Participant in the national liberation movement. OUN member. Typist. Fashion designer. Talented embroiderer. Political prisoner (1965-66).
Her father, an accountant named Mykhailo Menkush, and mother, Kateryna, enrolled their daughter Yaroslava in the B. Hrinchenko Ukrainian Native School in 1930. From 1933 to 1934, she studied at the T. Shevchenko School in Lviv, and from 1937 to 1939 at the “Trud” tailoring school, which provided a good general education. In 1939, Yaroslava entered the second year of a zootechnical college, where she studied until 1941.
During the war, she completed typing courses, worked at a lime factory in Pustomyty, and then in the local self-government (1941-42). From 1942 to 1943, she taught history, Ukrainian language, cutting, and sewing at the Agricultural School in Pustomyty.
She collaborated with the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and in 1943 became a member, organizing the Women’s Network of the Horodok underground district leadership of the OUN in the Lviv region. In 1943, she married Ivan Bilyi (pseudonym Omelian), the referent of the Horodok military district command of the Lviv region. He was killed in battle with NKVD soldiers on September 17, 1944. That same year, Menkush gave birth to a daughter, Halyna (who would become a talented singer-bandurist and a People’s Artist). In 1947, she was forced to go into hiding. Her daughter was raised by an aunt in Lviv until she was 12. From time to time, Menkush would visit the child under the name “Aunt Maria.” Only in 1954, after coming out of hiding, was she able to tell her daughter the truth about herself.
From 1956 to 1964, she worked as a seamstress and fashion designer at the Lviv House of Models. Before her arrest, she was a fashion designer at the Lviv Design and Construction Institute of Light Industry. She collaborated with the outstanding artist Liudmyla Semykina. She communicated with I. HEL, and at his request in the summer of 1965, she began typing (but did not finish due to her arrest) the article “Contemporary Imperialism” and M. HORYN’s review of it titled “Comments,” and also typed one page of the article “12 Questions for Those Who Study Social Sciences” (the latter was read by two people—Yanina Yaremko and Roman Bodnar).
Menkush was arrested on August 25, 1965, during the first wave of arrests of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. The aforementioned articles, a typewriter, a thousand sheets of paper, and 250 sheets of carbon paper were confiscated from her. Finding herself in a dirty solitary confinement cell, she first asked for a bucket of water and a rag, then lime and a brush... She was interrogated by the notorious investigator Boiechko. Everything boiled down to finding out from whom, when, and under what circumstances she received what, and to whom she gave what. On March 24-25, 1966, Menkush was sentenced in a closed session of the Lviv oblast court under Article 62, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR on charges of conducting anti-Soviet nationalist propaganda and agitation to 2.5 years in strict-regime camps (in the same case as I. HEL, with whom Menkush was in a “criminal conspiracy” for only 17 days). The Supreme Court of the UkrSSR reviewed her appeal and reduced her sentence to 1 year. She served her sentence in camp ZhKh-385/17 in Mordovia, in the village of Ozerne, Zubovo-Polyansky raion.
After returning from imprisonment, Menkush told Lviv residents about the conditions of women’s detention. She was not reinstated at her previous job and was expelled from Lviv. For a long time, she could not find work. In 1967, she married a widower, Anton Zanevchak.
In December 1969, Menkush signed a letter from 16 former political prisoners to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the UkrSSR, O. Liashko, titled “‘Cell’ Cases Again?” protesting the opening of a new criminal case against S. Karavansky in Vladimir Prison and demanding guarantees of public trials for political cases.
In 1972, during the second wave of arrests of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, Menkush’s apartment was searched. Along with a group of Lviv residents, she went carol-singing every year to collect funds to help the families of political prisoners. In 1976, she helped the recently released I. KANDYBA find housing in Pustomyty. She met O. MESHKO, A. HORSKA, I. SVITLYCHNY, and communicated with V. CHORNOVIL. After his arrest, she helped transmit his letters from prison to the outside world. Menkush managed to smuggle I. KANDYBA’s appeal and V. CHORNOVIL’s statement abroad through people who were preparing to leave for America and were having clothes made by her.
In 1977, together with I. SENYK, she signed a protest letter to the USSR leadership against the arrest of M. RUDENKO. She was constantly under KGB surveillance. Unable to find official employment, she sewed at home, risking being accused of private enterprise or “parasitism.”
In the mid-1980s and 1990s, she had a number of solo exhibitions of her stylized Ukrainian clothing and embroidery in Kyiv, Lviv, Warsaw, Canada, and the USA. She was awarded the title “Folk Master.”
In 2003, with Menkush’s help, a monument was erected near the town of Mykolaiv, Lviv oblast, to the fallen UPA soldiers, among whom was her husband, Ivan Bilyi.
Menkush was an active member of the “Union of Ukrainian Women,” the Brotherhood of UPA Soldiers, the All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners and Repressed Persons, the League of Ukrainian Women, and the Union of Folk Masters of Ukraine.
Bibliography:
Chornovil, V. Woe from Wit. – Lviv: Memorial, 1991. – p. 215;
Chornovil, V. Works: In 10 vols. – Vol. 2. “Justice or Recurrences of Terror?”. “Woe from Wit”. Materials and documents 1966 – 1969 / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by Les Taniuk. – K.: Smoloskyp, 2003. – pp. 138, 230-235, 577;
“Cell” Cases Again? (Under Investigation: Political Prisoner Sviatoslav Karavansky) [Letter from 16 former political prisoners to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the UkrSSR, O. Liashko] // Ukrainian Herald, issue I. January 1970 (samvydav); also: // Chornovil, V. Works: In 10 vols. – Vol. 3. (“Ukrainian Herald,” 1970-72) / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – K.: Smoloskyp, 2006. – pp. 100-102;
Horyn, Bohdan. Not Only About Myself: A Collage-Novel: In 3 books. – Book Two (1965–1985). – K.: University Publishing House PULSARY, 2008. – pp. 70-72, 124-127, 151;
Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 – 1990. Encyclopedic Directory / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – K.: Smoloskyp, 2010. – pp. 430-431; 2nd ed., 2012. – pp. 483-484.
Stotska, Hanna. And on That Embroidered Towel... The Life and Fate of Yaroslava Zanevchak-Menkush. The Heroine: http://postup.brama.com/010316/42_8_3.html , March 16, 2001;
The Embroideries of Yaroslava Zanevchak-Menkush. Album. – 2007. – 175 pp.: http://artvertep.com/shop/books/null/5751/Albom.html;
1923 – 2012. Yaroslava Zanevchak (Menkush): http://www.territoryterror.org.ua/uk/witnesses/biography/?ci_personid=36;
Kupchyk, Lidiya. The Passing of a Great Patriot: http://www.cun.lviv.ua/index.php?Itemid=14&catid=6:2010-06-10-08-19-03&id=486:2012-12-12-18-44-01&option=com_content&view=article
Compiled by V. Ovsiienko on June 4, 2013. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
MENKUSH (ZANEVCHAK) YAROSLAVA MYKHAILIVNA