Repressed for creating an underground student organization. Designer and printer for the underground organization “Obyednannya” (Unification) in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR.
The son of a peasant. In April 1952, as a fourth-year student at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute, he was arrested for creating an underground student organization and distributing nationalist leaflets. During the investigation, he threw himself from the fourth floor of the Lviv Oblast KGB Directorate with the intention of committing suicide. The attempt was unsuccessful: he broke both his feet and the lower part of his spine, becoming disabled for life. During the investigation, he wrote a note intending to pass it to the outside world through a fellow prisoner assigned to care for him in his cell. The note fell into the hands of the investigator, which complicated his situation.
Despite his disability, he was sentenced by the Military Tribunal of the MGB troops of Lviv oblast to 25 years of imprisonment.
He served his sentence in Siberia, in the Taishet camps.
In the summer of 1956, he was released from custody by a commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He came to Ternopil and found a job, but a few months later, the oblast KGB directorate forced him to leave Ukraine.
Shortly before his departure, Buchkovsky met Bohdan KHRYSTYNYCH, who informed him about the program and activities of the underground organization “OBYEDNANNYA” (UNIFICATION) and strongly suggested he go to Inta, Komi ASSR, to join its work there.
This organization was formed in 1956 among young political prisoners who had just been released into exile or freedom. Some had visited Ukraine but had to return to Komi because they were denied residence permits and employment at home. The activities of “Obyednannya” were based on the principles of the OUN: to overthrow the occupying Bolshevik government and create an independent, unified Ukrainian state. “Obyednannya” considered the CPSU its irreconcilable enemy and decided to actively fight against it through propaganda and exposure. The typewriter, which B. KHRYSTYNYCH had purchased in Lviv and sent to Inta, was insufficient for mass-producing leaflets. An underground printing press was needed.
Having some experience in printing from his previous underground activities, Buchkovsky accepted the offer. He arrived in Inta with Paraska Tkatchyk, a 25-year-termer released in 1956. They married there in 1958. His wife became his closest assistant and protector.
While still in Ternopil, Buchkovsky recruited the brothers Bohdan and Volodymyr Salamakha into “Obyednannya.” They were participants in the youth military formation of the “Galicia” Division, who, after training in France and Germany, became anti-aircraft gunners. Upon returning to Galicia, they were imprisoned. Buchkovsky served time with them in Taishet.
The main driving force and practical assistant to Buchkovsky in the printing endeavor was the Deputy Leader of “Obyednannya,” Volodymyr LEONIUK, who later wrote: “Our concept of the struggle for independence primarily envisioned educational work, the dissemination of desperately needed information, the lack of which was simply suffocating society. Therefore, from our very first underground steps, we took measures to acquire duplicating equipment, and eventually, a printing press. In this regard, we soon had a stroke of luck: a person we sorely needed joined Obyednannya—Vasyl Buchkovsky.”
Attempts by Deputy Leader Yaroslav KOBYLETSKY during a visit to Lviv in 1956 to find out if it was possible to obtain type from printing houses in Lviv or Drohobych were unsuccessful: the type was too closely guarded. Therefore, for conspiratorial reasons, they had to abandon the search for ready-made type. It was decided to set up printing by their own efforts. Buchkovsky determined what was needed. On the instruction of the Leader of “Obyednannya,” Yaroslav HASIUK, a relative of his wife, Lviv student Olha Ostrovska, purchased photographic film, photographic paper, ink, acid, and other chemicals necessary for printing with 200 karbovantsi sent to her from Inta. Ya. HASIUK also instructed the organization’s treasurer, Petro Klymiuk, to buy tin for casting stereotypes and type; he tasked Mykhailo Hul with making a frame for setting the type, and Petro Boyechko with obtaining babbitt blanks from the Inta motor pool for casting type. Buchkovsky was the designer, supervisor, and main executor of the work. His entire printing press fit into a suitcase, which allowed it to be moved from place to place.
