ARRESTS OF THE UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENTSIA, 1965

 329808.11.2006

ARRESTS OF THE UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENTSIA, 1965,  FIRST WAVE OF ARRESTS

This was the campaign of repression in Ukraine from August to September 1965.  After the end of Khrushchev’s Thaw, some of the young Ukrainian intellectuals [the Shestydesyatnyky] began cooperating with the communist regime while others took the road of opposition to the regime. Ever more political aspects began appearing in the Ukrainian cultural-educational movement, with Ukrainian samvydav [samizdat] taking on an opposition character and émigré publications being widely circulated.

To put an end to this trend, and to deal a preventive blow against free thinking as a social phenomenon in general before it took on a dangerous scale, the security service of the Ukrainian SSR, following instructions from Moscow, at the end of August and beginning of September 1965 carried out a swift wave of arrests.

Over 25 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in all were arrested. In Kyiv these were the literary critic Ivan SVITLYCHNY (released that time after 8 months), the theatre artist P. Morhun, the engineers Oleksandr Martynenko and I. RUSYN, the laboratory technician Yivha Kuznetsova, the student Yaroslav Hevrych and the scientist Mykola Hryn; in Lviv – the external student Ivan HEL, the psychologist Mykhailo HORYN, the art specialist Bohdan HORYN, the university lecturers Mykhailo OSADCHY and Mykhailo Kosiv, the civil servants S. Baturyn and Hanna Sadovska, the archivist Myroslava Zvarychevska, and modeller Yaroslava Menkush; the writer and artist Mykailo MASYUTKO from the Crimea; the museum employee Ihor Hereta and the music teacher Mefodiy Chubaty from Ternopil; the teacher training college lecturers Valentin MOROZ and Dmytro Ivashchenko from Lutsk; the teachers Mykhailo Ozerny and V. Ivanyshyn and the artist Panas ZALYVAKHA from Ivano-Frankivsk; the linotype specialist Anatoly SHEVCHUK from Zhytomyr.  All were charged under Article 62, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the USSR (“anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”.  In January 1966 the court hearings began.  In all, 19 people were convicted, with 15 of these cases being heard in court sessions behind closed doors. In Odessa Sviatoslav KARAVANSKY was imprisoned without a trial.

Since the majority of the main figures of the movement remained at liberty, the campaign of repression, contrary to the expectations of the authorities, did not intimidate the intelligentsia, but actually provided the impulse for the development of the national liberation and human rights movements in Ukraine.  It led specifically to the PROTEST ACTION AT THE PREVIEW SHOWING OF THE FILM “TINI ZABUTYKH PREDKIV” [“Shadows of forgotten ancestors”], collective letter appeals in defence of those arrested and the publishing of V. CHORNOVIL’s book “Lykho z rozumu” (known abroad as “The Chornovil papers”)