Historian, ethnographer, museum specialist, cultural-educational and public figure, collector.
The son of peasants Ivan Arsenych and Paraska, née Malkovych. His father collected food for the UPA. A distant relative, Mykola Arsenych (1910–1947), headed the OUN Security Service.
In 1948, Petro enrolled in the Kolomyia Pedagogical College. He was forced to join the Komsomol, so he dropped out and returned home. In 1949, he joined the OUN Youth Network. He distributed underground literature and leaflets. After Stalin’s death, when Beria declared that the government should rely on national cadres, Petro was summoned to the Yabluniv Raion Committee of the CPU and offered the chance to take exams for the history faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He graduated in 1958 with a degree as a “Historian-Museologist.” He worked as a senior researcher and head of the history department at the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Museum. Without the director’s knowledge, he met with former Sich Riflemen, UGA officers, and UPA soldiers, recording their stories.
From 1962, A. taught archeology and ethnography at the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute. He encouraged students to record insurgent songs and the memoirs of fighters for Ukraine’s freedom. He subscribed to the Lemko newspapers “Nasha Kultura” (Our Culture) and “Nashe Slovo” (Our Word) from Poland and distributed them. He collected many old publications from the 1920s and 30s, made photocopies and typescripts of them, and sent copies to like-minded individuals. He brought samvydav literature from Kyiv and Lviv.
With the arrival of V. MOROZ at the institute in 1964, a group of young, progressively-minded instructors formed, who opposed the Marxist instructors. On September 1, 1965, V. MOROZ was arrested. Insurgent songs that A. had given him were seized, and he too was detained. However, the investigation lacked sufficient evidence that A. had stored or distributed samvydav, and he himself did not confess to it. But, cornered by the evidence, he was forced to confirm that MOROZ had given him the book “The Derivation of Ukraine’s Rights” and the article “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky.” He was released after three days.
At the trial of V. MOROZ and D. Ivashchenko on January 20, 1966, A. retracted some of his previous testimony, explaining that he had been terrorized during interrogations and that one investigator had grabbed him by the hair. He argued that there was nothing criminal in loving all things Ukrainian. He confirmed that he had indeed spoken out against the Russification of kindergartens and the destruction of historical and cultural monuments. His position helped MOROZ defend himself.
Soon after the trial, A., as someone who had not condemned the “nationalist views” of V. MOROZ, was fired from his job and, on February 28, 1966, expelled from the CPSU. However, even after this, he continued to help V. MOROZ’s wife and son. The KGB demanded that A. attend his second trial (November 17, 1970) and report on who behaved in what way. A. did not comply with this demand.
From 1966 to 1990, A. was a researcher at the regional museum. In the 1970s, he defended the 17th-century church in the “insurgent capital” of Kosmach, where V. ROMANIUK (later Patriarch Volodymyr) was the rector. He traveled to Kyiv to retrieve the iconostasis that S. Parajanov had taken. To save the church, he tried to have a museum established in it. However, it was burned down in 1970.
Two decades, from 1966 to 1986, A. spent in an atmosphere of surveillance, summonses to the KGB for “prophylactic” talks, and interrogations aimed at breaking him and forcing him to collaborate with the KGB. But from the very beginning, he declared that if he encountered an American spy, he would report it to the KGB, but he would not inform on his own people. They insisted that he write an article against “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists.” A. said: “Provide the materials, I will analyze them and maybe write something.” Another time: “Hire me at the KGB, give me access to the literature, and I’ll think about it.”
After the arrests of 1972-73, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU for ideology, V. Malanchuk, said at a regional party meeting that A. had written 20 articles that lacked a class-based approach, that he was fascinated by archaic customs, and that he incorrectly interpreted the activities of the CPUW. As a result, in 1973, A. was dismissed from his position as department head at the museum and left as a rank-and-file employee with the lowest salary. However, A. continued (without the Museum director’s knowledge) to travel throughout Galicia, recording memoirs, and collecting old photographs, postcards, documents, and books. He would ask for, buy, or exchange items. Later, during the years of independence, he donated much of his collection to museums in Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Kolomyia, and Ternopil.
