Anna KOTSUR (KOTSUROVA) (born January 26, 1948, in the village of Varadka, Bardejov District, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic) is a philologist and poet. She was a participant in the Ukrainian human rights movement and a political prisoner in Soviet and Czechoslovak prisons (1972–73).
Kotsur received her secondary education in Bardejov. In 1966, she entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prešov. She was a student of Yu. Bacha. She received a scholarship and went to study at Kyiv University. In Kyiv, she met Ukrainian Sixtiers and human rights activists—Ivan Svitlychny, Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Viacheslav Chornovil, Mykola Plakhotniuk, Zenoviy Antonyuk, Valentyna Chornovil, and others. She received from them samvydav works by Yevhen Sverstiuk, Mykhailo Osadchy, Vasyl Stus, Ihor Kalynets, and Sviatoslav Karavansky, as well as microfilm of issues of the “Ukrainian Herald” and other materials, which she transported to Prešov. From there, they were passed on through various channels to Vienna, Munich, and Paris. From the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, she brought works by Jung, Freud, Maeterlinck, Kafka, Camus, and others to Ukraine and passed them on to the Sixtiers. She met with some Ukrainian students from Great Britain at festivals in Svidník, passed samvydav materials to them, corresponded with them, and invited them to visit Ukraine. As a result of this correspondence, Yaroslav Dobosh came to Ukraine. Kotsur met with him and gave him microfilm with samvydav materials. After learning of Yaroslav Dobosh’s arrest, Kotsur destroyed the typewritten and microfilmed samvydav materials.
On January 12, 1972, Kotsur’s home was searched; fresh traces of burned materials were found, and a typewriter and two notebooks were confiscated. Kotsur was arrested, interrogated, and, as a Czechoslovak citizen, expelled from the USSR. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Kotsur was tried along with Yu. Bacha and P. Murashko. As she was pregnant at the time, Kotsur was sentenced to time already served in pre-trial detention. She later continued her studies, earning a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
As a poet, Kotsur debuted in 1966 in the collective collection “Handfuls of Spring.”
Bibliography
Kotsur, Anna. *When the Wells Dry Up* (1990).
Kotsur, Anna. *From Dawn to the Well* (1995).
Kotsur, Anna. *A Prayer* (1998).
Kotsur, Anna. *Window to the East: Memoirs. An Autobiographical Novel*. Part 1. Edited by Vitaliy Konopelets. Prešov: EXCO s.r.o. Publishing, 2001.