For the first set of type, Buchkovsky used the letters from a typewriter. An attempt by Dmytro Zhovtiak to cast letters and stereotypes in the vulcanization workshop of mine No. 9, where he worked, was unsuccessful. Using a matrix method, Buchkovsky himself, under primitive conditions, cast about two kilograms of type, and later more. Buchkovsky hand-carved the capital letters on babbitt blanks. His wife Paraska, V. LEONIUK, and Yarema Zhukovsky assisted him. By mid-1957, the printing press was operational. Several small appeals were printed with this type.
In the autumn of 1957, V. LEONIUK had already sent about 1,300 copies of the leaflets “To the Collective Farmer!” and “To the Citizen!” to Ukraine with Kyrylo BANATSKY. They were distributed in the Kirovohrad oblast and, of course, fell into the hands of the KGB. A panic ensued there. A group of the most experienced investigators in anti-Ukrainian affairs was formed, supervised by the Chairman of the KGB of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, V. Nikitchenko, himself.
Meanwhile, Buchkovsky mastered zincography and produced a standard academic-style font. This academic font was used to print, among other things, the “Decalogue” and the leaflet “The Carpathians Accuse.” Despite his disability and the need to earn a living, the chief designer and printer worked with inspiration, demonstrating the skill, ingenuity, and mastery of a highly qualified engineer and a selfless patriot.
Later, even the KGB acknowledged that the printing was done at a high technical level. V. LEONIUK ironically notes: “The experts claimed, in particular, that neither during the German occupation, nor after it, nor indeed since the time of Schweipolt Fiol and Ivan Fedorovych, had printing presses with similar fonts been recorded on either side of the Dnieper.”
It is known that in the autumn of 1958, Buchkovsky traveled to Lviv on “Obyednannya” business, met with B. KHRYSTYNYCH, recruited his former fellow prisoner Yuriy Melnyk into the organization, and arranged with his sister, Daria Melnyk, that she, living in Lviv, would pass on to B. KHRYSTYNYCH everything brought for him from Inta. Thus, a contact point was established at her residence.
For almost a year, until mid-1958, the printing press operated in Buchkovsky’s home. A large number of leaflets were printed here.
Meanwhile, several members of “Obyednannya” who were distributing leaflets in the Kirovohrad region were arrested (Anatoliy BULAVSKY, Yosyp SLABINA, Kyrylo BANATSKY, Hryhoriy RIABCHUN, Stepan OLENYCH). Searches began in Inta. The printing press was under threat. Ya. HASIUK ordered that the press and all its equipment be handed over to Mykhailo Hul and Stepan Dzhus. In September 1959, Petro Klymiuk, before leaving on vacation, moved it to Yaroslav Kopach’s shed.
In the spring of 1959, the question of moving the printing press from Inta to Lviv arose. Engineer Roman Ivasyk agreed to prepare a room for the underground press: he was building his own house at the time and had the opportunity to create a hiding place—a cellar with a secret entrance. In May, P. Klymiuk brought to Lviv a package containing a coded letter for B. KHRYSTYNYCH, the “Decalogue,” and 5,000 karbovantsi for setting up the printing press, but the addressee never received it, as he was arrested on October 26, 1959. Due to the arrest of all the leading members of “Obyednannya,” this bold plan was not realized.
Thus, in the summer of 1959, the activities of “Obyednannya” effectively ceased. The printing press still produced some material, but none of the surviving members dared to distribute what was printed. In total, according to B. KHRYSTYNYCH’s calculations, up to 5,000 leaflets were printed. They were printed by Buchkovsky himself, M. Hul, S. Dzhus, P. Klymiuk, and often by the leaders of “Obyednannya,” V. LEONIUK and Ya. HASIUK, themselves.
