Author’s Preface from the Novel "Stone" by Volodymyr Shablia
Stories live only as long as someone remembers them.
— Author’s Note
Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back —
Author’s Preface
by Volodymyr Shablia
 |
| Three generations of the Shablia family |
I grew up a diligent and obedient boy. At home I was the firstborn, surrounded by love and care; in kindergarten, an easygoing but quick-witted child; at school a straight-A student with exemplary behavior. Quite naturally and almost imperceptibly, the notions of good and evil entered my young mind. Equally self-evident was the belief that good deeds are rewarded and wrongdoing is punished. These principles became the fundamental, unshakable rules of my life. And I genuinely liked living according to the rules taught to me by my elders.
Of course, I loved my father and mother, my grandfather and grandmother, believing them to be the best people in the world. They loved and cared for me, and I loved them in return; this certainty came just as naturally. My relatives lived strictly by the rules, and I never once saw them violate them—neither in relation to me nor to other people. Trying to follow their example, I did everything I could to live up to the high standard they had set.
Before school, everything seemed almost perfect: the system of values built in my mind, based on kindness and love, functioned nearly without failure. The occasional unpleasant exception only appeared to confirm the strength of the rules. To accept questionable actions by certain people, it was enough to assume that they might have their own rules that somehow did not contradict the generally accepted ones.
Yet at school the first cracks appeared in my exemplary picture of the world. A teacher did not always assess my knowledge objectively—sometimes lowering my grades or even punishing me for no reason. Meanwhile, other boys and girls were praised for far smaller achievements and forgiven many of their mischiefs. I also began to encounter classmates who bullied me and sometimes managed to escape punishment for their behavior.
Still, that alone might not have shaken my worldview too much. Step by step, as it should be, I was learning to live in the real world. But from time to time unsettling signals began to appear in the conversations of my relatives.
Listening involuntarily to their everyday discussions—especially those that unfolded around the dinner table—about collectivization, famine, war, and repression, I perceived these stories as interesting and sometimes frightening accounts that my loved ones had once endured. Although these events had taken place not so long before I was born, they felt to me like something from a distant past—perhaps only slightly more recent than the fairy tales I loved so much.
I did not understand much of what I heard. But my still largely empty young memory carefully recorded the facts, names, and events. I tried to reconcile what I was taught at school and at home with my small life experience and with the fragmented thoughts and emotions expressed by the adults. Yet my lack of knowledge prevented me from doing so properly. Therefore, I simply left outside my value system those elements that did not fit into it.
Living with my parents, I gradually grew accustomed to the idea that in our family almost everything had always been good. Love reigned within our small circle, and outside it we were treated with clear respect. For that period, this perception largely corresponded to reality. As for earlier decades, it was easy to imagine them as something ancient and long gone.
This state of calm certainty was suddenly shattered by my father when I was about ten years old.
One evening, as we sat at the festive table discussing everyday matters, my father suddenly said that he had once spent seventeen years in prisons, labor camps, and exile.
Seventeen years.
At that moment, his confession became the greatest shock of my life.
“My father—the best and smartest person in the world.
And suddenly—this?”
At first I refused to believe what I had heard. But my father did not stop there. He continued speaking, growing more and more impassioned as he told his story—about famine, humiliation, powerlessness, and about his terrible position within that inhuman system.
Now I understand how difficult it must have been for him to conceal this part of his life for so long, especially given the trusting relationship between us. He wanted to open up, to lift the stone from his heart, and that evening he decided that I was old enough to hear the truth.
I listened, stunned. I could not immediately comprehend or accept everything I heard. Yet the words, facts, thoughts, intonations, and emotions imprinted themselves clearly in my memory.
Understanding them required time. And my father gave me several days.
Those days remain in my memory as painful and heavy—days of inner turmoil, days when my former beliefs were collapsing. Then my father spoke to me again and asked for my thoughts. When I assured him that I understood and accepted what I had heard, and that my love and respect for him remained unchanged, he was immensely relieved. He embraced and kissed me.
From that time on, my father’s stories about his childhood, youth, achievements, and hardships became a family tradition. When we visited my grandparents, no one tried particularly hard to hide anything anymore. Together we spoke about the past, the present, and even the future, trying to find logical connections and explanations. Sometimes heated discussions arose about such matters.
