ROKETSKY, BOHDAN DMYTROVYCH (born May 17, 1951, in the village of Kusia, Chusovsky Raion, Perm Oblast, Russia – died November 15, 2005, in the city of Tysmenytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast).
Leader of the underground organization “Kameniar,” journalist, writer.
A descendant of Colonel Roketsky of the Berezhany Regiment from the time of the Khmelnytsky Uprising. A distant relative of Volodymyr ROKETSKY.
His father, a UPA soldier, was imprisoned in the Urals. His mother, pregnant with Bohdan, was exiled to Siberia. After Stalin’s death, his father was released into exile to join his wife. Later, they received permission to return to Ukraine. Bohdan’s childhood and youth were spent in his father’s native village of Serednie, Berezhany Raion, Ternopil Oblast.
In 1969, Bohdan enrolled in the Ukrainian Philology program at Lviv University. In September 1970, he became the student dean of the Faculty of Philology and thus had influence over the students. In the fall of 1971, he decided to transfer to the Faculty of Journalism. He was expelled from the Faculty of Philology but was not accepted into the journalism program: the personnel department discovered that he was from a family of the repressed. He had to travel to the Ministry of Education, which in November allowed him to return to the Faculty of Philology. In Kyiv, he and Volodymyr ROKETSKY visited the Ivan Honchar Museum and met the young, opposition-minded writers Danylo Kulyniak and Natalka Okolitenko.
R. resumed his studies but did not receive a scholarship; he worked part-time unloading railcars and lived illegally in student and workers’ dormitories.
In December 1971, students R., Yaroslav Smaliukh, and worker Mykhailo Hombkovsky created the underground nationalist organization “Kameniar.” It was to seek Ukraine’s independence through forceful means, like its predecessor, the OUN. Before the New Year, his friends went home, while Bohdan finalized the organization’s program and charter in a workers’ dormitory. On the night before December 31, 1971, V. ROKETSKY arrived from Kyiv and helped improve the documents.
At the same time, R. was a member of an unofficial group of philology students and the “Franko’s Forge” literary studio. He was acquainted with members of the underground youth organization “Ukrainian National Liberation Front” (UNLF, led by Zorian POPADIUK) but did not participate in its activities.
After the arrests of intellectuals in January 1972 (including V. ROKETSKY), the “Kameniar” organization definitively committed to underground and forceful methods of operation. It grew by several more members. They read pre-war literature and Ukrainian samvydav.
On the night of March 28, 1973, Bohdan was awakened by KGB officers who presented him with an arrest warrant issued in Kyiv. He suspected he was arrested for his science fiction novel “Ephemerida,” which he had sent to the Kyiv journal “Dnipro.” In it, a “cosmic security force” (an allusion to the KGB) was portrayed in a negative light.
During the investigation, it was revealed that he had been informed on by Hryhoriy Khvostenko, a philology student from Sumy Oblast. Khvostenko had informed on many students involved in publishing the UNLF journal “Postup” (Progress) and leaflets protesting the ban on honoring T. Shevchenko in Lviv on March 9. Bohdan’s friend Vasyl Hanushchak and classmate Mykhailo Hombkovsky were also arrested. The latter, beaten until he was bloody, was “accidentally” shown to Bohdan in the corridor of the KGB pre-trial detention center. He was offered release and an academic career in exchange for collaboration, but Bohdan rejected the offer. The young men were accused of planning to seize the television tower on Vysoky Zamok (High Castle) hill using weapons in order to address the people (R. had indeed expressed such a fantastic idea in Khvostenko’s presence). After three days, they were made to sign a pledge not to leave the city and were repeatedly summoned for interrogations. By order of the university rector dated April 19, several dozen students, including R., were expelled “for actions unworthy of a Soviet student.” They were expelled from the Komsomol, and many of the young men were drafted into the army. On April 22, 1973, the expelled students were brought one by one to the head of the Lviv Oblast KGB Directorate, General Poluden, who offered to reinstate them in their studies in exchange for collaboration with the KGB. R. flatly refused.
The underground organization “Kameniar” was never exposed because Khvostenko did not know about it, and its other members did not confess. The case was closed due to lack of evidence.
Meanwhile, B. began working at an insulator factory. He was soon fired for participating in a workers’ strike. He worked as a loader at a food depot, a locksmith, and a plumber in Lviv, and as a chemical process operator at a chemical plant in Kalush.
