Repressed for his connections with the Ukrainian insurgent movement. A founding member and referent for propaganda of the underground organization “Obyednannya” (Unification) in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR.
He came from a family of middle-class peasants. He graduated from the Boryslav Pedagogical School and worked as a teacher.
In October 1949, he was arrested on charges of having ties to the insurgent movement. In 1950, along with fellow teachers Kostiantyn Aizenbart and Volodymyr Slyvyak, with whom he had studied at the pedagogical school, he was sentenced by a decree of the Special Council (OSO) of the USSR Council of Ministers to 10 years in correctional labor camps for anti-Soviet activities.
He served his sentence in camp No. 3 of the “Minlag” (Mineral Camp Administration) in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR, where he worked in a mine. Kobyletsky was always the life of the party and a pillar of support for his friends. He participated in collecting funds for the sick and in celebrating religious and national holidays and anniversaries. The young political prisoners, the so-called “student brotherhood,” demanded the right to receive and read Ukrainian books and press. Handwritten reports of an educational nature circulated among them. Kobyletsky wrote one of them, titled “1921–1939,” which outlined historical events in Ukraine.
In 1956, Kobyletsky was released early by a decree of the Commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He lived and worked in Inta. He married a fellow released prisoner, 25-year-termer Stefania Slipak, who selflessly assisted her husband in his clandestine work, serving as his protection and support.
Kobyletsky was friends with Volodymyr ZATVARSKY and associated with Bohdan KHRYSTYNYCH, Yaroslav HASIUK, Vasyl Vasylyk, Volodymyr LEONIUK, Yarema Zhukovsky, and Dmytro Zhovtiak—the initiators of an underground nationalist organization. The issue was first discussed at a meeting in February 1956, when it became possible to leave the camp zones. The first meeting of like-minded individuals, with Kobyletsky’s participation, took place in March 1956. This meeting resolved to develop a program and charter for the organization, which they named “OBYEDNANNYA” (UNIFICATION). Its constituent assembly was held in late May or early June 1956.
“Obyednannya” considered itself an integral part of the OUN (the younger members, V. ZATVARSKY and Kobyletsky, insisted on this) and aimed to carry out its mission in the new conditions. Yaroslav HASIUK was elected Leader of “Obyednannya.” They took an oath, and the Leader appointed a six-person Steering Committee. Kobyletsky was appointed Deputy Leader and Referent for the Security Service. He took an active part in all subsequent committee meetings (of which there were at least 10).
On the Leader’s assignment, Kobyletsky traveled to Drohobych to establish contact with the OUN underground and to acquire type for a printing press. He succeeded in neither. Together with D. Zhovtiak, he transcribed and typed up reports written by V. ZATVARSKY.
During visits to his native village of Yasenytsia Silna, he organized a local cell of “Obyednannya,” providing fellow villager Myron Havrylyk with typed and handwritten literature, including reports on historical topics and old OUN ideological and training materials.
Upon the arrival of Vasyl BUCHKOVSKY in Inta, he helped him set up a printing press.
In late 1958 or early 1959, when the threat of searches arose, Kobyletsky and V. ZATVARSKY handed over all organizational materials in their possession, including the typewriter, to D. Zhovtiak for safekeeping. Zhovtiak hid them in secret compartments he built in the vulcanization workshop of mine No. 9. Before his departure for Ukraine in the summer of 1959, he informed Kobyletsky and V. ZATVARSKY of the location.
Kobyletsky was the last to be arrested in the “Obyednannya” case, on July 1, 1960, when his testimony no longer mattered. “He was arrested, in fact, for refusing to publicly condemn his anti-Soviet activities,” writes B. KHRYSTYNYCH. “I remember one of the investigators (I believe it was Lieutenant Colonel Ionov) mockingly pontificating about his refusal to publicly condemn his nationalist activities. He was genuinely surprised that a man would choose years of imprisonment over saying a few negative words about his past. In the Chekist logic, this was simply incomprehensible.”
Like all members of “Obyednannya,” Kobyletsky refused the services of the lawyers imposed on them by the investigators when signing the document concluding the investigation. However, the wives of Kobyletsky and Yaroslav HASIUK hired Moscow lawyers P. Y. Bogachov and Ya. M. Kulberg. The defenders argued that the activities of the “Obyednannya” members did not constitute the actions stipulated in Article 1 of the Law on Particularly Dangerous State Crimes (the intent to overthrow Soviet power), but the court disregarded their evidence. On October 10, 1960, the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR sentenced Kobyletsky under Articles 1 and 9 of the Law on Criminal Liability for State Crimes, with the application of Article 37 of the Fundamentals of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and Union Republics, to 5 years of imprisonment in a correctional labor colony, with confiscation of his property, but without restriction of rights. In the same case, Ya. HASIUK and V. LEONIUK received 12 years each, B. KHRYSTYNYCH received 10, and V. ZATVARSKY received 8 years in a strict-regime camp.
He served his sentence in the Mordovian concentration camps. Levko LUKIANENKO described Kobyletsky as a calm, balanced man, confident in the righteousness of his cause.
In 1960, after her husband’s arrest, Kobyletsky’s wife moved to her native village of Mshana in the Horodok district of Lviv oblast, where Kobyletsky joined her after serving his sentence (July 1, 1965).
With the advent of “perestroika” and Ukrainian independence, Kobyletsky became the soul of the village’s civic and political life. The villagers elected him village head twice. He died tragically in 1997 when he was fatally struck by a car under mysterious circumstances. His wife passed away in 1993.
They are buried in the village of Mshana.
Bibliography:
Leoniuk, Volodymyr. “Na priu staie Obyednannya” [Obyednannya Rises to the Challenge]. *Zona*, no. 6, 1994, pp. 163–180.
Rusnachenko, Anatoliy. *Natsionalno-vyzvolnyi rukh v Ukraini. Seredyna 1950-kh – pochatok 1990-kh rokiv* [The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine. Mid-1950s – Early 1990s]. O. Teliha Publishing, 1998, pp. 63–72, 370–389.
*58-10. Nadzornye proizvodstva Prokuratury SSSR po delam ob antisovetskoi agitatsii i propagande. Mart 1953–1991. Annotirovannyi katalog* [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, Mezhdunarodnyi Fond “Demokratiia,” 1999, 944 pp. (Rossiia. XX vek. Dokumenty), p. 550.
Khrystynych, Bohdan. *Na shliakhakh do voli. Pidpilna orhanizatsiia “Obyednannya” (1956-1959)* [On the Paths to Freedom. The Underground Organization “Obyednannya” (1956-1959)]. Lviv, 2004, 416 pp.
Lukianenko, Levko. “Halytske ‘Obyednannya’” [The Galician “Obyednannya”]. *Z chasiv nevoli. Sosnova-7* [From the Times of Captivity. Sosnova-7]. MAUP, 2005, p. 421.
Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. February 18, 2009.
KOBYLETSKYJ JAROSLAV VOLODYMYROVYCH