The gentle voices of Ukrainian women singing a haunting melody were interrupted by Reading police sirens on Saturday.
In the presence of the mayor of Reading Dr Alice Mpofu-Coles, the Reading MP Matt Rodda and Clive Jones the MP for Wokingham, they sang ‘Hollyhocks’ by lyricist Bohdan Hura and composer Volodymyr Ivasyuk.
It came at the end of a march along Broad Street to Forbury Gardens to commemorate four years of the Ukrainian conflict.
Volodymyr Ivasyuk wrote the melody for Hollyhocks or ‘The Ballad of the Hollyhocks’ in the late 1960s and Bohdan Hura wrote the words in 1969.
Initially, he wanted to call the song “Ballad of a Mother” because it concerns a mum who waits impatiently for her daughter to return from the war, but who never stops waiting.
And in the place of the daughter—there are only Hollyhocks, blossoming around the window.
After the writer’s tragic death in 1979, many researchers associated this song with the composer’s own fate, but now it is more associated with the huge loss of life from the war with Russia.
Officially, according to the soviets, Volodymyr Ivasyuk died by suicide, but the unofficial version, is that the KGB was involved in his death. His funeral on May 22, 1979 in Lviv turned into a mass protest against Soviet power.
Ballad of the Hollyhocks
By Hura and Ivasyuk (tr. Ted O’Neill)
The hollyhocks have fallen fast asleep,
The silver moon its quiet watch will keep,
But my sweet mother cannot rest or sleep,
She waits for me in silence, dark and deep.
Oh, mother dear, please do not wait for me,
Our home again, my eyes will never see,
Out of my heart, a hollyhock has grown,
With petals red, from seeds that blood has sown.
Don’t weep, dear mother, you’re not the only one,
The war has given hollyhocks for sons,
When autumn comes, they’ll whisper soft and deep
“Rest now, dear mother, close your eyes and sleep.”
Other mums can hold their youngsters near,
While mine has only flowers to hold dear,
Lonely blossoms by the window pane,
Have long been sleeping in the wind and rain.
When sun shall rise, step out upon the floor,
The world will bow before your humble door,
Walk through the fields—the flowers in the dew,
Will stretch their silken arms and reach for you.
Life is a song that echoes through the years,
Within the flower, I’ll live despite your tears,
If I lacked time to show you all my grace,
Forgive me, mother, in this sacred place.
After ‘Hollyhocks’ the choir struck up again, with a brighter tone, this time uninterrupted by Reading’s sirens, and at the conclusion of the second song, the women all raised their arms in defiance.
Ukrainian refugee Taya Lontkovska, 33, said: “There was another song about how we have a war in our country now, and there is pain and fear everywhere but we will overcome it all, peace will come to our country and we will live happily ever after.”
At the end everybody shouted ‘Glory to Ukraine’ !
