Repressed for his Ukrainian identity. A founding member of the underground organization “Obyednannya” (Unification) in the city of Inta, author of the *Slovnyk Beresteyshchyny* (Dictionary of the Berestia Region).
From a peasant family in the Berestia region—a Ukrainian ethnographic territory where the UPA armed underground held out until the 1950s. Leoniuk wrote about his youth:
“With our own eyes, each of us, the young and the youngest, saw how the Ukrainian insurgents fought to the last bullet and how they died. We, students of the secondary school in Yaniv in the Berestia region, were regularly taken, the whole school, to the pompous funerals of MVS and KGB functionaries who died in battles with the Ukrainian insurgents. Of our own free will, the students went to look at the mutilated bodies of the insurgents, displayed to frighten and sadden the civilian population in the open courtyard of the district KGB. These spectacles in young souls gave rise not so much to panic as to a desire to somehow continue the cause of the fallen patriots.”
In 1946, Volodymyr’s father refused to become an agent of the MVS. The family was declared kulaks and subjected to ruinous taxes.
For promoting Ukrainian identity, the idea of the unity of the Berestia region with Ukraine, and for sympathies with the insurgent movement, the tenth-grader Volodymyr was arrested right at his school desk and sentenced in 1952 by the Military Tribunal of the MVS troops of Pinsk oblast under Articles 70 and 72 “b” of the Criminal Code of the BSSR on charges of “treason” and “anti-Soviet agitation” to 25 years of imprisonment. The “proof” of the crime was school notes, mostly in Ukrainian, as well as his independent character and physical resistance to the investigator. The family was exiled to the Hunger Steppe in Kazakhstan.
Leoniuk served his sentence in the concentration camps of the “Mineral Administration” in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR. He worked in the coal mines. He was always at the center of Ukrainian rebellion. At that time, in the largest camps of Minlag—the first, third, and sixth—a group of Ukrainians formed, former underground members, servicemen, students, and schoolchildren, which, due to their young age, was half-jokingly called the “student brotherhood.” Despite the defeat of the insurgent movement, the discouraging news from home, the brutal regime, cold, and hunger in the zones, the young men never for a moment doubted the righteousness of the idea of independence. They began a struggle with the administration for the right to receive and read Ukrainian books and press—until then, the Ukrainian printed word in the camps was unconditionally confiscated. The hard-won book deliveries contributed to the spiritual uplift of many prisoners affected by long-standing depression. Some of the “students,” in their free time, taught various school subjects to their knowledge-thirsty compatriots.
When the camps began to issue even a meager wage, the “students” collected contributions for a fund to help sick prisoners. Soon, all financial transactions in the concentration camps were switched to non-cash settlement, but mutual aid was carried out in the form of collecting food and clothing. Leoniuk also participated in self-defense—the fight against robbery by criminal elements, the “vory” and “suki,” and in restoring, in defiance of the GULAG administration, the force of human morality.
In the summer of 1955, in the second section where Leoniuk was held, a guard from a watchtower wounded two prisoners, Huzarevych and Levdansky, with a burst of machine-gun fire. At the initiative of the “students,” the second camp went on strike in protest. The “Minlag” administration, while bringing in additional military guards to the zone, simultaneously agreed to meet the main demands of the strikers, and later moved half the camp to a free settlement.
In 1956, Leoniuk participated in preparing the escape from the camp of one of the leaders of the nationalist underground. That same year, by a decree of the Commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Leoniuk was released early from his sentence with the removal of his criminal record. However, he was forbidden to leave Inta. In 1957, Leoniuk married Iryna Kulyk, a native of the village of Mistky, Pustomyty district, Lviv oblast, who had come to visit her brother Bohdan (Iryna, with her parents and sisters, had been exiled to the Kemerovo oblast in 1947).
