OLENYCH, STEPAN ADAMOVYCH

OLENYCH, STEPAN ADAMOVYCH (b. 1930 in the village of Karpylivka, Rivne district, Rivne oblast – d. ?)
Imprisoned for 25 years for collaborating with the UPA. Distributed leaflets for the underground nationalist organization “Obyednannia” (Unity).
From a peasant family. Education: 5 grades. Arrested in the late 1940s for participation in the insurgent movement, he was sentenced by the Military Tribunal of the MGB troops of the Rivne oblast to 25 years of imprisonment. In 1956, he was released by a commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. His conviction was expunged.
He settled in the village of Adzhamka, Kirovohrad district, Kirovohrad oblast, and worked on a kolkhoz.
In October 1957, former political prisoner Kyrylo Banatsky brought 1,300 leaflets from the city of Inta (Komi ASSR), titled “Citizen!” and “To the Kolkhoznik!”, which had been printed there by the underground organization “Obyednannia” (Unity). On the instruction of the deputy leader of “Obyednannia,” Volodymyr Leoniuk, he delivered 700 of these leaflets to Anatoliy Bulavsky, a former Inta prisoner, in the city of Oleksandriia, Kirovohrad oblast. Bulavsky, in turn, gave 100 leaflets to his fellow countryman Hryhoriy Riabchun, who lived in Adzhamka. Riabchun showed these leaflets to Olenych. On the night of November 4-5, 1957, they distributed them throughout the streets of the village. The KGB was alarmed, as identical leaflets had been distributed in the Oleksandriia district of Kirovohrad oblast and in the Rivne oblast, and had been seized from former Inta prisoner Yosyf Slabina while he was traveling, and from K. Banatsky in Bila Tserkva (both were arrested in early 1958). Consequently, A. Bulavsky was arrested on February 21, 1959, and Olenych and H. Riabchun were arrested on March 2, 1959. All of them were taken to the KGB pre-trial detention center of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR.
Given the gravity of the case, it was tried by the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR (presided over by L. M. Chaikovskyi, with people's assessors H. Ya. Maryk and V. H. Tryshyn, secretary P. D. Kravets, and prosecutor I. Y. Yankovskyi). Taking into account that Olenych and H. Riabchun pleaded guilty, the collegium sentenced them on April 29, 1960, under Part 1, Article 7 of the Law on Criminal Liability for State Crimes to 3 years of imprisonment each, without restriction of rights. In the same case, A. Bulavsky was sentenced to 10 years, and K. Banatsky and Y. Slabina to 7 years.
Olenych served his sentence in the camps of Mordovia.
His subsequent fate is unknown.

Bibliography:
Leoniuk, Volodymyr. “Na priu staie Obyednannia” [Unity Joins the Fray]. Zona, no. 6, 1994, pp. 163–180.
Rusnachenko, Anatoliy. Natsionalno-vyzvolnyi rukh v Ukrayini. Seredyna 1950-kh – pochatok 1990-kh rokiv [The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine. Mid-1950s – Early 1990s]. – Kyiv: Vyd. im. Oleny Telihy, 1998, pp. 63–72; 370-389.
Khrystynych, Bohdan. Na shliakhakh do voli. Pidpilna orhanizatsiia “Obyednannia” (1956-1959) [On the Paths to Freedom. The Underground Organization “Unity” (1956-1959)]. – Lviv, 2004, 416 pp.

Vasyl Ovsiienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. February 24, 2009.