BANATSKY, KYRYLO PAVLOVYCH (b. 1929, village of Krychylsk, Sarny district, Rivne oblast – d. September 2001, city of Kivertsi, Volyn oblast).
Imprisoned for 25 years for his participation in the “Krychylsk Youth OUN” and for ties to the underground. Activist of the underground organization “Obyednannia” (Unity) in Inta, Komi ASSR. Brought 1,300 leaflets to Ukraine.
From a peasant family. His father served in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) under Symon Petliura. Kyrylo was a second-year student at the Kostopil College of Agricultural Mechanization. In 1951, he married Olena Kulish, from his village. In the first half of 1952, he was arrested by MGB organs for distributing anti-Soviet nationalist leaflets, for ties to the OUN underground, and for participation in the underground youth group “Krychylsk Youth OUN.” On August 26, 1952, the Military Tribunal of the MGB troops of the Rivne oblast sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment. Along with him, 7 other young men were convicted, including the brothers Stepan and Semen Soroka, and the brothers Ivan and Sydir Kharechko (all of whom were imprisoned in Inta).
He served his sentence in the camps of the Mineral Directorate (“Minlag”), in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR. He was an active and industrious person. He had close relations with Volodymyr Leoniuk, Anatoliy Bulavsky, Yosyf Slabina, and other political prisoners. In early 1956, they founded the underground nationalist organization “Obyednannia” (Unity), which aimed to continue the struggle of the OUN for the creation of a Ukrainian Independent and United State under new conditions (Leader Yaroslav Hasiuk). Banatsky was an active member of this organization.
In the summer of 1956, a commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR reduced Banatsky's sentence to 7 years. His wife, Olena, came to Inta (by then, prisoners were allowed to leave the camp zone) and awaited her husband’s release. She was privy to his underground activities. After his release in the autumn of 1957, they left for Ukraine and settled in the city of Bila Tserkva, Kyiv oblast.
At the request of the deputy leader of “Obyednannia,” V. Leoniuk, they brought over 1,300 leaflets from Inta, titled “To the Kolkhoznik!” and “Citizen!”.
The leaflet “To the Kolkhoznik!” (authored by V. Buchkovsky and V. Leoniuk) asserted that the CPSU’s demand to catch up with the USA in the production of meat, milk, and butter was not aimed at improving the well-being of the Ukrainian people: Ukraine was being used as a raw material base, from which the colonizers exported everything, leaving the people on the brink of starvation. “Enough of enduring the Kremlin’s yoke! Enough of being slaves! It is time to tell the Moscow-Bolshevik invaders: Get out of Ukraine!” On V. Leoniuk’s instruction, Banatsky took 700 of these leaflets to A. Bulavsky in Oleksandriia, Kirovohrad oblast. Bulavsky, in turn, gave 400 to Y. Slabina, 100 to Hryhoriy Riabchun, and the rest to Fedir Malyshevsky and A. H. Syskov. Banatsky gave 250 leaflets to his fellow villager and brother-in-law, Sava Shepel, and hid the rest in the attic of the house he shared with Stepan Soroka. On the nights of November 3–5, 1957, Yosyf Slabina, H. Riabchun, and Stepan Olenych distributed the leaflets in the settlement of Khrushchev (now the city of Svitlovodsk) and the village of Taboryshche—in the area of the Kremenchuk Hydroelectric Power Plant construction—and in the village of Adzhamka near Kirovohrad. Alarmed by the appearance of the leaflets, the KGB launched an investigation.
At the same time, with the blessing of the Central Committee of the CPU and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Ukrainian SSR, they instigated the cancellation of a series of resolutions by the Commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the early release of several dozen people from places of imprisonment. Evidently, they hoped to find those involved with the leaflets this way. Banatsky and S. Soroka were caught in this “purge”: in early 1958, they were captured in Bila Tserkva and sent back to serve out their 25-year sentences, especially since the leaflets were discovered in their home during a search. In connection with this case, Y. Slabina, A. Bulavsky, H. Riabchun, and S. Olenych were arrested. On April 29, 1960, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR (presided over by L. M. Chaikovskyi, with assessors H. Ya. Maryk and V. H. Tryshyn, secretary P. D. Kravets, and prosecutor I. Y. Yankovskyi) sentenced Banatsky under Article 7, Part 2 of the Law on Especially Dangerous State Crimes to 7 years of imprisonment.
The court combined this verdict with his previously unserved term (8 years), totaling 15 years, calculated from the day the verdict was announced, without restriction of rights. The court dismissed as unfounded the accusations that Banatsky had conducted anti-Soviet activities while serving his sentence, as well as those related to assisting the activities of “Obyednannia” and organizing the escape of S. Soroka from the camp. The transport of leaflets to Ukraine was, surprisingly, qualified as a friendly favor to V. Leoniuk. The collegium considered it unproven that Banatsky had engaged in organizational activities. He was accused only of conducting agitation and propaganda with the aim of subverting and weakening Soviet power through the distribution of anti-Soviet leaflets, which allegedly slandered Soviet reality. His confession and remorse were also taken into account. A. Bulavsky received 10 years (but, given his behavior during the investigation and trial, his sentence was soon reduced to 3 years); Y. Slabina received 7 years; and H. Riabchun and S. Olenych received 3 years of imprisonment each.
This was the first wave of convictions of the “Obyednannia” members. Banatsky initially served his sentence in the Taishet camps. On March 24, 1961, a session of the Irkutsk Oblast Court declared him an especially dangerous recidivist, and he was transferred by transport to Mordovia, where he was held in a special (cell-type) regime until the end of his term in 1974. Banatsky was released from prison as an invalid. He returned to the city of Kivertsi, Volyn oblast, where his wife Olena cared for him. The last years of his life were difficult (tuberculosis, epilepsy, blindness in one eye). Nevertheless, in independent Ukraine, he became actively involved in public and political life, becoming an active member of the Brotherhood of OUN-UPA Veterans. He was rehabilitated in 1992.
He died in September 2001 and was buried in the city of Kivertsi.
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.
International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
Vol. 1. Ukraine.
Part 1. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006. – pp. 1–516;
Part 2. – pp. 517–1020;
Part 3: Banatsky, K.: pp. 73-47:
https://museum.khpg.org/1235473775
Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv:
Smoloskyp, 2010. – 804 pp., 56 ill.; Banatsky, K.: pp. 66-67; 2nd ed., 2012. – 896 pp. + 64 ill.; Banatsky, K.: pp. 73-74.
Vasyl Ovsiienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. February 24, 2009. Banatskyj. Characters 6,538. Last reading May 15, 2016.
