Mondegreen

Songs about Death and Love

Volodymyr Rafeyenko, Mark Andryczyk, Mark Andryczyk

• Publisher: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780674271746
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

A mondegreen is something that is heard improperly by someone who then clings to that misinterpretation as fact. Fittingly, Volodymyr Rafeyenko's novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love explores the ways that memory and language construct our identity, and how we hold on to it no matter what. The novel tells the story of Haba Habinsky, a refugee from Ukraine's Donbas region, who has escaped to the capital city of Kyiv at the onset of the Ukrainian-Russian war. His physical dislocation—and his subsequent willful adoption of the Ukrainian language—place the protagonist in a state of disorientation during which he is forced to challenge his convictions. Written in beautiful, experimental style, the novel shows how people—and cities—are capable of radical transformation and how this, in turn, affects their interpersonal relations and cultural identification. Taking on crucial topics stirred by Russian aggression that began in 2014, the novel stands out for the innovative and probing manner in which it dissects them, while providing a fresh Donbas perspective on Ukrainian identity.

Conditionalis

Deep in reflection, Sancho figured that he had travelled half a mile or more when he noticed something ahead that looked like daylight coming though some kind of opening—this path, which he regarded as the road to the other world, was to finally lead him out of here.

—Servantes, The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha

In nature, there exists a Minsk market, but there is also a market near the Heroïv Dnipra metro station, and one needs to distinguish between the two. The latter one is about a mile and a half from home, but it is nonetheless better to go to that one. One can always get a good deal on cured fat and other homemade delicacies there, which are brought in from the villages and small towns of the Kyiv region. For example: nice, still warm milk; colostrum; and buckwheat honey. Haba never had enough money to buy everything that he wanted, but he did have a system.

If he were to buy a chunk of cured fat this Saturday, then next Saturday, for example, he’ll get a ring of sausage and a head of garlic. And, on Friday, he’ll pick up some milk that is still warm.

“My cow isn’t just any cow, it’s a sorceress,” the old yellow man says (that’s how the teacher Zhuangzi probably looked), nodding a request for a cigarette, lighting up, and blowing out some smoke with great satisfaction. “This cow’s grandma was named Mathilde von d’Este. People would say that she was a direct descendent of the Hapsburgs. (Once, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly—a happy butterfly freely fluttering among the flowers, and I didn’t know that…) 1 This cow did so many good things for our family. We, just so you know, live in Publiieve-­Neronove. It’s over thirty-­seven miles away from Kyiv. But that’s not important. Mathilde turned out to be so wise that, for twenty years in a row, she worked as secretary for the local branch of the Communist Party, ran the library, and served as the head of the local forest ministry for several years. And no surprise there—blue blood always reveals itself in the end.”

“The cow worked as a secretary for the local branch of the Communist Party?” Haba repeated to himself quite seriously. “In Publiieve-Neuronove?”

“First of all—there is no need to say ‘Neuronove,’ because it makes you think of neurons, which have nothing to do with this. There are no neurons, brother, in this world. It’s fiction, a fake term. Don’t ever mention neurons to anybody. No one in the Kyiv region will understand you.”

“So how do you pronounce it?”

“Publiieve-­Neronove. You, perhaps, have heard of the poet, Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso).

“Yep, I’ve heard of him.” Haba nodded. “And as for Neron, is it that one?”

“Yes, Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), at birth—Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, between 50 and 54 AD—Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. And in our parts (the Kyiv region) he was simply known as Nero. Nero is Nero, the Roman emperor, the last in the Julio-­Claudian dynasty.”

“I don’t see any such town on the map,” Habinsky said broodingly, looking at his phone.

“That’s what I have been telling you, on the map it exists by its new name—Klavdiieve-­Tarasove.2 But everyone knows the old, authentic name—Publiieve-­Neronove.”

“So why did they suddenly change the name?”

“Well, it’s because we are undergoing de-communization these days. Someone decided that it sounded too imperialistic. They did, however, maintain the mention of Nero. And it’s Klavdiieve because it’s the Julio-­Claudian dynasty. And they got rid of the Publius part, no matter how hard our old heads argued against it. They were told that one of their own poets is just as good.”

“Do you have in mind…” 3

“Yes, or course, who else would we have in mind. And that is how it turned out a bit weird. But all of the locals continue to refer to it as Publiieve-­Neronove.”

“I’ll have to come check it out someday.”

“How much do you want, son? Two, three liters?” the old man asks with hope.

“Give me three.”

The sun shines clearly and confidently. Habinsky pays the man.

“Ok, fine. But how could a cow have worked as a secretary for the party organization, even if it was in Neronove, even if it was in Soviet times? (Lord Yuan of Sung once dreamed about a person with long, tousled hair, who came out of the side door of the hall and said…)” 4

“So then,” the old man counts the money twice and puts them in his greasy, cloth wallet, “everyone was amazed. People even came from Moscow to see our Mathilde when she was chosen to be a deputy in the Twentieth All-­Union Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Alright then, come by again. I need to start getting out of here.”

“Ok,” Haba nods, “I gotta go, too. (I am a marine messenger attached to the staff of the River God Hebo. A fisherman, named Yü, has caught me.) 5 You see, I am a refugee. And that is why I believe everything that is told to me. Because I have some experience, too. I can tell you some things as well.”

“What do you have in mind?” the old man looks at him suspiciously.

“Well, I thought of this while I was listening to you. In my early childhood, you see, early in the morning, the birds had not yet awoken and a cow (which had belonged to my late grandmother Marfa Oleksandrivna) named Haida would enter the orchard in a white shirt and sing Donizetti arias in a high-pitched voice. She was so good at it that dead coalminers crawled out from underground and listened to her for hours. They listened and cried. And that is what is known as art.”

An unpleasant, difficult pause got stranded in the air.

“You must be from Donetsk, right?”

“From no other place, but there (having woken up, the Lord Yuan wanted to know what his dream was about. The dream interpreter said: “this is a numinous turtle”).6

“Well, I can see that.” The old man picked up his bag and, without saying bye, quickly headed for the bus stop.

An...

Table of contents

• Volodymyr Rafeyenko
• On Essence
• The Beautiful and the Beneficial
• Sosipatra
• Conditionalis
• Sven’s Way, or Swan Lake
• Notes