Precursor by Vasyl Shevchuk

Author:Vasyl Shevchuk [Shevchuk, Vasyl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glagoslav Publications B.V.

There is no better,

There’s no place finer,

Than here in our Ukraine!

In the square near the fairy-tale “Felicial”1 fountain Skovoroda spied the academy choir from afar. Surrounded by festively dressed people, the choir stood in a sea of flowers, poppyheads, as if in a garden, and prepared to begin the festival with their beautiful singing.

Hryhoriy held back the lad and asked him to be silent. A soft murmur passed over the square like a breeze... Suddenly it was silent. The tall thin regent ascended the dais and raised his hands as if they were wings. A moment more – and the song took wing! Skovoroda had never heard this one. It soared over the dumbfounded crowd, squeezing the soul with grief, filling the chest with joy. What it spoke about, Hryhoriy was unable to discern. He was not even listening attentively but enjoyed it, imbibing it like wine, like water on a hot summer’s day, unaware that he was crying. God, the trip from Kharkiv was worth just these few minutes of song.

When the song had finished, Skovoroda stopped a student who was walking past them with a blank expression, and asked: “Tell me, young Cossack, who wrote this marvellous song?”

“Our Berezovsky,” the fellow said proudly. “He’s standing in the choir there, near the columns on the right.”

He was a slender, blond youth with an angelic face, who had become tanned walking through fields side by side with those who grew people’s daily bread. Skovoroda drew closer and was able to make out his large, possibly grey or light‑blue eyes, which attracted one’s gaze like a magnet, subduing and forcing one to forget everything in the world, including oneself.

Meanwhile the choir had begun a reapers’ song, which had been performed ten years earlier as well.

“I’m hungry,” Mykhailo whispered.

“Just a moment...”

They quietly emerged from the crowd of city folk, Cossacks, and sullen bondsmen, who were visiting their free relatives during the feast and had headed toward the monastery. Looking over the bell tower from all sides, they sat on a bench in the shade and took out onions, bread and lardo from their bags.

Hryhoriy was not hungry and, leaving the boy to breakfast alone, he wandered off to the boarding school. Although this squalid domicile had once been damned on many an occasion, he was still drawn to it, for his best years had passed here, his cold and hungry youth, the years of his hopes and aspirations. It was deserted and quiet here – everyone was in the square, in the city, where the festival was getting into full swing. People would be raging here for three days and three nights, according to custom.

Humble greetings to you, my dear alma mater! Somewhere they said (he had heard about it in Kharkiv), in another yard, a high white dormitory had already been built, made of freshly-hewn timber. He felt sadness and joy. Let the boys luxuriate; dirty water would no longer drip onto their wise heads from the ceiling, the drafts would

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