On February 8, 1960, the KGB searched Yaroslav Kopach’s property and found printing equipment and auxiliary materials, including 6.43 kg of type, a matrix with the layout of the leaflet “To the Collective Farmer!,” several hundred various finished leaflets, and typewritten and handwritten texts. All of this was attached as material evidence to the case of Ya. HASIUK (arrested January 12, 1960), V. LEONIUK (July 29, 1959), B. KHRYSTYNYCH (October 26, 1959), Volodymyr ZATVARSKY (September 9, 1959), and Ya. KOBYLETSKY (July 1, 1960), which was heard in the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR from October 3 to 10, 1960.
During the investigation, V. LEONIUK initially claimed that he had made the printing press himself without anyone’s help, thus trying to protect Buchkovsky. Having uncovered the underground printing press, the KGB, in the era of the “Khrushchev Thaw,” was content with imprisoning only the ten most active members of “Obyednannya” (the trial of the first five took place in Kyiv on April 29, 1960). They did not want to officially admit that they had allowed such a large organization, complete with a printing press, to exist for three years. About a dozen others, including the disabled Buchkovsky, served as witnesses, and about a hundred were not identified at all.
In addition to being the chief designer and printer, Buchkovsky was one of the most prolific authors of printed materials. For example, together with V. LEONIUK, he wrote the very useful “Instructions on the Rules of Conspiracy in the Distribution of Revolutionary Literature” and the leaflets “To the Ukrainian Youth!” and “To the Collective Farmer!” He also wrote the leaflets “40 Years of the October Revolution” and “Do you see the trains leaving Ukraine with grain, iron, and coal?” (1958). The collection *Vidhomіn* (Echo) (1958) included his pamphlet “The Road to Communism or to Golgotha?” and he wrote the “Afterword” to the collection with V. LEONIUK.
Buchkovsky kept his archive at his home in Inta. In 1962, his wife Paraskevia transported this archive to Ukraine and gave it for safekeeping to Ivan Dovhoruk, the husband of Buchkovsky’s sister, who lived in the village of Ivaniv, Kalynivka district, Vinnytsia oblast. He walled it up in the wall of a toilet. In 1991, P. Buchkovska retrieved this archive and passed it through Yuriy Melnyk to B. KHRYSTYNYCH, who used it to write his fundamental work *Na shliakhakh do volі* (On the Paths to Freedom). There, it is referred to as the “Archive of V. Buchkovsky.”
This archive contains leaflets such as “To the Citizen!,” “Do you see... ,” “To the Collective Farmer!,” “To the Ukrainian Youth!,” and “What is Soviet power?”; the collection “Decalogue”; three notebooks with Buchkovsky’s own handwritten copy of B. KHRYSTYNYCH’s “Synopsis of the History of the Ukrainian National Revolution” (250 pages, which is 76 typewritten pages); a manuscript of his own work on the underground on 13 pages of a student notebook; a handwritten article of 6 pages titled “1. Ukraine Today. 2. What Do We Demand? 3. What is the Only Possible Way Out?,” which asserts that Ukraine is a colony and the government of the Ukrainian SSR is not even a puppet, but an agency of the Kremlin; a manuscript of his own work on conspiracy on 24 pages; a manuscript of the “Student Leaflet”; a notebook with various excerpts on 36 pages; a cliché of the alphabet for printing type; 5 glass and film negatives; and positives on photographic paper. This archive attests to the great activity of this talented underground printer and publicist. “Let us not forget,” notes B. Khrystynych, “that the volume of work performed under conditions of conspiracy and underground activity requires several times more time, energy, and nervous tension than under normal conditions.” Even more so for a disabled person.
After retiring, Paraskevia Buchkovska and her two children moved from Inta to the village of Borova, Fastiv district, Kyiv oblast, in the 1980s. Buchkovsky soon joined her there. With the advent of independence, despite his disability, he was an activist in public and political life as a member of the Brotherhood of OUN-UPA. He died on July 27, 2001. His wife lives in the village of Borova.
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.
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.
Author: Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. February 9, 2009.
BUCHKOVSKYJ VASYL
BUCHKOVSKYJ VASYL