The remains of prominent Ukrainian poet and writer Oleksandr Oles and his wife Vira Kandyba were reburied at Lukianivske cemetery in Kyiv on Jan. 29 after a sudden exhumation in Prague almost four weeks ago.
Oles (birth name Oleksandr Kandyba) was a highly-acclaimed Ukrainian writer and poet born near Sumy, Ukraine in 1878. He emigrated from Ukraine a few months after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Despite living abroad, he continued to write about Ukraine until his death in Prague in 1944.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and his wife Maryna Poroshenko were among those who attended the memorial service preceding the reburial, at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral.
“Oleksandr Oles, possibly like no one else, thoroughly expressed in his poetry the pain of a human being forced to emigrate after losing one’s home country,” Poroshenko said at the service.
“His poetry shows how one must love Ukraine.”
The memorial service was led by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret.
The reburial comes weeks after the exhumation of Oles’s remains and those of his wife in Prague on Jan. 3. According to Czech laws, the renting of a funeral spot, which costs 20,000 Czech korunas ($792) per year, needs to be paid by relatives or friends of the deceased.
Ukrainian emigrant and Czech Republic resident Volodymyr Myhailyshyn paid Oles’s rent. Myhailyshyn died recently and his son wanted to use the funeral spot to bury Myhailyshyn, therefore forcing the exhumation of Oles’s and Kandyba’s remains.
Poroshenko quickly reacted to the incident by contacting the great grandchildren of Oles living in Canada, who agreed to the reburial. The money for the transportation of Oles’s and his wife’s ashes via an airplane was provided by the Ukrainian government.
The reburial symbolically took place on Jan. 29, the Day of Kruty Heroes. The Kruty heroes were 400 Ukrainians (300 of them – students) who heroically faced the 4,000-man Bolshevik army near the village of Kruty, about 130 km northeast of Kyiv on Jan. 29, 1918. Over half of the 400 Ukrainians were killed during the five-hour long battle.
According to the press service of Poroshenko this reburial is significant because the poet always dreamt about returning to Ukraine.
“Not only a Ukrainian reburial, but also studying and popularizing Oles’s works will be a great way to commemorate the poet,” the website of Poroshenko’s press service quoted the president as saying.
