“REGARDING THE TRIAL OF POHRUZHALSKY” — an anonymous document that was widely circulated in samvydav beginning in 1964. It was written by Y. SVERSTIUK and edited by I. SVITLYCHNY. It was based on the facts of the fire at the Public Library of the Academy of Sciences of the UkrSSR on May 24-26, 1964, and the trial of the library employee Viktor Pohruzhalsky, which took place in August 1964. The court carefully avoided everything related to the political nature of the crime and its targeting of Ukrainian culture; instead, it was emphasized that the arsonist simply wanted to take revenge on the library director for an insult. Carefully selected witnesses avoided talking about the use of magnesium strips and phosphorus bombs, or about the involvement of other people in the crime. No one was allowed to take notes in the courtroom. The library staff were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.
In the Ukrainica department, about 600,000 volumes burned at that time: early printed books, rare books, manuscripts, and the archives of B. Hrinchenko, the “Kyivska Staryna,” and the Central Rada. Some of them had not been cataloged.
The document stated: “Our children study the history of Russian tsars and their executioner-generals in school. They are given false ideas about their own ancestors. But in the archives, like dynamite, lie books with facts. Only the jailers have access to them. These books tormented someone even behind seven locks. The Ukrainian books have been burned. ...What white monarchist chauvinism could once tolerate, red chauvinism cannot. ...Ukrainians! Do you know what they have burned of yours? They have burned a part of your mind and soul. ...Let us not console ourselves with the eternal truth of the people’s immortality—its life depends on our readiness to stand up for ourselves!”
This was not an isolated incident. On November 26, 1968, the exchange and reserve collections of the Central Scientific Library (TsNB) in St. George's Church of the Vydubychi Monastery burned down; these collections had been gathered since their creation by order of Hetman P. Skoropadsky on November 26, 1918. Archives also burned in Samarkand and Alma-Ata.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. V. Ovsiienko