Oleksa Riznykiv presents the text of an open letter he wrote in 1969 to Ivan Dziuba, recounting the history of this letter and the context of its writing.
The anniversary of Ivan Dziuba’s death is approaching.
And I recall what a huge response his famous, unique article on Russification had!
The fact that it was based on some of Lenin’s articles and on the Constitution, and that it was officially sent to the Central Committee, to Petro Shelest, made it impossible for the Party to arrest Dziuba. They even had to publish a book by some Stenchuk and distribute it throughout Ukraine to refute Ivan Dziuba’s conclusions. We even thought that Petro Shelest had done it on purpose, as we believed him to be a proletarian or a Party nationalist…
I took this letter to the editorial office of Literaturna Ukrayina. I handed it to the editor personally.
Later, I met with Ivan Dziuba (we had already met before) near the University and handed it to him.
By the way, I also gave him my novella *Mayunella* to read. It was semi-fantastical—about Russia leaving the USSR, its Supreme Soviet having voted “yes” because “those *natsmeny* [a derogatory term for national minorities] are ruining the Russian language!!” And how Ukraine, its Verkhovna Rada, refuses to let it go, protests! Because “these steppes of Ukraine—these are Russian fields!!” I had a secret hope that Ivan would pass it abroad… It didn't happen…
He thanked me for the letter and warned me that there could be repercussions. I brushed it off, carelessly! There's no anti-Sovietism here, just love for Ukraine, which is represented in the UN, which is formally a republic! with the right to secede from the USSR…
The letter, of course, was never published.
Two years later, I was arrested—on October 11, 1971. One of the points in my indictment was the distribution of Dziuba's work *Internationalism or Russification?*. And lo and behold!! while reviewing case file No. 570 in the spring of ’72, I see this Open Letter, attached to one of the volumes... So, the editorial office had passed it on to the KGB.
Such was the story of this letter.
And in 1989, Ivan calls me, asking me to send him that *Mayunella*—it would have resonated so powerfully now!! Oh well. It disappeared, vanished. The KGB decided not to attach it to the case file, because then it would have been preserved, just like this Open Letter to Ivan was.
It wasn't until 2014 that I restored it, and it has since been republished twice…
Oleksa Riznykiv.
February 2023.
An Open Letter to Ivan Dziuba
Dear Ivan,
In issue No. 17, 1969 of *Literaturna Ukrayina*, I read the article “A Place in the Fight, or About a Man of Letters Who Found Himself on the Other Side of the Barricades” by Lyubomyr Dmyterko, or whoever wrote it for him. It is a pity for the writer who put his signature on it, and a pity for the society that allows itself to treat its best representatives, of whom it should be proud, in such a way.
At the beginning of the article, L. Dmyterko writes that you are popular among some young writers. That's not true! You are popular and respected among all thinking, progressive youth.
Older people respect you too, all those who have not lost their common sense and conscious approach to life.
Your honest, frank, and truthful book captivates every reader, moves them to the depths of their soul, and teaches the candor and courage that are so needed now. And its worth should not be measured by the fact that someone abroad has used it as a weapon. The materials of the 20th–22nd Congresses of the CPSU were also used as a weapon there—but no one calls them anti-Soviet or anti-Party!
Dmyterko writes that in the national question “…there are still some shortcomings and oversights… They need to be discussed, and ways to successfully resolve the pressing tasks must be sought.” Why, then, do he and others like him not speak up, not search, but raise their hand against one who does speak up and search?
How else can these painful “tasks” be resolved without discussing them comprehensively, as, for example, the law on the family or the statute of an agricultural artel is discussed?
But there is no discussion in Dmyterko's piece—only a relishing of who said or wrote what abroad. Why did they react to your book there sooner than we did? Why has no one here yet said anything about *Internationalism or Russification?*, although it is being read all over Ukraine? And it was sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine three and a half years ago?!
L. Dmyterko writes not a single word about this.
Instead, he writes that you have found yourself on that side of the barricades. And not a word about why people (Communists and non-Party members) are placed on t h a t side of the barricades by the likes of Dmyterko, simply because they love Ukraine with a filial love and worry about its fate, people who have the right to say of themselves in Shevchenko's words: “We walked honestly, we have not a grain of falsehood behind us.” Not a word about why the vast majority of conscious Ukrainians are “на Україні — хворі Україною, на Україні — в пошуках її.” Not a word about why Volodymyr Sosiura had the right to say: “Ходою гнівною блукаю В своїм краю чужинцем я, Пожаром очі застилає Мені трагедія моя”!
Yes, each of us must have a place in the fight. In the fight for the national constitutional rights of our reunited Ukrainian Soviet people, for the restoration of Lenin’s national policy, trampled by Stalin’s boot in ’33–’37.
And my place in this fight is beside you, Ivan.
And on which side are t h e y? Do they have a place in the fight? No, they are content to be arbiters, judges… It is, after all, safer… So let them comment; pay them no mind.
The fight for the rights of our people goes on.
I shake your hand, Dziuba!
Odesa, my address is…
Oleksa Riznykiv.
Summer 1969.