MYKOLA KHVYLOVYI: On the Waves of Publicism and Repression
Mykola Khvylovyi / wikipedia.org
Mykola Khvylovyi (real surname Fitylov) was deeply fond of the number thirteen. He was born on December 13, 1893, and ended his life on May 13, 1933. He suffered from neurasthenia and had an unbearable, explosive temperament, igniting like a match. He mainly wrote at night.
He began with poetry characterized by chaotic rhythms and later transitioned to short prose. In his prose, he would tear sentences apart or pluck words from them as if pulling feathers from a bird. He passionately defended the historical existence of Ukraine and possessed remarkable intuition.
Once, before a circus performance, he predicted the death of an acrobat. He also told writer Arkadii Liubchenko the exact date of his death — and both predictions came true.
KHARKIV, THE «SLOVO» HOUSE, RED WRITERS, 5
The «Slovo» House was a true architectural gem. It had five entrances and sixty-eight apartments, each equipped with a small kitchen (just enough to boil water for tea), steam heating, and a balcony. The building featured a boiler room with a coal furnace, a courtyard with a heap of coal, and a rooftop solarium and shower. In winter, they set up an ice rink, and in summer, they planted daisies and played volleyball with beer as the prize. The residents were friendly with one another.
Mykola Khvylovyi lived on the third floor of apartment number nine with his wife, Yulia, and her daughter from her first marriage, Lyuba. It was said that Yulia often cluttered the rooms, so they had to hire domestic help.
Lyuba played the piano beautifully and often attended «Berezil» theater performances and conservatory concerts with her stepfather. Mykola loved her as his own daughter and affectionately called her «Liubystok» (lovage).
The writer himself had a distinctive appearance. Dark-skinned, with unkempt hair and brows that seemed to shoot in different directions, he was wiry and tenacious. He cared little about clothing, often wearing an old military coat and a tattered cap for years (which he would shove onto his head without looking), though he made sure to keep his feet warm.
He walked quickly and with purpose but suffered from frequent colds. When nervous, he shrugged his shoulders and snacked on sunflower seeds. He had two personas: a formal one and an everyday one. He felt most at ease in hunting attire — a rough jacket, heavy boots, worn-out pants, and with a bag, rifle, and dogs on a leash.
He loved hunting not just as an excuse to bag a duck or share a few drinks but as an opportunity to relax and speak freely without worrying about the walls, which were «bugged» with listening devices.
Khvylovyi was well aware that the residents of «Slovo» were brought together intentionally: every corner, angle, and window was under surveillance, a kind of slow-acting bullet. This is why he often disappeared for a day, two, or even a week, hiding in the reeds or a clearing, where he would spend long hours lost in thought.
THE WANDERING FITYLOV
In reality, Mykola was not Khvylovyi but Fitylov. His rebellious, defiant nature led him to adopt such a pseudonym. He called his father careless, but he didn’t stray far from that description. He was expelled from gymnasiums twice and became enamored with the then-popular Maxim Gorky and his idea of «wandering Rus’».
Vagabonds became a trend: free but always barefoot and hungry; they never stayed in one place for long. He worked as a laborer in a boiler house, loading bricks and coke near Ilovaisk and Horlivka. Then came the First World War, and with it, Galicia, the Carpathians, Poland, Bukovina, and Romania, where the revolution eventually caught up with him.
War took its toll on him — his frail nerves grew even weaker, but he didn’t abandon the fight. He fought against Germans, Hetman supporters, and Denikin’s forces. For failing to fulfill a military duty, he was sentenced to death, but love — or its illusion — intervened.
It was Yulia Umantseva who pleaded on behalf of the energetic prisoner or perhaps exclaimed, «Then shoot me too!» Out of gratitude, the condemned man married her. He later wrote the short story Puss in Boots, in which the dark-eyed Yulia became the prototype for «Comrade Zhuchok» — the revolutionary woman par excellence.
