He escaped from exile and lived for two years in Zelenyi Klyn, a territory inhabited by Ukrainians in the Far East. His memories of this time turned into the novel ‘Tiger Trappers’ (originally titled “Animal Catchers”).
Ivan Bahrianyi was the first to tell the world about the cruelty of the Bolshevik regime and the brutal methods of the punitive authorities in his novel “The Garden of Gethsemane” (1950)
He was also a songwriter.
In 1963, emigrant organisations submitted Bahrianyi’s works for the Nobel Prize, but the writer’s sudden death prevented this idea from being realised. In Ukraine, readers were able to get acquainted with his work only after the declaration of independence.
Bahrianyi is buried in Novyi Ulm. The tombstone bears lines from Bahrianyi’s poem “The Sword Bearers”: “We are. We were. And we will be! And our Motherland is with us”.
