Engineer, participant in the dissident movement.
He was born in Carpathian Ruthenia, which then belonged to Czechoslovakia, into a poor but nationally conscious Lemko family. His father, Ivan Kokhan (1898–1967), was arrested twice, first by the Germans and then by the Bolsheviks. His brother Mykhailo was imprisoned in 1947 (or 1948) for five years under Article 54 for collaborating with the UPA underground. His mother, Olena Ivanivna Dzyamko, lived to be 99 and passed away in 2001.
From childhood, Vasyl read Ukrainian books and periodicals and considered himself a participant in the national liberation movement since 1938. As early as 1939, he underwent military training with the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) in the area of the Chorna Tysa river, not far from Mount Syvulya, and, according to him, participated in the battles for the independence of Carpathian Ukraine.
In 1944, Kokhan was forcibly mobilized into the Soviet Army and took part in battles in Poland and Czechoslovakia. He was wounded three times and suffered a concussion, which resulted in partial hearing loss.
After the war, he served until 1950 in the area of Kamianets-Podilskyi and Chernivtsi with the ranks of sergeant, senior sergeant, and company first sergeant. On multiple occasions, at great risk to himself, he supplied UPA fighters with cartridges and grenades.
In 1952-53, he completed courses for electromechanics of mobile power stations at the Lviv Forestry Institute. In 1953, he enrolled in a technical college in Moscow and trained as an electrician. From 1955, he studied in the engineering faculty of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Kyiv, graduating in 1960 as a mechanical engineer specializing in machine design and construction. He worked at the research institute UKRDIPROstanok, and then as a senior researcher at the Institute of Automatics. From 1962 to 1965, he simultaneously attended the evening department of the Faculty of Automatics and Telemechanics at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. As a talented engineer, he had several technical inventions.
Kokhan listened to Radio Liberty broadcasts, had acquaintances in the circle of the Sixtiers, and read and distributed *samizdat* literature, including I. Dzyuba’s work *Internationalism or Russification?*, which he received from engineer Yuriy Khorunzhy. His frequent business trips facilitated the dissemination of *samizdat* throughout the USSR. He was fired from his job for political reasons but managed to find a position as acting senior researcher at the Kyiv branch of the All-Union Research Institute of Polygraphy.
On October 29, 1974, Kokhan was detained by the KGB in a hospital. During the night, they beat a confession out of him, threatening, as they told him in Russian: “We won't let you go. Nobody knows where you are. Have you read how many people disappear?”
He was accused of “disseminating in oral form knowingly false fabrications that defame the Soviet state and social system” (Article 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR) between 1970 and 1974. The charges related to his comments on the electoral system, agriculture, and national policy. For example, he spoke about forced Russification and the destruction of Ukrainian cultural monuments. Specifically, he was charged with spreading information about the fire at the Central Scientific Library on May 24, 1964, and at the Church of St. George of the Vydubychi Monastery in December 1967, as well as the burning of ancient books at the 5th thermal power plant in Darnytsia. In addition, Kokhan had embossed a *tryzub* (trident) emblem on foil and given it as a gift to acquaintances. He was also charged for his “Diary of a Senior Researcher.” All the accusations were based on the testimony of casual acquaintances. None of Kokhan's engineer friends testified about the *samizdat* literature.
The case was handled by investigator Serhiy Semenovych Kukharchuk. On February 25, 1975, the Kyiv Regional Court, presided over by A. F. Tkachova, sentenced him to 2 years of imprisonment in general-regime camps.
Kokhan served his sentence in colony No. 313 in Kharkiv Oblast. The camp was a “hungry” one: the daily food allowance cost 33 kopecks. The prisoners were emaciated and fainted from hunger. Kokhan worked as a welder and damaged his eyesight.
Upon his release, he had no job and no place to live. He earned a little money harvesting vegetables at a collective farm in the Kyiv region and bought some clothes. He managed to get into the US consulate, which was located in the “Moskva” hotel. He described his situation and gave them a copy of his verdict and cassation appeal. They promised to help him emigrate, but given his technical specialty, which was linked to “state secrets,” it was out of the question.
When Kokhan was on his way to the consulate for another meeting, he was detained by KGB agents on Khreshchatyk Street and taken to the Dniprovsky district executive committee, ostensibly to arrange a job for him. However, Kokhan managed to find work on his own, through an acquaintance, at the “Tysyachny” factory, doing unloading work. His knowledge was valued there, and his technical inventions for unloading wagons with bulk materials were implemented, but as a former political prisoner, he could not register a patent: it was registered under another name in Russia.
In 1982, Kokhan enrolled by correspondence in the Leningrad Institute of Chemical Technology to refresh his knowledge of engineering disciplines, earning a third diploma.
Kokhan re-established contact with his dissident acquaintances and once again began to read and distribute *samizdat* and the journal *Possev*. He also obtained émigré newspapers such as *Ukrainske Slovo* and *Shliakh Peremohy*.
In 1987, Kokhan retired. That same year, he began participating in the activities of the Ukrainian Culturological Club. He was a founding member of the All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners and Repressed Persons (1989). He took part in the election campaigns of 1989-90. He is a member of the Union of Officers of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, and subsequently, the Ukrainian Republican Party.
He is married and has two sons: Yevhen (b. 1963), a doctor, and Oles (b. 1965), a pilot.
Bibliography:
KHPG Archive: Autobiographical narrative by V. Kokhan, April 5, 2003.
Compiled by Vasyl Ovsiienko on February 13, 2007, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
KOKHAN VASYL IVANOVYCH