PLOSHCHAK, VASYL FEDOROVYCH (born February 10, 1929, in the village of P'yadyky, now Kolomyia raion, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast – died October 6, 2001, in the village of P'yadyky).
Teacher, convicted for assisting members of the United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine (OPVU).
From a peasant family. His father was the head of the "Prosvita" (Enlightenment) society. P. studied at the “Ridna Shkola” (Native School). During the German occupation, his father sent P. to Kolomyia to the Taras Shevchenko School. He finished the 10th grade of the Second Men's Special School and enrolled in the Kolomyia Pedagogical School. From his 4th year, he was sent to teach at the Turkivka incomplete secondary school.
In 1949, he was drafted into the Soviet Army and served for 3.5 years in the Chita oblast.
In 1952, he returned home, studied at the Kolomyia Teacher's Institute, worked as the chairman of the district committee for physical culture and sports, and taught physical education in schools in the villages of Hody and Tseniava. He was respected as an athlete and organizer, played musical instruments, and organized a choir.
P. knew about the creation of the United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine (OPVU) in P'yadyky in 1955, to which his brother Myroslav PLOSHCHAK belonged. He edited its program but did not attend meetings and did not take an oath. He was not included in the youth organization as he was already married and had a child.
The organization intended to unite all segments of the population in the struggle for Ukraine's independence, relying on the Constitution, and set the task of cooperating with organizations of a similar orientation in other republics.
In December 1958, P. had an appendicitis attack and underwent surgery. The OPVU program was left at home in the pocket of his shirt and was seized during a search on December 4. P. was guarded in the hospital and arrested on December 16. They tried to accuse him of being the author of the program, but since the other arrested OPVU members unanimously insisted that P. did not belong to the organization, he was charged only with possessing the program and for not reporting his brother. During an interrogation, investigator Honcharov beat P. on the head with a revolver, so he refused to speak until another investigator was appointed.
On March 10, 1959, under Article 7, para. 26 of the “Law on Criminal Liability for State Crimes of December 25, 1958,” P. was sentenced to 2 years in strict-regime camps. Five members of the OPVU (B. HERMANIUK, Ya. TKACHUK, M. PLOSHCHAK, I. STRUTYNSKYI, B. TYMKIV) were sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, while M. YURCHYK and I. KONEVYCH received 7 years. Another 20 members of the OPVU testified as witnesses.
P. served three months of his sentence in the punitive camp ZhKh-385/3-5, at the Barashevo station in Mordovia, on a ration of 600g of bread and watery soup, without work. He was then transferred to camp No. 7-1, where Metropolitan Josyf SLIPYI, priest Pavlo VASYLYK, Bishop Antin Potichniak, and a teacher from the Donbas, Oleksa TYKHYI, were imprisoned at the time. He subsequently served time in the special-regime camp No. 11 at the Yavas station, where he was later granted the right to move without convoy. He transported firewood from the forest with horses. After 1 year and 3 months of imprisonment, he was transferred to the Sasovo stone quarry in the Ryazan oblast. The court of the Mordovian ASSR reduced P.'s term by 5 months. He was released early on June 16, 1960.
He was jobless for three months, then was hired at a shoe factory in Kolomyia, where he sewed shoes and directed a choir for 4 years. He then led a choir at a school in the village of Pistyn, Kosiv raion, and worked for 24 years at the school and club in the village of Tseniava.
In 1965, he enrolled in the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute and in 1968, he completed the full course, specializing in Ukrainian language and literature. He spent his last 7 years working in P'yadyky, where he led a Hutsul ensemble and taught manual labor classes.
He is buried in the village of P'yadyky.
Bibliography:
Ihor Mardarovych. “The Voice of Memory.” // Visnyk Kolomyi. – No. 63 (457). – November 10, 1994.
Ihor Mardarovych. “The P'yadyky Organization OPVU.” // Visnyk Kolomyi. – No. 77 (471). – December 28, 1994.
Anatoliy Rusnachenko. *Natsionalʹno-vyzvolʹnyy rukh v Ukrayini. Seredyna 1950-kh – pochatok 1990-kh rokiv* (The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine. Mid-1950s – Early 1990s). – Kyiv: Vyd. im. Oleny Telihy, 1998. – p. 96.
Les Letsiuk. “Descendant of a P'yadyky Cossack.” // Visnyk Kolomyi. – No. 15 (1010). – 1999 – February 16.
Yarema Tkachuk. *Bureviyi: Knyha pam'yati* (Storms: A Book of Memory). – Lviv: V-vo “SPOLOM”, 2004. – 368 p.
Interview with brothers V. and M. Ploshchak on March 19, 2000. https://museum.khpg.org/1267735721
Yarema Tkachuk. *Bureviyi: Knyha pam'yati* (Storms: A Book of Memory). – Lviv: V-vo “SPOLOM”, 2004. – 368 p.
*Mizhnarodnyi biohrafichnyi slovnyk dysydentiv kraiiny Tsentral'noyi ta Skhidnoyi Yevropy y kolyshnoho SRSR. T. 1. Ukrayina. Chastyna 2.* (International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents of the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 2). – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Lyudyny,” 2006. – pp. 563–564. https://museum.khpg.org/1132090769
*Rukh oporu v Ukrayini: 1960 – 1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk* (The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 – 1990. An Encyclopedic Guide) / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – pp. 501–502; 2nd ed.: 2012, – p. 572.
Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. March 13, 2004. Last proofread July 20, 2016.
