Artist, political prisoner.
From a peasant family. His father and brother Tymish died in the war. His mother, Tetyana Avksentiivna, struggled greatly to raise her two sons. In 1947, she was fined 100 karbovantsi by the Obodivka people’s court for non-payment of taxes. She passed away in 1982.
In 1945, Hryts completed the 7th grade at Tsybulivka school. He loved folk songs and music and had a talent for drawing, so he enrolled in the Kyiv College of Applied Arts, from which he graduated in 1950 with a specialization in “artistic ceramics.” He completed and defended his diploma project, “A Ceramic Decorative Fountain for a Kolkhoz Park of Culture and Recreation,” with honors. That same year, he was admitted without exams to the philology faculty of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University. He lived in a dormitory, often going hungry. Voloshchuk later explained to investigators: “I displayed anti-Soviet sentiments because I was not sufficiently well-off materially, my mother in the village had it very hard, the head of the village council did not reduce her taxes, and the head of the collective farm refused to help with fuel or repair the house.”
A typical choleric: a maximalist who hated falsehood, he was bold in word and deed. He considered Stalin and Beria his personal enemies.
The head of KSU's special department, O. Yelizarov, reported the student's moods to the MGB, handing over his term paper, “T. Shevchenko's Novella 'The Twins',” to Lieutenant Colonel M. Shyshkin. The lecturer Mykola Malyna informed: “Even during seminar classes, Voloshchuk stated that the unification of Ukraine with Russia in 1654 was not a progressive phenomenon because, he argued, Russia had an autocratic system, while in Ukraine, the hetman was elected by the people. And that Shevchenko was supposedly an opponent of such a unification, for which he condemned B. Khmelnytsky.”
It seems the immediate pretext for Voloshchuk's arrest on December 29, 1952, was his caricature of Stalin with swastikas on his buttons. Implicated in the case were his classmates Mykola Adamenko from Chernihiv Oblast (arrested January 18, 1953) and Rostyslav Dotsenko from Kyiv (arrested February 14, 1953).
The specific charges included: ironically referring to the leader of nations as “father”; being outraged that the history of Ukrainian art was not taught and that “everything Russian—literature, art, and culture—was being promoted”; reading “anti-Soviet nationalist literature”—works by B. Hrinchenko, M. Hrushevsky, P. Kulish, S. Yefremov’s *History of Ukrainian Literature*, V. Vynnychenko’s novel *The Sun Machine*, V. Pidmohylny’s work *The City*, and M. Khvylovyi’s novel *Woodsnipes*; saying it would be better if Ukraine became independent; drawing tridents; slandering Soviet radio broadcasts; and “throwing an autobiography of one of the leaders of the Soviet government (Stalin) against the wall, tearing it up, and using the pages for toilet paper.”
During the investigation, he tried to protect his friends. Some colonel, upon seeing the caricature of Stalin with a noose around his neck, beat Voloshchuk and ordered him to “get on your knees before the Soviet government.” Later, in a petition for rehabilitation addressed to N. Khrushchev on October 31, 1961, Voloshchuk wrote: “I will not describe how the investigation was conducted. I will only say that after half a month of interrogations, on January 14, I forgot my own name.”
At a closed court session of the Kyiv Regional Court on May 14, 1953, Voloshchuk and Adamenko were sentenced to 10 years, and R. Dotsenko to 8 years, in corrective labor camps with a subsequent 3-year loss of rights under Articles 54-10, Part 2, and 54-11 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR for “organizational activities aimed at committing especially dangerous state crimes, as well as participation in an anti-Soviet organization.” Lecturer M. Malyna and fellow students testified against them. His mother was so distressed for her son that she became paralyzed. She tended her garden on her knees.
Voloshchuk served his sentence in Siberian camps, including in the Ukhta region, where he worked as a norm-setter.
He was released in 1956 under an amnesty. He registered his residence in a suburban area near Kyiv and worked on the reconstruction of the former Institute for Noble Maidens, at the Kyiv Scientific-Restoration Workshop, on the restoration of St. Sophia's Cathedral, St. Cyril's Church, and the Bakhchysarai Palace-Museum. He also painted souvenirs at the Kyiv Factory of Artistic Products.
In 1963, along with R. Dotsenko, who had been released that year, he was reinstated at the university. After graduating in 1965, he worked as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in the Luhansk region. According to his own words, he was fired for his “fierce, frenzied lessons.”
In 1966, he returned to Kyiv. He married Rymma Motruk. Noticing both open and covert surveillance, he began visiting his native Tsybulivka more frequently. Eventually, he moved there. It was said that he secretly took down the flags from the village council and office buildings at night. He attended church, painted an icon of “The Myrrh-Bearing Women” for it, and made a cross. His home was searched several times. Rumors circulated that he had connections abroad. In the village, he was known by the nickname “Zek,” which he had given himself.
In his final years, a stomach ulcer he had developed in captivity worsened. He resorted to self-treatment with prolonged fasts, which did more harm than good. He passed away in his 42nd year. Not like other people: with a smile on his face.
He was buried in his native Tsybulivka. After his death, a KGB agent came from Kyiv, asking whether any of his Kyiv friends had attended the funeral. The KGB had a great deal of compromising material on the deceased and probably regretted that Voloshchuk had not lived to see the arrests of 1972.
Voloshchuk's life became the prototype for the hero of M. Adamenko’s novel *The Law Is the Taiga*, and he is also depicted in the autobiographical poem *Sign of the Era* (1993).
In 2005, a street in his home village was named after Voloshchuk, and a memorial plaque was installed on the wall of the village council building.
Bibliography:
*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. 107.
Adamenko, M. *The Law Is the Taiga: A Novel*. Chernihiv, 2001.
Bilorus, M. *He Just Keeps Walking...*. Kyiv: Zadruha, 2001.
Malyuta, I. “Nicknamed Zek.” *Molod Ukrainy*, November 2, 6, 8, 9, 13, 2001.
Dotsenko, R. “Mykola Adamenko, from Voloshchuk’s Group, or Rather, of His Mettle.” *Molod Ukrainy*, January 24, 2002.
Malyuta, I. “I Collect Good Memories.” *Shliakh Peremohy*, April 17, 18, 23, 2003.
Adamenko, M. “On a Shaky Footbridge over the Abyss: A Memoir-Reflection.” *Zona*, 2006, issue 20, pp. 110–134.
*The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Directory*. Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010, p. 123.
VOLOSHCHUK HRYHORIY PARFENOVYCH