LOKHVYTSKA, LARYSA YURIIVNA (b. April 11, 1954, in Kyiv).
Specialist in applied mathematics. Member of the Kyiv Democratic Club and the Ukrainian Culturological Club.
From an intellectual Kyiv family.
In 1978, she graduated from the Faculty of Cybernetics at Kyiv University named after Taras Shevchenko with a degree in “applied mathematics.” Before her arrest, she worked as a programmer in the ASU (Automated Control Systems) department of the “Pivdenzakhidtransbud” trust.
In 1980, along with a group of young Kyiv intellectuals, she organized the Kyiv Democratic Club, where discussions on political, philosophical, and literary topics were held. They read their own literary and journalistic works, samizdat, and disseminated information from Western radio broadcasts. The Club members drafted a Manifesto proclaiming their anti-communist and anti-imperialist views. In July 1980, they composed a leaflet calling for support of the boycott of the “Olympiad-80” in the USSR in connection with the occupation of Afghanistan.
On January 11, 1981, L. was arrested in Kyiv (along with Leonid MILYAVSKY, Serhiy NABOKA, and Inna CHERNIAVSKA) on charges of distributing leaflets on the eve of the anniversary of the January 1972 arrests (Day of the Ukrainian Political Prisoner) with a call to support political prisoners, with content approximately as follows: “Compatriots! January 12 is the day of the Ukrainian political prisoner. Let us support those who are punished in Soviet prisons!” The leaflets were printed by Lokhvytska and Cherniavska. During a search of L.’s apartment, samizdat materials, her own articles, poems, and short stories were seized. She was incriminated for writing the short story “To Choose Freedom”—about political persecution in the USSR, an article on the development trends of Soviet society, which predicted the collapse of the communist system and the disintegration of the empire, several satirical poems, a collection titled “Notes of a Radio Listener,” as well as conversations about the occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979) by Soviet troops. On June 29, 1981, L. was sentenced by the Kyiv City Court under Art. 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, “Slanderous fabrications that defame the Soviet state and social system,” to 3 years of imprisonment in general-regime camps. The investigation was conducted by Senior Investigator of the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office V.B. Tantsiura, the prosecutor was L.M. Abramenko, and the judge was V.N. Maibozhenko.
She served her sentence in the Kharkiv colony YuZh-313/54.
After her release, from 1984 to 1990, L. worked as a programmer-engineer at the design institute “Vazhpromavtomatyka.”
In 1987, she became one of the founding members of the Ukrainian Culturological Club. She headed the religious section of the Club.
In 1988, Lokhvytska joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, and in 1990, the URP (Ukrainian Republican Party), which she left in 1992.
Within the framework of the UCC and UHU activities, she participated in rallies and demonstrations (including one dedicated to the 1st anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster), in organizing the reburial of the remains of V. STUS, Y. LYTVYN, and O. TYKHY, and in collecting signatures in support of the Crimean Tatars and the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.
She collaborated with the independent newspaper “Holos vidrodzhennia” (Voice of Rebirth), was a correspondent for Radio “Liberty” and the human rights publication “Ekspress-Khronika.”
In February 1988, together with Fr. Bohdan Mykhailechko, A. Bytchenko, M. Budnyk, and T. Antoniuk, she created the Initiative Committee for the Revival of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and distributed a corresponding Appeal to all bishops, priests, and Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and the diaspora. She successfully lobbied the authorities to transfer the closed and destroyed by the communist authorities Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas (Prytyska) in the Podil district to the UAOC. She worked first as a treasurer and then as a warden in this church. She was a member of the Kyiv Diocesan Council of the UAOC, and secretary of the Kyiv Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Andrew the First-Called. She was elected a delegate to the UAOC Council (1990) and a delegate to the Unification Council (1992), at which the creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate was proclaimed.
For some time, together with Olha HEYKO-MATUSEVYCH, she published the journal “Tserkva i zhyttia” (Church and Life). L. is the author of many articles on religious and current church topics in Ukrainian and foreign publications.
In 1996, she began working as the executive secretary of the “Liberalna hazeta” (organ of the Liberal Party of Ukraine) and in the same year became a member of the LPU. In 1997, she became the editor-in-chief of the “Liberalna hazeta.” Since 1999, L. has been the head of the LPU press service.
She lives in Kyiv.
Bibliography:
I.
[Response to the article “Teatr tinei” (Theater of Shadows)] // Ukrainsky Visnyk. Hromadsky literaturno-khudozhniy ta suspilno-politychnyi zhurnal. Issues 7, 8, 9-10. August, September, October-November 1987. Kyiv-Lviv. Reprint of a samizdat journal from Ukraine. – Toronto-Baltimore: Ukrainian Publishing House “Smoloskyp” im. V. Symonenka, 1988. – p. 521.
I vidchyniatsia dveri khramiv…: Notatky pro Vseukrainskyi sobor UAPTs [And the Doors of the Temples Will Open…: Notes on the All-Ukrainian Council of the UAOC] // Literaturna Ukraina. – 1990. – No. 25; Vira. – 1990. – No. 3. – pp. 7-10.
Vid soboru UAPTs do intronizatsii pershoho ukrainskoho Patriarkha [From the UAOC Council to the Enthronement of the First Ukrainian Patriarch] // Tserkva y zhyttia. – 1990. – No. 3.
Rozdumy pro mizhtserkovnyi konflikt [Reflections on the Inter-Church Conflict] // Vira. – 1990. – No. 2. – pp. 18-19.
Dokumentalni materialy komitetu vidrodzhennia UAPTs [Documentary Materials of the Committee for the Revival of the UAOC]. Issues 1–4. February 1989 – June 1990. Reprint of a samizdat journal from Ukraine. Information from the metropolis of the UAOC in the diaspora and the diocesan administration in Great Britain. – 1990.
