Every evening, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, people danced during musical processions: Podolanka; Zasny, Tsarivno, Na Sto Lit (Sleep, Queen, for 100 Years); Yide, Yide Pan Zelman (Mr Zelman Comes). Haiłki began around six in the afternoon and lasted until late into the night. Kopach believes that the Soviet representatives were still overwhelmed by their victory and didn’t know where to begin. After they began exerting pressure, even haiłki were banned.
At the beginning of the 1950s, students from the local polytechnic institute were pressed into fighting against local traditions. One of the members at the time, Myron Burshtynsky, recalls that he had to spend almost a whole month in the square in front of St Jura, where he was under special orders to stop anyone attempting to rekindle haiłki by performing Soviet tunes instead. When such methods didn’t work, officials turned to brutal repression of the game. According to Lviv resident Oleksandr Kitsera, participating in haiłki carried serious risks: rebels were caught, stuffed into trucks and driven away without a trace.
But even prohibition and repression couldn’t stop the Ukrainian tradition of haiłki – they returned in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The Easter games, organised in the Shevchenkivsky Gai museum building during the 1990s by the recently founded Lew Society, became a party of thousands – shaping Lviv’s sense of freedom and unity with a spirit of patriotism and independence.
So in Lviv, thanks to brave youth and their teachers, we can hear the sounds of the traditional haiłki alongside the Easter bells.
