Ivan Stepanovych Suk

IVAN STEPANOVYCH SUK (born 1925 – died 1990 in Donetsk).
Associate Professor at a medical institute. Distributed samvydav.
He was a postgraduate student at the Kyiv Medical Institute, defended his candidate's dissertation, and became an associate professor at the Donetsk Medical Institute. He distributed a copy of N. Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU on the cult of personality of Stalin, which was printed in the USA and not published in the USSR. He possessed a copy of I. DZIUBA’s work “Internationalism or Russification?” and lent it to acquaintances. He associated with writers I. DZIUBA, B. ANTONENKO-DAVYDOVYCH, Hryhoriy Kryvda, and Halyna Hordasevych. He had a respectable Ukrainian library. He consistently spoke Ukrainian. He collected materials and was preparing to write a work on the national question. During a search on May 26, 1970, many books were confiscated, as well as his manuscript titled “Famine” (about the famine of 1933).
Searches in Suk's case were also conducted at the homes of Volodymyr Mishchenko in Dnipropetrovsk and Vasyl Zakharchenko in Cherkasy on June 8, 1970. In response, V. STUS addressed a statement in his defense to O. P. Lyashko, Chairman of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the UkrSSR, and F. D. Ovcharenko, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for ideology.
The case was initiated under Article 62, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR (“anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”), but the investigation failed to prove that S. intended to undermine the Soviet state and social system. The court, which took place on December 25, 1970, reclassified his actions under Article 187-1 (“Slander against the Soviet reality”). He was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment. He served his term in a common criminal camp, where he was severely beaten. There was information that he went insane as a result of the beating.
After his release, he worked as a doctor in Donetsk and died in 1990.


Bibliography:
Chronicle of Current Events, no. 18, March 5, 1971.
Stus, Vasyl. “The Arrest of Ivan Suk in Donetsk.” Ukrainskyi Visnyk, no. 3 [1970]. // Chornovil, V. Works: In 10 vols. Vol. 3. (“Ukrainskyi Visnyk,” 1970-72). Compiled by Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2006, pp. 32–33, 312–315, 352, 568.
Stus, V. Works in 6 vols., 9 books. Lviv: Prosvita, 1994, pp. 404–406.
Vasylchenko, Borys. “Memories of a Friend.” Ukrainske Slovo, no. 25, June 16–22, 2004.
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. XX Century. Documents”), p. 722.