The Correspondence of the Great Sun Worshipper

Life was fascinating in the pre-digital age. Words in letters quite literally wove the fabric of relationships. Nobody is going to publish our emoji-filled chats and GIF exchanges a hundred years from now. Well, unless the Security Service takes an interest in them. Today, let's look at one famous Ukrainian's correspondence and the postal world of the early twentieth century.

Epistolar RomancE

He sent her 335 letters, which she carefully preserved and eventually donated to a museum. He, meanwhile, destroyed hers. At first he wrote to her in Russian, her native language, but later she asked him to return to Ukrainian. Their relationship unfolded largely through letters and long walks. Letters to Chernihiv arrived from Kyiv, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. It was also letters that exposed them: first an anonymous note sent to his wife, then a letter from the mistress that was mistakenly delivered to the family home. Exposed, but not stopped—the love triangle of writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, his wife Vira, and his lover Oleksandra Aplaksina endured until the writer's death.

Workplace Affair

In 1902, 38-year-old Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1864 — 1913, Ukrainian writer), a father of four, met 22-year-old Oleksandra Aplaksina in Chernihiv. They worked together at the Valuation and Statistics Bureau of the Chernihiv Provincial Zemstvo, where he headed the statistical department. According to Aplaksina's memoirs, he sent her notes, looked for opportunities to be alone with her, and invited her on walks outside town, though she initially avoided his advances. It is worth noting here that Mykhailo Mykhailovych was not particularly respectful of personal boundaries.

Secret Dates

Their first real date took place on January 3, 1906, during a snowstorm. One hundred days later, Kotsiubynsky reminded his beloved of the "centennial" of their first kiss. They spent countless hours walking through the outskirts of Chernihiv and meeting in nature. Kotsiubynsky, famous for his love of sunlight, genuinely hated rainy weather because it interfered with their meetings. Occasionally, Mykhailo and Oleksandra met at her home when nobody else was there. Ukrainian literary classics, despite their school-textbook image, did not spend all their time merely exchanging chaste kisses.

In a small provincial town like Chernihiv, hiding such a relationship was difficult. The lovers developed an entire system of secrecy. They exchanged notes through agreed hiding places. Contemporary accounts mention tree hollows, forgotten umbrellas, books, and other objects where letters could be left unseen. When they could not meet, Kotsiubynsky would simply walk past Aplaksina's house hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the window. Correspondence became their primary way of being together.

Letters to Chernihiv

In his letters, Mykhailo wrote about work, literary projects, illness, travel, books, exhaustion with everyday life, and his fascination with nature. Shurochka, as he called her, became his closest confidante during the last years of his life. When Kotsiubynsky was on Capri or in the Carpathians, he wrote both to his wife Vira and to Oleksandra. He often described the same events in nearly identical terms, only in different languages. He usually wrote to his wife in Ukrainian and to Aplaksina in russian.

Delivery Service

Between 1910 and 1912, Kotsiubynsky spent several summers in Kryvorivnia, the Hutsul village that later inspired parts of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. One summer, severe flooding on the Black Cheremosh River effectively cut the village off from the outside world. In a letter to his wife, he recalled how residents were trapped for days, staying indoors, heating their houses with stoves, and surviving on supplies of flour and meat they had stocked beforehand. The locals eventually improvised a solution: they stretched a wire across the river, attached a basket to it, and used it to transport letters, newspapers, bread, tobacco, and even a live chicken.

This Should Be Told At School

Today, Kotsiubynsky's letters to Aplaksina can be read in Letters to Oleksandra Aplaksina (published by Krytyka, edited by Volodymyr Panchenko), as well as online through Ukrainian digital libraries.

As for another Ukrainian classic, Ivan Franko, his personal life was hardly less complicated, and the postal service appears there too. He lived largely on the means of his wife, Olha Khoruzhynska, maintained a long attachment to Olha Roshkevych, while Roshkevych herself entered a marriage of convenience with Volodymyr Ozarkevych, who also sought relationships elsewhere. Franko's letters to Olha Roshkevych were buried with her. Near the end of his life, when he was almost blind, Franko reportedly asked his wife to accompany him to the post office and describe the appearance and clothing of Celina Zurowska, a postal clerk who had captivated him for years.

But that is another story.