VASYL STUS - A STRIKING EXAMPLE OF UKRAINIAN ARISTOCRATISM

On January 6 we usually mark the anniversary of birthday of Vasyl Stus, a Ukrainian poet and publicist, one of the most active members of Ukrainian dissident movement of 60's.


Vasil Stus for us is not just a genius poet of the XX century, who sacrificed his life in the name of his Fatherland, but also as an example of true aristocratic soul, the one who belong to a nation's elite by own spirit, a person, whose heritage serves as a lodestar for future generations.  His life path is an example of how to stay loyal to own beliefs and ideals, bravely laughing in the face of such dreadful enemy as the Soviet regime, a regime that had successfully pursued a policy of systematic transformation of people into spiritual degenerates for decades. Clearly that people of noble spirit had been doomed to extinction in this period because of their nature. In his poems Stus criticized and unmasked the degenerative essence of what the left totalitarian system had imposed on the enslaved nations under the guise of the "bright future."

Reviewing the Ukrainian dissident's collection of poems "Merry Cemetery" one Soviet literature criticist wrote: "Soviet people, according to him, are soulless machines, people without heads, mannequins who mechanically play a preset scenario." Simply put, Soviets perfectly understood how dangerous Stus's poems are for the ruling regime. In fact, the KGB had feared him as a poet more than as a civic activist.

But let's back to the poet's personality. Dmytro Dontsov wrote that wisdom, generosity and courage are the main signs of a national elite. And Vasil Stus possessed all these qualities. Especially his courage, that impressed all those who had the opportunity to meet the poet in prison. Stus's contemporaries often recall the strength of his personality.

Remembering the dissident's imprisonment in Mordovia MIkhailo Khfeits noticed that Stus spoke to the prison guards in a winner's voice, that was a voice of a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. He always refused to compromise with the prison chiefs, despite this was necessary to survive in such situations. He always refused to compromise with the prison chiefs, despite this was necessary to survive in such situations. In one interview Soviet dissident Sergey Soldatov remembered that Stus stood out with his irreconcilable attitude to unrighteousness, wickedness, oppression system... he had suffered, but tried to hide it. Sometimes, in the nighttime he went out to corridor and moaned in pain.

Courage organically combined in him with great intellectual potential. Being an expert on philosophy, the poet in exile had been discussing about Kant, Husserl, Camus. As a man of literary he continued to write critical articles, translate; in conversations he cited poems in different languages. Once, before the imprisonment, he had been declaiming Rilke's poems by heart for hours in German during a poetic evening in Kyiv.

But undoubtedly Stus's noble spirit was the most striking feature of his personality, which guided him by the way of service to Mother Ukraine. As many others he could sell his soul and talents to the service of the Bolshevik regime. Certainly, the Soviet system was alien for people like him. However, it was a kind of parasite, who always needs a carrier to live in. As many others he had a choice and he did it. Refusing to live the life of a fed slave, Vasil Stus had chosen the way of struggle.

The Bolsheviks killed him, but the martyrdom had become the gate to immortality.

In the end it is necessary to note how important the memory of Vasil Stus is for Europe now. In the end it is necessary to note how important the memory of Vasil Stus is for Europe now. Today, when the processes of degradation of Europe reaches its peak, the dissident poet's life can serve as an example of how a person of aristocratic spirit can and must continue to fight against the servants of left cosmopolitan totalitarism, an evolved form of the Soviet multicultural system, that mutilate souls.

Everything goes according to the Lord's plan. Not by coincidence the dissident poet was born in the Donbass, the place where the spirit of ancient Rus-Ukraine has been awoken in the flames of battles.

by Eduard YURCHENKO