At first, she was a cook, then a secretary for the party cell, with a «nail head» nose. High-minded, courageous, and fearless, she spoke Russian, wore khaki-colored clothes (but without buttons), and advocated for women’s right to abortion. Oversized boots and communist slogans didn’t quite suit her, but the rebel persisted, wandering the «weeds of the revolution».
Yulia became the writer’s second wife. His first wife was Kateryna. The two married in 1918 and had a daughter, Iraida, and Khvylovyi moved to a dormitory in Kharkiv while his family stayed in Bohodukhiv.
One day, Kateryna visited, only to find another woman in the room tidying up, cooking on a portable stove, and humming songs from Alexander Vertinsky’s repertoire. That was the end of their marriage.
Kateryna’s resentment grew so deep that she forbade Mykola from seeing their child. How he felt about this is unknown, but when Iraida entered her turbulent teenage years and took an interest in music, Khvylovyi decided to gift her a white piano.
Kateryna didn’t allow her to accept the gift. The piano was left outside on the street.
A MASTER OF SHORT PROSE, LANDSCAPE DETAILS, AND FLEETING MOMENTS
No matter the circumstances, Mykola was teeming with ideas. Words begged to be formed into sentences, and this gave rise to his poem I Have Now Fallen in Love with the City, where sidewalks sang loudly, and the tram bell rang. This was followed by Blue Etudes, short prose works that instantly elevated the novice writer to unprecedented fame.
His stories were challenging to read and perceived as neurotic, reflecting his heavy, traumatic experiences: wanderings, starvation, and «three years of Golgotha squared». Neurasthenia took such a toll on him that he twice went out to the fields intending to shoot himself but couldn’t follow through — he lacked the courage. He called himself a coward and a worthless man.
In the spring of 1925, his pamphlet Ukraine or Little Russia ignited a loud debate. In it, he called for shedding the psychological dependence on Moscow and praised the idea of independent cultural development.
Stalin was gravely angered and wrote to Kaganovich, forcing Khvylovyi to craft a letter of repentance. Despite this, he continued his efforts to separate Ukrainian culture from Russian culture and to contrast the two peoples, at least in the pages of the journals Literary Fair and Political Front.
That same year, in 1925, he founded VAPLITE (Free Academy of Proletarian Literature), which advocated for complex literature, together with like-minded individuals (P. Tychyna, M. Kulish, M. Johansen). Mykola looked to Europe for inspiration, contemplated the idea of Ukraine’s equality within the USSR, and, unexpectedly for himself, became a political figure.
Meanwhile, in the «Slovo» building, he worked with enthusiasm. At dusk, he skated in long strides, then smoked for extended periods and wrote until dawn. He drank excessively, believing that a bit of alcohol before work wasn’t a sin. After just a sip of rowanberry liqueur, he would immediately unbutton the top button of his shirt as if his collar was choking him.
Once, after drinking too much, he began banging his head against a wall with a world map hanging on it. He struck exclusively at the blue areas of the ocean as if trying to drown himself. He passionately hated Moscow, calling it the ‘prison of nations.’ He had a heated argument with Mayakovsky despite being a communist. He was friends with Sosyura, who once remarked, «We are crimson poets».
He continued writing passionate, avant-garde texts, paying particular attention to colors. Anything utopian or overly dreamy was inevitably blue. He held the top spot in popularity among writers, bearing the burden of being a generational leader.
From time to time, crises arose, both personal and literary. During such moments, he would return to thoughts of suicide. Political disillusionment weighed heavily on him — he couldn’t comprehend why the earth was being fertilized with human blood.
These sentiments are deeply ingrained in the short story I (Romance), where a young, ambitious Chekist, indifferent and detached, issues execution orders. He apathetically gazes at the landscapes outside the window, ignoring the eyes of the condemned and the accompanying paperwork. Eventually, his own mother is among the arrested. The Chekist shoots her in the temple with his own hand.
