FL: Did you listen to the Ukrainian broadcasts on Radio Olsztyn?
RR: I don’t know; I don’t remember. We listened to Radio Liberty and to the staticky, crackling Voice of America. In Poland, there were various cultural initiatives, especially where Ukrainians had been resettled – so in the west and north – there were different concerts, initiatives, events – for instance, there were celebrations of Taras Shevchenko’s birthday, there was a Warsaw-Gdańsk choir. By the mid-‘60s, there took place the first edition of the Ukrainian Culture Festival. I was with my mother at the second festival – it must have been 1968 – and none of us kids was asked if we wanted to go and I don’t think it was particularly interesting for us, but it was very important for my mom. I certainly didn’t tell my classmates about it.
My whole life was transformed by music. My aunt from Ukraine brought me an accordion. For two years, I went to a music workshop in Lidzbark – it was a group class, a dozen or so people, the professor questioned each teacher for a few minutes and that way an hour and a half passed. In the Olsztyn music school, I found out that, under normal circumstances, I would have mastered the material in three months’ time. Then a piano showed up in our house and I never walked away from it again.
FL: A Kalisz piano or some other brand?
RR: It was German, but I don’t remember what brand – it came to us all the way from Legnica. My other aunt – Irena Snihur – was a teacher and later director of the Ukrainian high school in Legnica. In the early seventies, she was fired with fanfare because she concentrated too much on Ukrainian music and dance. That high school still exists; in communist times, there was just one more school with Ukrainian as a language of instruction in Gorów Iławiecki.
I was exceptionally determined to get into music school: I took up an instrument a bit late, but I had a plan to replace Arthur Rubinstein (only kidding: he was my idol). I was signed up for the maths class of the Lidzbark high school, but, over summer holiday, I realised that I’d actually rather be in music school. Mama went to Olsztyn and found the director. Of course, she was received with surprise: recruitment had closed long ago. My mother remembered, though, that I had taken part in the spring in a revue of music workshops of Olsztyn Province and had made a good impression. Director Iza Garglinowicz had scrupulously taken notes, including her impressions from the competition. Checking my name, she immediately suggested that I learn to play the cello. After the competition, I was shocked (and, at that point, I probably didn’t even know what a cello was). It turned out that the only available slot was playing the oboe.