Student, member of an anti-Soviet organization, later a member of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.
After graduating from Kremenets Secondary School No. 1 in 1957 and a youth sports school, she worked as a physical education teacher at the Rokytne rural school in Rokytne raion, Rivne oblast.
From 1959 to 1963, she studied at the pedagogical faculty of the Rivne Pedagogical Institute.
In early 1963, she met her cousin, Borys Ivanovych Bulbynsky, who had been released from prison on March 5, 1962, after serving 5 years for distributing Marxist leaflets. He told Trofymovych about the creation of an organization called the “All-Union Democratic Front. Revolutionary Social-Democratic Party.” In April 1963, Bulbynsky made a printing plate and printed 4,000 leaflets on behalf of the VDF RSDRP. In June 1963, he met with Trofymovych in the village of Mizoch, Rivne oblast, and gave her 700 leaflets to distribute in Odesa, where she was going on vacation. Trofymovych gave one leaflet to two friends to read and told two others about it. She took some of the leaflets with her to Odesa but refrained from distributing them. In September 1964, Bulbynsky gave her another 500 leaflets to distribute if he were arrested. She kept them in the dormitory of the pedagogical institute. The leaflets were distributed in Zhytomyr by Serhiy Babych, in Lysychansk by Taras Tarasiuk, and in the villages of Popasna and Mykytivka near Lysychansk by Bulbynsky himself. They were also sent by mail.
After being arrested on September 19, 1963, Bulbynsky exposed his accomplices, including Trofymovych, and pleaded guilty. Trofymovych was arrested on September 21. She was forced to plead guilty. She was accused of conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Part 1, Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR) and creating an anti-Soviet organization (Article 64).
On February 19, 1964, the Rivne Regional Court sentenced Trofymovych to 5 years of imprisonment in a strict-regime corrective labor colony. B. Bulbynsky was to be sentenced to 10 years in special-regime camps, but for his “assistance in solving the crime,” he was assigned a strict regime. S. Babych did not confess to distributing the leaflets, did not plead guilty, but in his final statement, he asked to have it recorded in the verdict that he was finally convinced of the correctness of the ideas of Ukrainian nationalism, for which he received 10 years in a special regime and was declared a particularly dangerous recidivist. T. Tarasiuk was sentenced to 5 years. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR reduced Trofymovych’s term to 3 years.
Trofymovych served her sentence in camp ZhKh-385/17-a, in the village of Ozerne, Zubovo-Polyansky raion, Mordovian ASSR. She was released on September 20, 1966.
After her release, she lived with her mother in Rivne. She was under administrative supervision.
From 1967 to 1981, she worked at PMK-65 “Polissyavodbud” as a warehouse manager, mechanic-technician, and rate-setter. For 6 months, a KGB officer came to interview her, clarifying her connections abroad (she received letters from her godfather, Mykola Chornyi-Dosinchuk, the editor of the journal *Bandura*, published in New York).
From 1981 to 2000, she worked at the Rivne Tractor Parts Plant as a senior labor and wage engineer, economist, and head of the securities department.
She has been a pensioner since 2000. She is a member of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. She was a participant in the “Sandarmokh” memorial expedition in 2002.
Bibliography:
Indictment in criminal case No. 13.
Verdict of the Rivne Regional Court of February 19, 1964.
*58-10. Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor’s Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. March 1953–1991. An Annotated Catalog*. Edited by V.A. Kozlov and S.V. Mironenko; compiled by O.V. Edelman. Moscow: International Foundation “Democracy,” 1999, 944 pp. (Russia. 20th Century. Documents), p. 309.
Autobiography of M. Trofymovych dated February 18, 2002.
Interview with S. Babych: https://museum.khpg.org/1228746466
Trofymovych 1960
Trofymovych 1970