Writing Tragedy and Hope

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
~ Nathanial Hawthorne

Lately my writers group has been unable to meet due to distance and schedules. So we assigned each other writing assignments via email. Mine was to imagine a conversation between the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski and a relative of one of the Katyn Forest Massacre victims as they flew to Smolensk April 10, 2010. I am almost at 2,000 words into the project and I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Hawthorne.

This assignment is both difficult and a joy. The Katyn Forest Massacre has always captured my imagination and inspired great emotion ~ as has most of Poland's history. And not just because my father is Polish. It is a history rife with suffering and tragedy and the sheer stubborn will to survive. When I heard about the plane crash on Saturday, April 10, my first reaction was of fascinated horror. Good God! How much suffering can one nation endure? And the irony of the "accident" ~ Polish dignitaries dying on the way to a memorial service for murdered Polish dignitaries from 1940 ~ was not lost on anyone with a knowledge of history.

In doing this writing assignment, I found that I had to fight to keep a certain distance from it. Personal emotions kept blurring the lines ~ literally. It is difficult to type while wiping one's eyes and blowing one's nose. But the emotions and thoughts about this latest tragedy are nothing compared to my other writing project: an intimate story based on my father's experiences during the Nazi occupation of Poland in the 1940s and his time spent in a labor camp in Germany and his subsequent liberation.

This project is born of a deep love and admiration of my father, and the desire to share with others what a great man he is. And writing about the Katyn Memorial plane crash helped to open up some literary and emotional obstacles that were making writing my father's story difficult. God willing I will be able to complete this second project in time for him to read it.

May God be with the Poles during this time of great mourning. St. Stefan, ora pro nobis! St. Vladimir, ora pro nobis!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

A Prince of a Poet

Volodya was an extraordinary being, a living instrument of rare sensitiveness, which could of itself produce sounds of startling melody and purity, and create a world of bright images and harmonies. In years and experience he was still a child, but his spirit had penetrated into regions reached only by a few. He had genius...
~ Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna

I am in love. With a man known for his kindness, charity, piety and devotion to his faith. A writer of exquisite poetry, he published two books of poetry by the time he was 19, some of which was composed whilst he was fighting in the trenches of World War One. A fighter who was unafraid of death and a devoted son and cousin who chose to die rather than renounce his family.

He was Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley [Владимир Павлович Палей], a distant member of the Romanov family, martyred during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and considered a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. I have always been a fan of the Romanov family and their tragic history and when my friend Ashmut recently sent me one of Vlad’s (as I affectionately now call him) poems, I was immediately intrigued. In his poetry one finds passion and purity, faithfulness and struggle, light and shadow. And the workings of a brilliant mind and artistic soul. In my research into his life, I came across this entry on the website for the Russian Orthodox Church in Baltimore:

Prince Vladimir Paley, member of the Russian Imperial family and cousin to the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II, spiritually inherited the divine gift of poetry from another royal poet – the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov – known under the initials “K.R.” On July 5/18, 1917, together with the latter’s sons – Ioann, Igor and Konstantin Konstantinovichi, and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and nun Barbara, Prince Vladimir Paley was thrown by the godless into the mine at Alapayevsk, thus earning for himself the crown of a New Martyr.

Ashmut tried to mock my new found infatuation, but since he happens to have a thing for Ella, (the Grand Duchess Elizabeth), he really should not be throwing stones from his glass house. (Ahem!) My favorite poem is God in Every Place and Thing:

God is in every place and thing,
Not only in our lucky star,
Not only in the fragrant flower,
Not just in joys sweet dreamings bring,
But also in the dark of poverty,
The sightless terror of our vanity,
In hurtful things, where light is not,
In things to bear which is our lot…
God’s in the tears of our pain,
The wordless sorrow of goodbyes,
The faithless seekings of our brain,
In suffering itself is God.
It is through life upon this sod
That we must reach the unknown land,
Where with the crimson trail of nails
Lord Christ will touch the wounds of man.
And that is why all flesh must die,
And why God is in all that is.
Translated by Kosara Gavrilovic

If you can read that and remain unmoved, you must have stone in place of a soul and I really do not know what we shall do with you. As for me, I will continue to search for those two volumes of poetry and if anyone comes across them anywhere, do let me know. I do not read a lick of Russian (although dearest Papa does) but who cares!? Just to hold them would be incredible and I am sure I could get them translated. For now, I will have to content myself with the few poems that have been translated into English and reading a biography of his life, A Poet Among the Romanovs by Jorge Carbonell. This I shall do whilst drinking Russian tea and eating piroshky. Do pull up a chair and have some with me, my dears!

Oremus pro invicem,
~ Mikaela