Two loops of ribbon, stapled together,
Sky blue, sunflower yellow,
Tattered like the land they represent.
Each day I pin them proudly to my chest,
Remembering my grandparents from Proskurov.
But it’s more complex —
In constant fear of pogroms they emigrated.
Fifteen hundred Proskurov Jews were slaughtered in one day
As their fellow citizens stood by, or egged the killers on.
Proskurov became Khmelnytsky, but no matter the name,
The stain of blood will never fade.
There’s no time for pogroms now.
Jews and Christians fight side by side.
United, they will triumph over tyranny.
Together we will all rebuild.
Slava Ukraini! Geroyim slava! *
Until then I’ll wear my loops of tattered ribbon.
* Glory to Ukraine! To the heroes, glory!
PDF: Two_Loops-sample.pdf
In the spring of 2022 I had the opportunity to sing Defiant Requiem with singers drawn from many choruses in the Washington, D.C. area. We were issued loops of ribbon, blue and yellow, to pin to our concert outfits, perhaps in honor of the valiant fight Ukraine was waging versus the Russian invaders.
Two years later, I still pin the ribbons on daily. Late in 2023 I decided to compose a piece expressing my feelings about the war and how my Ukrainian-Jewish maternal ancestry fits in. Some time spent on the internet revealed an understated but profound poem (“the two simplest words”) by Ukrainian poet Maria Kiyanovska, and I set to work. It did not go well. It was slower going than usual for me, and the music I produced not only failed to capture Kiyanovska’s poem, but didn’t even sound good.
Finally I realized that the poem just wasn’t the right one for my piece, so I wrote my own. I faced head-on my ambivalence, cheering for Ukraine to turn back the Russian invasion, while still mindful of the pogroms that drove my grandparents out of Proskurov (as it was then named) around the turn of the 20th century, nearly two decades before the Proskurov massacre (February 15, 1919) cited in my poem.
I didn’t have to look far for musical material. The Tchaikovsky 2nd Symphony is subtitled “Little Russian” for the three Ukrainian folk tunes Tchaikovsky employs, and I used these as the basis for the piece. (“Little Russia” is a term Russians have used to refer to Ukraine. It is not a slur; there is no lack of those.) I also learned that Tchaikovsky himself had Ukrainian ancestry.
Progress was much faster this time around, and the final notes and words were entered on March 21 — Bach’s birthday! I decided on a baritone solo for the opening section and the final vocal line, all words of a very personal nature.
I owe debts of gratitude to Jaroslav Hrytsak, whose history of Ukraine enabled me to correct factual errors in the poem, and especially to Robert Shafer, whose encouragement helped me to persevere whenever I was stuck.