Transcript of the audio recording
A song about deportation to Siberia, composed by Maria Havryliuk—a resident of Zastavna in Chernivtsi oblast—based on stories she heard from a neighbor who had been forcibly deported there during the 1940s and 1950s.
M.H.: I was getting home and composed it on the spot—just like that—and the song came out. It was all based on what she had said… The melody was familiar, but the words—those words—were her own.
(Hums, trying to recall the lyrics)
She’s passed away now.
(Hums again)
If only I could remember the first line…
(Continues humming)
Farewell, My Bukovyna, My Green Native Paradise
Farewell, my Bukovyna, my green and native paradise,
They’re taking us far away—to a strange and distant land.
We traveled for a month, another—now they’ve brought us to Siberia,
But this is not Bukovyna—only snowstorms howl around.
Here we learned what the hell was, they tormented us
No food, no water, only endless pain.
Beaten, killed, left unburied—
The bones lay scattered across the frozen fields.
Yes, we suffered here… (ah, I forgot the rest…)
O merciful God, we pray to You with all our hearts—
Let no one else endure such sorrow again.
This is how she told it…
N.P.: You composed it very well. It’s very much in the folk tradition.
M.H.: Really? She used to tell stories like that—this small, tiny woman…
O.Kh.: What did she say?
N.P.: What did she say?
M.H.: She told me about… How they took those repressed people and transported them to Siberia in wagons… And how they tortured them too, didn’t give them food, and left many bones scattered in the fields… (How did she say it?) Just threw those bones away. She said they drove them there for three months.
O.Kh.: And she came back, right?
M.H.: Yes. That was her story.
O.Kh.: Who was that woman?
M.H.: That’s her family that lives here near me.
N.P.: Has she died already?
M.H.: Yes, a long time ago.
O.Kh.: What was she there for?
M.H.: Well, for whatever! They took whoever they wanted, and that was it.
