OLEKSANDR IVANOVYCH MARTYNENKO (born October 2, 1935, in Nova Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast – died 1988, in Kyiv).
Geophysicist. Resistance movement activist. Distributed samvydav.
From a working-class family. In 1941, the family moved to the village of Hradizk, Hlobyne Raion, Poltava Oblast. His father was shot by the German occupiers in Dnipropetrovsk in the winter of 1942 on suspicion of having ties to the Red Partisans.
Oleksandr graduated with honors from the Hradizk seven-year school and enrolled in the Kyiv Geological Exploration Technical College. After working for a few months, he was drafted into the army.
After demobilization, he entered the Lviv Polytechnic Institute, in the Faculty of Geology (Department of Geophysics). From 1962, he worked as a senior engineer at the Kyiv Research and Development Geological Exploration Institute. He was working on the problem of seismic wave programming and preparing to defend his candidate’s dissertation.
M. attended the Club of Creative Youth. He was a multi-talented individual: he played the violin, wrote poetry, and sang in the amateur choir “Zhayvoronok” (Skylark), which was led by Borys Ryaboklyach and Vadym SMOHYTEL. The choir was an environment for the awakening of national consciousness and the dissemination of samvydav literature. There, M. became friends with geodetic engineer Ivan RUSYN and geophysicist Volodymyr ZAVOYSKY. Since M. was renting accommodation, he obtained a typewriter and brought it to RUSYN, who then arranged with a typist, Lida Melnyk, to retype samvydav materials. At first, these were poems by young poets Ivan DRACH, Borys Mamaysur, Mykola KHOLODNY, Vasyl SYMONENKO, Mykola Vinhranovsky, and Lina KOSTENKO, then V. SYMONENKO's “Diary,” Sviatoslav KARAVANSKY's lawsuit against Minister of Education Dadenkov, and “On the Occasion of the Pogruzhal'sky Trial.”
For a time, M. lived with V. ZAVOYSKY, who had a camera and an enlarger. He introduced him to Y. PRONYUK, who gave them samvydav typescripts and books from foreign publications to reproduce by photographic means, including *Na bahryanomu koni revoliutsii* (“On the Crimson Horse of Revolution”). M. actively distributed them.
When the “Zhayvoronok” choir was threatened with a split, M. and V. ZAVOYSKY set about saving it: they visited choristers in student and workers’ dormitories and recruited new members.
He was arrested on August 28, 1965. M.’s co-conspirators were I. RUSYN and Yivha KUZNETSOVA, whom he did not even know. The case against them, on charges of conducting nationalist anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Part 1 of Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR), was heard by the Kyiv Oblast Court, presided over by Judge Matsko, from March 21–25, 1966, in what was essentially a closed session: a crowd of the defendants’ supporters stood outside the building, while the hall was filled via a back entrance with a “special audience.” Nevertheless, poets Lina KOSTENKO and Lyubov Zabashta managed to get into the courtroom and tried to take notes on the proceedings, but an aggressive “public” confiscated their notes. After the verdict was announced, L. KOSTENKO threw flowers to the defendants. When the convicts were being driven away, other people threw flowers under the wheels of the “voronok” (paddy wagon). The verdict: M. was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment in strict-regime camps, I. RUSYN to 1 year, and Y. KUZNETSOVA to 4 years.
M. served his sentence in camp ZhKh-385/11, in the village of Yavas, Mordovian ASSR. He worked in the woodworking shop, where they made cases for radio receivers.
His mother did not live to see his return. He had a work assignment for Kyiv, but he was not granted a residence permit or given a job there. He found a job in the Poltava region in a geophysical exploration expedition. He got married. He suffered harassment from the KGB, so he went to the Yamal Peninsula (in the north of Western Siberia). He worked as a programmer at a radio station. Due to the harsh climate, he fell ill and returned to the Poltava region.
During perestroika, he traveled to Kyiv for meetings of the Ukrainian Culturological Club (UCC). He died in 1988 in the Zhovtneva Hospital in Kyiv. His ashes are interred in the columbarium at the Baikove Cemetery.
Bibliography:
Chornovil, V. *Woe from Wit*. Lviv: Memorial, 1991, pp. 181-182.
Chornovil, V. *Works: In 10 vols.* Vol. 2. “Justice or Recurrences of Terror?” “Woe from Wit.” Materials and Documents 1966–1969. Compiled by Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by Les Tanyuk. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2003, pp. 41, 120-121, 223, 542-543; Vol. 3. (“Ukrainskyi Visnyk,” 1970–72). Compiled by Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2006, pp. 438, 440.
Interview with Volodymyr Zavoysky from May 27, 1999: https://museum.khpg.org/1237066397.
Interview with Viktor Kuksa from April 10, 2002: https://museum.khpg.org/1202724866.
Interview with Ivan Rusyn from May 26, 1999: https://museum.khpg.org/1186168371.
Ivan Rusyn. “At 33 Volodymyrska Street”: https://museum.khpg.org/1186246408.
Ivan Rusyn. “Stages”: https://museum.khpg.org/1303134599.
Ivan Rusyn. “The Second Journey”: https://museum.khpg.org/1303131334.
*The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide*. Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych and Oles Obertas. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010, p. 411.