Gradually the many facts and thoughts that had once seemed confusing formed a coherent picture for me. I began to perceive life as a continuous sequence of generations, with all the positive and negative features characteristic of different historical periods. The internal logic of this view of life made it easy to incorporate new knowledge and new episodes into it.
Years passed. I became an independent adult. Life tested me as well, striking hard from time to time. Yet whenever I compared my difficulties with what my father had endured, I realized that they were utterly incomparable.
What impresses me even more today is the way my father told his stories. Even the most terrible moments of his life he presented in the form of captivating narratives—almost like adventures. Despite the deep tragedy of his biography, he never became bitter or resentful. I see this as evidence of his inexhaustible optimism, his love of life, and his faith in the ultimate triumph of justice. I tried, as far as possible, to preserve that same sense of the world in this book—especially since it is close to my own nature as well.
Over time I became convinced that God had granted me a great honor by making me the son of such a remarkable, wise, kind, strong, and determined man.
Unfortunately, life passes quickly. My parents grew old. Fifteen years ago my father passed away. About a year later the idea came to me to somehow capture the extraordinary turns of his life—the stories he himself had told, as well as those recounted by his relatives, friends, and acquaintances. I believed these experiences to be deeply instructive and valuable, especially for future generations.
When I shared my intention, I asked my mother and sister to help me recall my father’s stories. To my surprise, they were able to remember only fragments—most of which I already knew. It turned out that I had become the main bearer of this precious information. And that placed upon me a special responsibility: the vivid stories of my father’s life that lived in my memory should not disappear without a trace.
From that moment on, my task became to carefully write down everything I remembered, including stories told by relatives and acquaintances. New memories continued to surface; sometimes entire episodes from my father’s narratives returned to me in dreams.
I also found and photographed many surviving papers, photographs, and documents from the family archive, studying them carefully. These materials helped me to reflect on and understand many things more clearly. Museums, exhibitions, newly opened state archives, and the advent of of the Internet also proved invaluable sources of documents and information. All this made it possible to organize and systematize the story of my father’s life—and in fact, the lives of two generations of my ancestors.
For some time I hesitated about the form the story should take. On the one hand, I wanted to rely on documented facts. On the other hand, I realized that this approach would inevitably leave important periods outside the narrative.
Another argument against strict documentary form was that most of the information came from emotionally charged memories of eyewitnesses who described events as they had experienced them. Emotions, of course, can be conveyed more precisely through literary narrative. And for readers, such a form is often easier to follow.
While writing the book, it was convenient to work with material by historical periods, allowing me to immerse myself in the spirit of each era. However, a strictly chronological narrative produced another problem: it created long stretches of unrelieved darkness or, conversely, prolonged stretches of optimism. In my view, this would feel heavy and monotonous for the reader. Life itself rarely unfolds in such a way—good and bad episodes always alternate.
Therefore, the final structure of the novel alternates between two parallel timelines: from Petro’s birth to his arrest, and from his arrest to his release.
In terms of length, I initially conceived the text as a relatively short story, but as the work progressed it became clear that the material would not fit within that format. Eventually, by the centenary of my father’s birth, the work you now hold in your hands was completed. Perhaps it may best be described as a biographical novel.
Finally, I would like to thank my relatives, friends, and acquaintances—everyone who helped me during these many years of work on this book. Above all, my mother, who supported the idea from the very moment I announced my intention to write, and who for many years remained my most attentive listener and advisor.
I also apologize to my family for the time this work has taken away from our time together.
My sincere gratitude also goes to my reviewers, whose comments greatly improved many aspects of the book.
Thus, the book about my father has been written. I now consider my filial duty in this regard fulfilled. It is up to you to judge the quality, strengths, and weaknesses of the novel. But if you have read even this far, I may already feel that the fourteen years I devoted to this work were not in vain.
January 28, 2020
Volodymyr Shablia
Continue Exploring Stone:
Explore the novel, quotations, and the author's biography on Goodreads
Stone by Volodymyr Shablia on Facebook
Read or download the complete books in Ukrainian:
Stone — Book Two: Difficult Roads to Hell
Comments
Post a Comment