He participated in writing the book “History of Towns and Villages. Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast” (1971). He worked on a dissertation titled “Volodymyr Shukhevych—Researcher of Hutsulshchyna,” but the authorities discovered that this was the grandfather of the UPA’s Commander-in-Chief, and a defense was out of the question.
In 1979, together with Roman Kys, he wrote a protest against the Russification of Ukrainian science and tried to send it abroad through R. MOROZ. He wrote articles about the CPUW, about those of its members who were formerly Sich Riflemen, but not a single one praising the Soviet government or the CPSU. In his home village, his father’s and sister’s land plot was cut off twice. In December 1981, KGB authorities again conducted a search of A.’s home, seizing a large amount of pre-war literature.
From 1988, he participated in the national revival of the region. In 1990, he was elected a deputy of the regional and city councils, worked in the commission on culture and national revival, in the commission for collecting materials on the criminal activities of the CPSU-CPU, headed the commission for the removal of Lenin monuments, and managed the scientific and editorial department at the regional state administration’s culture department. He was a participant in the founding conferences of “Memorial” in Kyiv, the Taras Shevchenko Society of the Ukrainian Language “Prosvita,” and the People’s Movement of Ukraine. He is a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv and the Republican Association of Ukrainian Studies Scholars. A. is the author of 46 books, including ones on the Zaklynsky, Shukhevych, Ozarkevych, and Bandera families, and 2,000 publications on the history and culture of Prykarpattia in various encyclopedias, collections, journals, and newspapers. He is the organizer of museums and many exhibitions. He has been an associate professor at the Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University since 2010. He has been awarded numerous certificates, letters of thanks, and the Order of Merit, III and II Class (2003, 2009). He is a laureate of the P. Chubynsky Prize (1991), I. Vahylevych Prize (1994), M. Pidhirianka Prize (1995), D. Yavornytsky Prize (2008), and P. Tronko Prize (2014).
Bibliography:
I.
A Return to the Institute After 21 Years [V. Moroz] // Zakh. Kuryer. – 1991. – April 18;
II.
Arsenych, Petro. Bibliographic Index of Historical and Regional Publications for 1959–1988. – Ivano-Frankivsk, 1989;
Yakymovych, B. Son of the Carpathian Land // Dzvin. – 1994. – No. 5. – pp. 158-159;
Arsenych, Petro. Bibliographic Index of Historical and Regional Publications for 1959-1998 (On the 40th Anniversary of Work in the Field of Historical Regional Studies and the 65th Birthday). – Ivano-Frankivsk, 1999;
Danyliuk, A. A Worthy Son of the Precarpathian Land // Dzvin. – 2004. – No. 3. – pp. 158-159;
Liubinets, V.S. Arsenych, Petro Ivanovych (On His 70th Birthday) // Vidlunnia Vikiv. –K., 2004. – No. 1. – pp. 111-112;
Interview with P. Arsenych on June 20 and 22, 2008, in the city of Morshyn. KhPG Archive: https://museum.khpg.org/1362686603;
International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny.” – 2006. – pp. 1–516; Part 2. – pp. 517–1020; Part 3. – 2011. – pp. 1021–1380; Arsenych P., pp. 1039–1042: https://museum.khpg.org/1310062872;
The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – 804 pp., 56 ill.; 2nd ed., 2012. – 896 pp. + 64 ill.; Arsenych: 68.
Vasyl Ovsiienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
Characters 7,450. Arsenych Last read on May 15, 2016.
Historian Petro Arsenych at the monument to UPA heroes in the “Hoverla” sanatorium for OUN-UPA veterans in Morshyn. June 21, 2008. Photo by V. Ovsiienko.
ARSENYCH PETRO IVANOVYCH