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Oral History
Interview with V. (Chernivtsi)
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Key information
| Title: | Interview with V. (Chernivtsi) |
| Date: | 25/03/2011 |
| Interviewer: | Nadezhda Beliakova (NB) |
| Interviewee: | Interviewee, V. (V) |
| Transcriber: | |
| Duration: | 1 hour(s) 32 minutes and seconds |
| Location: | Chernivtsi, Ukraine |
Conversation
| NB | Did you join the army after evening school? |
| V | Yes. After a month. I served for three and a half years. |
| NB | Did you take up a weapon? Or were you in some sort of mechanized…? |
| V | I didn’t, I refused the oath for a whole year, they put me in front of a tribunal, it was tough then. It then became tougher. There’s an alternative now, but back then… so, after a day in Lviv, that was where the regional tribunal was, I was accompanied by a sergeant, no chance of any leave. If anyone came to visit, Lviv after all was not too far away, then it was only in the presence of an officer, as in a prison… and the people there, the lads, they showed themselves to be so vulgar that my first years in the army were very hard. Let me say, though, that after a year I had grown so weak spiritually because I had absolutely no contact with anything spiritual that they convinced me finally to sign the oath. But they told me not to worry, I wouldn’t have any weapon, but I had to sign the oath. I signed it. That was, I suppose, a sign of my weakness. |
| NB | Did you discuss with your brothers about not signing, or was it your decision? I mean the brothers in the church, or was that not the done thing? |
| V | No, I had no support. |
| NB | None? |
| V | Not from the church, if only there had been some support… |
| NB | What about your family? |
| V | I did get support from my family. |
| NB | Did your father support you? |
| V | My mother, my parents. But there was none from the church because it was official policy that you had to serve in the army, with all the consequences that involves. |
| NB | Did you really then serve in some service units? |
| V | Yes, I served in the mechanical transport division as I already had some experience behind me, I had a Second Class license, I was a specialist and quite well regarded, I drove a bus. But if I hadn’t had that stigma I could have achieved much more, I could have gone further, to the General Staff and beyond, there were all sorts of prospects. |
| NB | In the army everybody knew, naturally, that you were a religious believer? |
| V | Yes, it was written on the file ‘Baptist’, my personal case-file. |
| NB | Did you fellow soldiers make fun of you? Did this issue interest them at all? |
| V | No, they didn’t make fun of me. It’s just that I joined up at 21, and not at 18. |
| NB | Ah, so you were older. |
| V | I was older than them, I already had some experience, I had read a lot, I would read all kinds of books, fiction, largely fiction, but at least I was quite erudite in many matters, and this aspect does have an effect on those around you. And many of them even respected me. |
| NB | Did the leadership conduct political discussions with you on atheistic themes? |
| V | Of course they did. |
| NB | Was that often? |
| V | Well, we talked, there was a senior lieutenant, the platoon commander, he was entrusted to do it, but they didn’t have enough background to sort of persuade me… they asked more questions, and I talked to them. |
| NB | In other words, you rather enlightened them? |
| V | Yes, indeed. It’s not that I wanted to, but I would talk to them and I had a sort of solid grounding to do so, whereby the moral code of the builder of Communism… is only a declaration, and as of today he has shown after 70 years and 2 generations, and this generation, the one that should have now been the builder, they’ve all become oligarchs and we still work for them… |