He read a great deal in his free time. Attempts to be reinstated at the university, transfer to Chernivtsi University, or enroll in the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute were futile. He studied at the Faculty of Engineering and Economics of the Lviv Polygraphic Institute, but there too, he was given failing grades and expelled. He worked for the Ivano-Frankivsk newspaper “Vpered” (Forward) and for regional newspapers in the cities of Verkhovyna, Sharhorod, and Bershad in Vinnytsia Oblast. He had a reputation as a talented journalist but could not hold a job for long anywhere: the shadow of the KGB followed him.
He married. He had two sons, Stepan (b. 1980) and Bohdan (b. 1982).
He was arrested on July 21, 1983, on a fabricated charge of possessing weapons (Part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR). During a search of the Roketsky house in the village of Drahomyrchany, Tysmenytsia Raion, where they did not live permanently, the police found a Bickford fuse, an electric detonator, a pistol, and small-caliber cartridges under a sofa and in the stove. The investigation refused to conduct a fingerprint analysis: “Your house, your weapons.” At the same time, R. was accused of creating an underground organization called “Moloda Ukraina” (Young Ukraine). Talks about such an organization had indeed taken place, which a provocateur named Roman reported to the KGB. During 113 days of investigation, R. endured severe beatings and temporarily lost hearing in his right ear, but he did not betray anyone. Seeing the absurdity of the charges, one investigator refused to handle the case, citing that he had lived in the same dormitory as R. during their student years. The charge under Part 1 of Article 62 (“Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda”) fell apart. In December 1983, he was sentenced under Article 222 to 5 years of imprisonment in a general-regime camp. He refused the services of a lawyer, as the lawyer only intended to seek a lighter sentence, whereas R. did not consider himself guilty at all. He was held for several more months in a cell at the pre-trial detention center in Ivano-Frankivsk.
In 1984, he was sent to a special commandant’s office in the city of Kalush (for ‘khimiya,’ or forced labor). He worked on road construction. He secured a judicial review of his case and was released on April 29, 1985, under administrative supervision. He worked at a brickyard. He soon achieved rehabilitation and was reinstated at the editorial office of the newspaper “Vpered” (Ivano-Frankivsk).
He graduated from the editing faculty of the Ukrainian Academy of Printing. With the beginning of perestroika, he became an active journalist and participated in the creation of virtually all Ukrainian public organizations in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, primarily the UHS and later the URP. On August 3, 1990, the first issue of the city newspaper “Zakhidny Kuryer” (The Western Courier), edited by R., was published. On May 17, 1990, he was appointed editor of “Za nezalezhnist” (For Independence), the newspaper of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast organization of the URP, the first issue of which was published on August 9, 1990. He was elected a deputy of the oblast council of the first convocation (1990) and worked on the human rights commission.
Under the pseudonym “Dan Boryviter,” he published a series of science fiction works, the plots of some of which are partly autobiographical but with fictional embellishments.
In his final years, he suffered from a severe kidney disease, from which he died.
He was a member of the Union of Journalists and the Union of Writers of Ukraine.
Bibliography:
1.
Dan Boryviter. The 113th Day: A Sci-Fi Novella and Stories. / D. Boryviter, editor-in-chief B. Roketsky. – Ivano-Frankivsk: Library of the newspaper “Za nezalezhnist,” 1995. – 126 pp.
Dan Boryviter. “The Professor,” Son of “Rai”: Science Fiction Novellas. / D. Boryviter, editor-in-chief B. Roketsky. – Ivano-Frankivsk: Library of the newspaper “Za nezalezhnist,” 1998. – 128 pp.
Dan Boryviter. On the Edge of Pain and Hatred, or The New Gladiators: A Fantasy Novel. / D. Boryviter, editor-in-chief B. Roketsky. – Ivano-Frankivsk: Library of the newspaper “Za nezalezhnist,” 2002. – 207 pp.
Dan Boryviter. The Last Battle, or I Am “NOBODY”...: A Fantasy Novel. / D. Boryviter. – Ivano-Frankivsk, 2003. – 176 pp.
2.
Ukrainian Herald. Issue 7-8. Spring 1974. Editor Maksym Sahaidak [Stepan Khmara]. – Paris–Baltimore–Toronto: Smoloskyp, 1975. – pp. 126–132.
Nataliya Mysak. The 1970s. Opposition at Lviv University (Excerpts from a Diploma Thesis) // Dan Boryviter. On the Edge of Pain and Hatred… – pp. 22-42.
KhPG Archive: Memoirs of B. Roketsky (March 9, 2000, Tysmenytsia) https://museum.khpg.org/1240523985
KhPG Archive: Interview with Zorian Popadiuk on January 27 and 31, 2000. https://museum.khpg.org/1195677346
[Obituary] – “Literaturna Ukraina,” November 24, 2005, No. 46 (5133).