When people call Ivan Franko a “stonecutter,” I think they mean not only his well-known poem. After all, a stonecutter—or a mason—is not just a person doing rough labor. This is a person who creates from hard earth and inspiration ordinary houses and palaces for the human body. Franko, forged from the word’s firmness and from fire of spirit, created dwellings for the human soul. And not just one house he built—he raised entire cities. Everything was in them; a place was found for everyone. Both sacred and dirty, money and love, bright remembrance and pure knowledge—the truths.
Personally, Franko’s figure is directly connected in me with one simple definition: an uncompromising fighter for the truth. And that means not to condemn and not to exalt. It means to have a heart so big that it can hold people as they are. To contain—means to understand—means to accept—means to forgive. In this flame of forgiveness there are no right and wrong. Everyone who managed to pass through it is right, even though each person’s truth is different. And Franko, like a true master, was able to reflect—countlessly—those human truths. But there is also acting skill here: the performances by Boris Loboda, and «Zakhár Bérkut» and «Stolen Happiness» sound simply wonderful.