Valerii Sukhomlyniv: on the Roma spirit, the Jewish blood, and the Ukrainian fate

Society

Valerii Sukhomlyniv, co-chair of the Ukrainian Roma Association, historian and a well-known figure in our capital’s Roma community, opens up about his life, identity, and his path towards becoming aware of his roots. In the first part of our current episode of the podcast «Ai Tu Jianes. Did you know that?», listen about complex roots and how, thanks to a non-Roma mother, he discovered and accepted his Roma identity.

«From the very moment of birth, my life has been complicated. My birth records show the city of Truskavets as my birthplace. But since there was a malfunction in the local maternity hospital, I was actually born in the neighbouring city of Drohobych, in a house which formerly belonged to the Chief Rabbi. And the first thing I saw was the Great Choral Synagogue of Drohobych. Apart from that, I nearly died. I was one of the first officially registered kids infected with staphylococcus. When I needed blood for blood transfusion, the only blood that matched was the blood of a Jewish woman. So I am proud to say I have a bit of Jewish blood in me now. And I treat these people with great admiration».

As Valerii Sukhomlyniv says, his birthplace is Truskavets, a spa town with ancient history, dating back to the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Before the war, mostly Polish and Jewish health care specialists used to work there. In the Second World War, Jews were exterminated, then Poles were deported, so the sanatoria became empty. After the war, these establishments were populated with war veterans and young nurses who were dispatched there for work in a centralised manner.

That was precisely how his mother, a war veteran, found herself in Truskavets—and it was there that she met his father, a Rom, and a war veteran, too. The young parents, however, parted ways quite early, whereas his Roma origins was something Sukhomlyniv only recently discovered for himself.

«As my Mum, a nurse, was at work, I was tended to by my neighbours—as is often the case in the families of artists when the one who is not on stage is taking care of kids. And so, once upon a time, I was left in the care of my neighbour, and that day, a Roma woman came to our house: young, dark-skinned, with large dark eyes and African dreadlocks. She was so flamboyant that other children were afraid of her. I, on the contrary, reached out to her. My neighbour invited the woman over to tell fortunes and left me in her care for some time. This woman talked to me for a long time; she played with me, showed me pictures in her cards, gently stroke me on the head and shoulders and kept repeating: «You are one of us, boy, you know it, you are one of us». It was she who revealed the truth to me for the first time. When Mum came back, I told her about it right away. And so I found out I was a Rom».

As he grew up in Truskavets, Valerii Sukhomlyniv was observing the life of the local Roma community. He saw wealthy Roma people who came to the spa town for medical rejuvenation and recuperation procedures and, from his early years, he understood that stereotypes pertaining to Roma poverty or lack of education may be false.

Valerii was particularly interested in their language. He noticed how much Romani dialects from different regions differ—way more than different dialects of the Ukrainian language.

«As a young man, I found myself in a Roma music band featuring Roma people from all across the Soviet Union—and it was then that my dream to master the Romani language came true. I got acquainted with the Erdenko musician family. Mykhailo Erdenko was, by the way, a professor at Kyiv Musical Academy—its youngest professor ever, by the way—and a Roma man at the same time. His descendants presented me with a genuine Romani dictionary published even before the Second World War. This meeting of ours reinforced my intention to study linguistics».

You can listen to the full version of this podcast by opening the audio file attached.