost during their emigration.

With this purpose in mind, I set off for a month-long visit to Ukraine this summer with the aim of researching my grandfather’s life for a screenplay I am writing about him.

After arriving in Ukraine I spent a week in Ivano-Frankivsk with my friend Andriy and his family before embarking on a journey with him to Zolotonosha, a town 150 kilometres south of Kyiv, where my grandfather Mykola Lysenko (1921-2004) was born.

Before I left, I had interviewed my grandmother, Nina, about my grandfather’s life. I found out that, like many Ukrainians during the Stalin’s reign of terror, my family suffered on account of their longing for a national identity. My grandmother told me that Mykola’s father, Vasyl, a respected accountant, was arrested by the NKVD (Soviet secret police) in 1937. Mykola, along with his older brother Petro and mother Kateryna witnessed the arrest one night in their home.

Vasyl was sent to Siberia where he died because of a weak heart. Ostracized for being the son of an arrested Ukrainian nationalist, Mykola could not find work. He traveled to the industrial city of Dnipropetrovs’k where he found a job at the Petrovsky steel mill. Later, Mykola was forced to join the Red Army and was sent to the front during the Second World War.  Along with two other Ukrainians, Mykola was captured by Nazi soldiers and sent to a POW camp in Minsk.

Demoralized and starved, Mykola struggled to stay alive in the camp, which was plagued by disease and death. He, along with the two other Ukrainians he had been captured with, formulated an escape plan. While fleeing, one of his companions was shot and killed while he and the other Ukrainian survived by diving into a river. They separated, and Mykola returned to Zolotonosha to find it under Nazi rule.

Realizing that the Nazis were disbanding and the Soviets would soon return, Mykola left Zolotonosha for Western Poland. There, he lived with a member of the Polish underground Home Army and his family. One night the Nazis entered their house and arrested Mykola because the soldier had told them that Mykola was a Soviet spy. Mykola was taken to a Nazi prison where a young woman from Western Ukraine working as an interpreter saw from Mykola’s surname that he was Ukrainian and begged the commander to release him, claiming that he was her brother. Mykola was set free, and he fled to Germany.

After the war, Mykola stayed in a Displaced Persons’ camp in Augsburg studying economics at the University of Munich. At the camp that he met his future wife, Nina, from Poltava. They were married in 1946 and had their first child, Ihor, in 1947.

The OSS (an American counterintelligence organization) offered Mykola and his family refuge in the United States under the condition that he would be traded if a U.S. spy was caught in the U.S.S.R by the Soviets.  Mykola refused. However, he and his family eventually arrived in Buffalo, New York in 1950 with refugee status.

In 1953 my father, George Lysenko, was born in Buffalo. While he was studying at the University of Maryland, he met my mother, Lesia Serhijczuk, who was attending the University of Toronto. They married, and he moved to Toronto with her.

To get to my grandfather’s place of birth, Zolotonosha, I traveled by train 15 hours with Andriy from Lviv to Cherkasy. Arriving on a damp and dreary morning we then went by bus eastwards across the Dnipro River to Zolotonosha.

My first visit to Ukraine last year was spent mainly in the western part, and I was already beginning to notice the differences between Western and Eastern Ukraine. A main one was that most people spoke Russian instead of Ukrainian.

Upon arriving in Zolotonosha, we searched for the house where my grandfather was born and raised.  Our only clue was an envelope with the address on it my grandmother had given me.

Finally, we found the house; in front, in a chair was an old woman, Anna Lysenko (Mykola’s sister-in-law). The 86-years-old Anna was confused about who I was, even after Andriy’s explanation.  Hesitantly, she invited us inside for tea. She didn’t ask for our names until half-way through the visit.

Inside, the house I could feel my grandfather’s presence, especially once I saw his paintings on the wall. He had been an avid painter his entire life; most of his oil paintings were of landscapes of rivers or the countryside.

We all sat down, and Anna showed us various photographs, mostly of her husband Petro, who passed away in 1998. One of the first things she said to me once we sat down was that I look like Mykola. We stumbled upon a photograph of my family that my grandmother had given Anna during her trip to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. Only after I pointed out myself in the photo did Anna fully realize who I was.

Anna then offered to make us breakfast. Realizing that she didn’t have much food, we found out where the nearest store was and went there to purchase some bread, kolbassa, butter, wine and chocolates. We returned to the house and had breakfast.

I then began asking Anna questions about our family. She spoke mostly about Petro, telling me that he was a gentle and patient man like Mykola.

Andriy had to translate my questions as well as her responses because Anna only spoke Russian. She was born near the Don River and was a nurse in Baku, Azerbaijan during the Second World War and met Petro when he was in the hospital, injured.

Later, we took a taxi with Anna to the cemetery to visit the graves of Petro and other family members. While we were there, the sun emerged from behind the clouds, the only time during our whole visit. We went back to the house where we had an emotional farewell. One of the last things Anna said to me was, “When you return it will be to bury me.”

At one point during our visit Andriy asked me in English if this is what I had expected. I told him I had not known what to expect, not even if my grandfather's house would still be standing.

My grandfather never talked about his past to me. He was a peaceful man who loved his family very much. The whole time being in Zolotonosha felt surreal; it was as if I were walking in the past or in a dream.  I imagined my grandfather as a young man walking on the roads and fishing in the rivers that I saw.

During my last moments in Zolotonosha, I felt very indecisive. Anna invited us to stay longer; a part of me wanted to stay and sleep in the same room my grandfather had, but another side wanted to leave.  I did not want us to inconvenience Anna, who had a hard time moving about, and seeing the conditions of the town had depressed me.

I realized how fortunate I was for having been born and raised in Canada and never having had to experience the tribulations my grandparents had had to endure. As I now try to recreate the events of my grandfather’s life, I know it is impossible to know exactly what happened, but I will write a story about a brave man who endured much hate and abhorrence yet always remained admirable and truthful.

Adrian Lysenko is a Toronto-based filmmaker.