Unforgettable Pavlo Glazoviy

By Yuliana Kholodova

Yuliana Kholodova - candidate of chemical sciences, doctor of biological sciences, professor of biochemistry. She has more than 200 scientific publications to her credit, including monographs and patents. She is also the author of socio-political works and literary essays. Details of her biography can be

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Regency Publishers
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781960113443

Yuliana Kholodova

Yuliana Kholodova is the candidate of chemical sciences, doctor of biological sciences, professor of biochemistry. She has more than 200 scientific publications to her credit, including monographs and patents. She is also the author of socio-political works and literary essays. Her husband name Yuri Kholodov is a People's Artist of Ukraine, Laureate of the State Shevchenko Prize of Ukraine. He is the author of numerous literary publications and 12 books.

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Preface to an American Edition

Pavlo Prokopovich Glazoviy (1922-2004) - the legendary Ukrainian poet-humorist and satirist. It happened that our life paths crossed, and our close communication continued for twenty years of the active creative period of the poet’s life (1974-1993). Published in Ukraine on the centenary of his birth, the book of our memoirs and selected works of the poet Unforgettable Pavlo Glazoviy (FOP Stebelyak, Kyiv 2022) attracted the attention of readers, which influenced our decision to introduce it to the American reader.

The work of Pavlo Glazoviy is imbued with the Ukrainian folk spirit, and this is its peculiarity and enduring value. The poet uses the expressions beloved by the people, the treasures of the living language, Ukrainian proverbs and sayings, as if giving them a second wind, which makes up the unique flavor of his fables. His rhymes are light and melodic. The often coarse, vernacular, unpretentious content of his humorous poetry is combined with the sophistication of presentation. All this is extremely difficult to preserve in translation.

The author’s ways of creating plots and artistic images cause their different perception by readers of the original and readers of the translation due to the historically established specific conditions of their existence - life and culture (I mean Ukrainian and Western readers). It is also impossible not to take into account the various possibilities and features of languages.

Being a poet deeply popular, national, and therefore being a prominent representative of the Ukrainian mentality, he remains the bearer of common to all mankind values that retain a flavor of national specificity. And such statements are largely universal.

We are deeply grateful to Mr. Charles Salkowski for helping us understand the differences in the perception of the poet’s work by American and Ukrainian readers, as well as in editing texts.

Yuliana Kholodova

Memoirs

We met in the blessed Shevchenko Park, in the center of Kyiv, somewhere in the mid-70s. We then lived on the quiet Repin Street (now Tereshchenkovskaya) in a large house, which was located between two museums, then called the museums of Russian and Western art, and often walked along the shady alleys of the park, admiring the majestic monument to Taras Shevchenko, the work of the sculptor M. Manizer.

The graphic artist and portrait painter Arkady Feigin, who lived nearby, often walked there, with whom we once talked about the picturesque design of the park, and he unexpectedly asked permission to paint my portrait. Inviting us to his studio, he showed many beautifully executed portraits of Kyiv artists and offered to introduce us to them and his other friends, of whom he had many. We have always been interested in painting, and even then we had a small collection of paintings.

We became friends, our new acquaintance often visited us and sometimes brought his friends with him, who participated with interest in various disputes and discussions, brought their works, invited to workshops. Music always sounded in our house, and disputes about literature, painting, musical art, about our difficult life often did not subside until late in the evening. One of our new friends turned out to be Pavlo Glazoviy, who once appeared, showed himself as an unsurpassed debater and provocateur of some paradoxes and incomprehensible ideas, which aroused my special interest and sympathy. There was a lot of charm in him, he interspersed his remarks with a soft, inherent laughter him alone, while at the same time carefully observing those around him and responding to any thought expressed by anyone in the course of the argument.

Very soon our communication grew into a close affection. He began to visit us much more often, bring his tales and various fables, while cursing some publishers, swearing and bullying various critics who put insulting labels on him, with editors unknown to us, and immediately writing new funny lines, accompanying them infectious laughter. For us, he became just Pavlusha, and we sympathized with all his misfortunes, accepting them as our own.

He signed his first book as a gift to us:

My dear Yu. Yu! I am asking you and begging you:

Forgive my antics, everyday snickering (29.8.1975).

He sometimes tried to indulge our post-totalitarian regime at least in some way, adding some lines praising our wonderful socialist way of life in comparison with bestial capitalism, varnished as а popular, democratic and noble. For example, in the 1981 edition of the "Radyansky Pismennik", a thin booklet "May you have fun", which we soon received, we saw several such fables on the first pages as an entrance ticket to this world of censored publications. But it was so against his nature that very soon he rewrote these tales or eliminated them altogether from his file cabinet.

Our Yavdokia Petrivna, Yuri’s mother, was a passionate admirer of Pavlusha’s humorous opuses. At that time, his work attracted the attention of many people. His works were read on the capital stage by Andrey Sova, Tolya Palamarenko, Anatoly Litvinov, Nila Krjukova, and he himself often performed at various venues reading his fables and grins. They sounded on the radio, on television, in rural clubs throughout Ukraine. It was beneficial for the organizers to carry out such performances because of the huge profit.

Yavdokia Petrivna often came to help us with the housework, she was an excellent cook. She was impatient to cook something tastier for Pavlusha, and he himself was filled with gratitude to her and, I remember how once he demanded that I be sure to bring her to his apartment on Tolstoy Street, where he played Ukrainian songs and some more mournful melodies for her on the accordion. The delight of our lover of sparkling folk humor and its creator was indescribable. I had to reflect all this in humoresque:

Oh, Yavdokia once has heard about the humorist,

Who spanks various parasites

With prowess, even with a whistle.

People say that satirist is very nice –

Kind eyes, smiling, and used to work.

She ran to find out quietly, secretly,

How to listen and look at those smiles.

The Bureau of Propaganda angrily told her:

"Today, a performance was ordered at Sugar Trust,

In the Community of the Disabled, in Baths, Kyiv Gas,

In Electric Guild, the Ministry and the Department Store.

In the Academy of Sciences, in the Central Grocery Store,

Also at the Conservatory - he has acquaintances there."

Tried here and there, there are no seats anywhere,

There is no time to get to the Academy from Electric Guild.

She turned black from that running around:

His eyes are alluring - there is no strength!

Well, the boy is motor!

Oh, she can neither do, nor eat, nor sleep,

So, perhaps, it remains to write humorous stories.

If only there was such a Bureau in our city,

To order this Glazoviy home.

After reading it, he grunted with satifaction, put this piece of paper aside with some disdain, but realized that now, among other things, he was provided with a good kitchen in this house. Moreover, it was very close to walk.

We often talked with him