Persha parafiia UAPTs v Kyievi [The First UAOC Parish in Kyiv] // Svoboda. – 1992. – No. 69.
II.
U Kyievi zasudyly L. Lokhvytsku, L. Miliavskoho, S. Naboku y I. Cherniavsku za rozpovsiudzhennia letiuchok [L. Lokhvytska, L. Milyavsky, S. Naboka, and I. Cherniavska Sentenced in Kyiv for Distributing Leaflets] // Smoloskyp. – 1982. – No. 3. – pp. 1–2.
Four Kyiv Aktivists sentenced for Leaflets // Smoloskyp. – 1982. – No. 3. – pp. 1, 10.
Ukrainsky Visnyk. Hromadsky literaturno-khudozhniy ta suspilno-politychnyi zhurnal. Issue 9-10. October-November 1987. Kyiv–Lviv. Reprint by the Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union – p. 179; Ibid: Ukrainsky Visnyk. Hromadsky literaturno-khudozhniy ta suspilno-politychnyi zhurnal. Issues 7, 8, 9-10. August, September, October-November 1987. Kyiv-Lviv. Reprint of a samizdat journal from Ukraine. – Toronto-Baltimore: Ukrainian Publishing House “Smoloskyp” im. V. Symonenka, 1988. – p. 489; Ibid: Kyivska vesna / Comp. and ed. O. Shevchenko. – Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo imeni Oleny Telihy, 2005. – p. 110.
Herald of Repression in Ukraine. Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Editor-compiler Nadiya Svitlychna. New York. 1981, issues 5, 7, 8, 9; 1984: 1-20.
Alekseyeva, L. Istoriya inakomysliya v SSSR [The History of Dissent in the USSR]. – Vilnius–Moscow: Vest, 1992. – p. 33.
Serhiy Naboka. Ukrainskyi kulturolohichnyi klub – Kyiv, 1987 [Ukrainian Culturological Club – Kyiv, 1987] // Ukrainskyi almanakh. 1997. – Warsaw: Association of Ukrainians in Poland, 1997. – pp. 154–156. (Also: Kyivska vesna / Comp. and ed. O. Shevchenko. – Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo imeni Oleny Telihy, 2005. – pp. 67-69).
Kasianov, H. Nezhodni: ukrainska intelihentsiia v rusi oporu 1960-80-kh rokiv [The Dissenters: Ukrainian Intelligentsia in the Resistance Movement of the 1960s-80s]. – Kyiv: Lybid, 1995. – p. 173.
Rusnachenko, A. Natsionalno-vyzvolnyi rukh v Ukraini [The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine]. – Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo im. O. Telihy. – 1998. – p. 217.
Serhiy Naboka. “Ya ‘po zhyzni’ zhurnalist, redaktor i vydavets…” [“In life, I’m a journalist, editor, and publisher…”] The Last Interview of Serhiy Naboka with Vakhtang Kipiani, November 21, 2002 // Ukrainska Pravda, 2003. – January 21; http://www.pravda.com.ua/cgi-bin/print.cgi.
Kyivska vesna [Kyiv Spring] / Comp. and ed. O. Shevchenko. – Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo imeni Oleny Telihy, 2005. –– pp. 11, 13, 36, 110, 122-129, 143, 143, 264, 299, 318, 369, 503, 515, 517, 566.
Serhiy Hrabovsky. Vony pryishly, shchob zvilnyty nas: do dvadtsiatyrichchia UKK [They Came to Free Us: For the Twentieth Anniversary of the UCC]. – 2007. – August 7 http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2007/08/7/4422278/
Zakharov, Ye. Zhaha svobody [The Thirst for Freedom]. Dzerkalo tyzhnia, No. 1 (630). – 2007. – January 13–19.
Shevchenko, O. Pershyi postril Ukrainskoi Revoliutsii [The First Shot of the Ukrainian Revolution] // Prava liudyny v Ukraini, http://www.khpg.org/1215442908
Ovsiienko, V. Spravliaiemo “Rizdvianykh Vasyliv” – zghaduiemo tykh, khto ne skoryvsia [We Celebrate “Christmas Vasyls” – Remembering Those Who Did Not Surrender] // Ukraina Moloda, No. 9, 2007. – January 18.
Obertas, O. Den ukrainskoho politv’iaznia [Day of the Ukrainian Political Prisoner] // Smoloskyp Ukrainy, No. 1 (138). – 2007. – January.
Zherdieva, I. V. Davnia ta nova istoriia Ukrainy. Rol pravoslavnykh hazet i zhurnaliv v mizhkonfesiinykh vidnosynakh za chasiv nezalezhnosti Ukrainy [Ancient and Modern History of Ukraine. The Role of Orthodox Newspapers and Journals in Inter-confessional Relations during Ukraine’s Independence]. Naukovi pratsi istorychnoho fakultetu Zaporizkoho natsionalnoho universytetu. – 2009. Issue XXVII.
Relihiina polityka v Ukraini u 1960-kh – 1980-kh rokakh i suchasna praktyka mizhkonfesiinykh vidnosyn [Religious Policy in Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s and Modern Practice of Inter-confessional Relations]. Institute of History of Ukraine, NAS of Ukraine. – 2010. (P.M. Bondarchuk, V.M. Danylenko, V.O. Krupyna, O.N. Kubalskyi).
Rukh oporu v Ukraini: 1960 – 1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk [Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 – 1990. An Encyclopedic Guide] / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – pp. 381-382.
Profile compiled on October 12, 2010, by L. Lokhvytska. Supplemented on October 13, 2010, by V. Ovsiienko (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group). Last read August 11, 2016.