Then came the novel The Woodsnipes, in which the protagonist, once a staunch communist, becomes deeply disheartened. The poor fellow loses faith in communism, while the regime loses faith in the author. This led to yet another forced repentance, this time published in the newspaper Communist.
MAY 1933
The 1930s were unbearable for the publicist, as he understood that the Holodomor was a deliberately orchestrated event. Mykola felt exhausted, cornered, and resembled a frightened little bird. Gone were his broad shoulders, unkempt brows, cap, and formal demeanor.
Swollen people wandered the City. They sat slumped against fences, stretched out trembling hands, and begged for bread. Khvylovyi traveled to villages to see the reality firsthand and nearly lost his mind.
He immediately sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee: «The villages are dying. Help is needed». The response was an order to return. He was quickly told that everything was going according to plan and that this was the only way to «re-educate the stubborn kulaks». Grain confiscation, they explained, was necessary to force peasants into collective farms.
That morning, the sun shone brightly, but darkness ruled his soul. His comrade Mykhailo Yalovyi had been arrested the day before, and Mykola knew he was next. In a flash, he devised a scenario to leave this wretched life behind.
Lyubochka left for a music school, and guests arrived at the house. They sat for tea, though there was no sugar. Yulia even apologized for the inconvenience. Mykola bustled about, repeating incessantly, «Everything will be fine», and played the banjo he had made from a wooden handle and a kitchen sieve. He strummed and sang lines from Pushkin’s poem Demons.
The room was filled with cigarette smoke. The dog, Pom, barked loudly, perhaps asking to go hunting. Mykola scratched his ear and asked the obvious: «Pom, you’re here too?»
Later, he went to his study to fetch a manuscript (he wanted to read something he had burned the night before to the guests), but instead of reciting, a gunshot rang out.
The house erupted in panic, followed by a swampy silence. Heavy boots of state representatives thudded against the floor. The deceased was washed and dressed in a blue satin shirt, a yellow tie, and black trousers. The bullet hole in his temple was plugged with cotton. The lump in his left temple, where the bullet lodged in his skull, was disguised.
Whispers circulated about two suicide notes. In the first, Mykola held himself responsible for the fate of an entire generation, stating, «Yalovyi’s arrest is the execution of an entire generation». He lamented: «Why? Was it because we were the most sincere communists?» In the second, he apologized to his stepdaughter.
The next day, a large crowd of about two thousand gathered. Young people wore embroidered shirts. Girls brought flowers; the peonies had just bloomed. The entire Berezil theater troupe attended, with Les Kurbas staying close to the coffin.
On the way to the cemetery, trams stopped. Students from the medical school joined the procession. Construction workers dropped their buckets and shovels, smoothed their hair, and dusted off their jackets.
As the coffin was lowered into the grave, Ostap Vyshnia couldn’t contain himself and shouted: «Mykoltsiu, we will avenge you!» Playwright Kulish lay on the grave and embraced it fervently after the ceremony ended.
Khvylovyi’s daughter Iraida also came to bid her father farewell. His mother sorrowfully shook her head and said, «You never kissed him in life, so at least kiss him now before he is buried».
FORGIVE ME, LUBYSTOK
From that day on, the «Slovo» House lost all its words. It froze, fell silent, and became numb. Khvylovyi was branded an enemy of the people, and his works, as well as his name, were banned. His grave was leveled, and an amusement park was built on the cemetery grounds.
By the beginning of World War II, only six apartments in the once-renowned building remained occupied by their original tenants. The rest were filled with new residents, who complained about ghosts, the clattering of typewriters, and the scraping of skates. In apartment number nine, gunshots and murmurs were heard repeatedly:
Forgive me, my gentle dove, for everything. By the way, I destroyed my unfinished novel yesterday, not because I didn’t want it to be published but because I needed to convince myself that destroying it meant I had already found the willpower to do what I am doing today. Farewell, my precious Lubystok
Your father, M. Khvylovyi
