 |
Hryhorii Oleksandrovych Machtet |
 After graduating from officer school in Zhytomyr, in 1944–45 he took part in World War II as part of the Polish Army, which he ended in Poland. The Hudemchuk family suffered losses: Yakiv’s brother died in 1943, and in 1954 his father also passed away (Oleksa Hudemchuk, 1894–1954), who died in Stalinist camps (he was deported to Siberia in 1950 for belonging to the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and for the chronicles of S. Petliura’s liberation struggles). The poet’s overall creative legacy includes about a thousand poems published in Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Belgium, Romania, and Canada. The establishment of Ukrainian-language radio broadcasts in 1956 is one of Yakiv Hudemchuk’s many contributions to the revival and affirmation of Ukrainian identity in Pomerania, on the Baltic Sea coast, where thousands of Ukrainian families live. He serves as a popularizer of the achievements of Ukrainian literature in Poland, while also translating and interpreting into Ukrainian works by H. Heine, J. W. Goethe, Wład The last years of Yakiv Hudemchuk's life were burdened by suffering from an incurable illness and the loss of his wife Kateryna Hudemchuk (Budetska). Yakiv Hudemchuk did not live to see the publication of his one-volume poetry collection, which appeared in Koszalin at the end of 2003 under the title Riznotsvittia, already after the poet’s death (June 4, 2003). I will return to Ukraine. And I will gather happiness - blossom, I will hold close to my heart And I will not wander around the world, — The poem “The Fern Flower” by Y. Hudemchuk ends with these words. The events were attended by Andrii and Mykola Hudemchuky, the poet’s sons, and the compiler of the volume, Mykola Zymomria. Thus the poet returned to his homeland in a wonderful book. This time—forever. Nataliia Pushkar |