In his interactions with Bohdan KHRYSTYNYCH, the idea of creating an underground organization that would continue the work of the OUN arose. The prisoners realized that in the conditions of the KGB’s victorious bacchanalia on the one hand, and social depression on the other, the struggle for the idea of independence had to be carried out by other methods. They realized the need for organization, for uniting efforts on a national scale. Simultaneously, the same idea was fermenting in another circle: Volodymyr ZATVARSKY, Yaroslav HASIUK, Yaroslav KOBYLETSKY. It finally matured in February 1956 in conversations between Leoniuk, B. KHRYSTYNYCH, and V. ZATVARSKY, when prisoners could already leave the zone. Leoniuk was the most active figure and the de facto leader of the organization, as the court later stated.
The first meeting of the initiators took place in March 1956 at the residence of a Lithuanian on Poliarna Street. Leoniuk, Ya. HASIUK, V. ZATVARSKY, B. KHRYSTYNYCH, Volodymyr Slyvyak, and Ya. KOBYLETSKY took part in the meeting. Nothing was recorded; everything was based on deep trust and conspiracy, as is customary in underground work.
The young underground members, including Leoniuk, insisted on the immediate resumption of the OUN’s struggle. The older ones warned: an organization cannot be created arbitrarily without the permission of the OUN Leadership in Ukraine.
In June 1956, B. KHRYSTYNYCH and V. ZATVARSKY drafted the program and charter of the organization. They proceeded from the assumption that part of the organization’s members would disperse throughout Ukraine after their release, while another part would be forced to remain in the northern Urals. This Inta part, as an organizational diaspora, was to serve as a base and a deep rear, from which the theoretically foreseen actions were planned to be carried out. This was to be primarily educational work, the dissemination of desperately needed truthful information with the aim of saving, first and foremost, the youth from the poisonous communist colonial propaganda.
The constituent assembly took place in late May or early June (in the verdict—in July) 1956, where Leoniuk, Ya. HASIUK, B. KHRYSTYNYCH, V. ZATVARSKY, Ya. KOBYLETSKY, Yarema Zhukovsky, Petro Klymiuk, and Volodymyr Slyvyak—8 people—were present. They took an oath, approved the program and charter of the organization under the name “OBYEDNANNYA” (UNIFICATION). At the suggestion of Zhukovsky (in the verdict—Leoniuk), Ya. HASIUK was unanimously elected its Leader. Leoniuk was appointed Deputy Leader and became a member of the Steering Committee.
“Obyednannya” considered itself an integral part of the OUN and set itself the task of continuing the struggle for the creation of an Independent, Unified Ukrainian State, relying on former participants of the underground revolutionary struggle and new dedicated members. “Obyednannya” considered the CPSU its irreconcilable enemy and decided to wage an active struggle against it, as a rule, through propaganda and exposure. Terror was permissible only in exceptional cases. The second goal was to merge the revolutionary element into a single whole, both in Ukraine and abroad; to promote the mass return of released prisoners and exiles to Ukraine; to raise the national consciousness of the youth, to infiltrate all social structures (workers’, trade union, sports), and to educate the members of the organization in the spirit of discipline, accountability, and deep conspiracy, in the spirit of “constant readiness for the decisive moment.”
The next meeting of the Steering Committee took place in July 1956 in P. Klymiuk’s apartment. In total, there were no fewer than 10 meetings. Later, when the threat arose, tactical decisions were made in a smaller circle. The organization had about a hundred members.
As early as 1956, Leoniuk developed a cipher for use in correspondence on organizational matters and, together with HASIUK, sent KHRYSTYNYCH, who had left for the Lviv region in 1956, a coded letter, according to which KHRYSTYNYCH purchased a “Underwood Standard” typewriter and several packs of paper and, in February 1957, sent them with ZATVARSKY to the city of Inta.
At a meeting of the Steering Committee in the first half of 1957, with Leoniuk’s participation, the most important issue was decided—the printing of leaflets. A typewriter was not enough, so a printing press had to be created. It was not possible to obtain ready-made type.
This matter was resolved with the arrival in Inta, at Leoniuk’s insistence, of Vasyl BUCHKOVSKY, who had experience in printing from his time in the OUN underground. Leoniuk took on the task of organizing the printing, as B. KHRYSTYNYCH testifies: “Throughout the entire period of ‘Obyednannya’s’ activity, he was the engine of our organization. The publication of typewritten collections, the equipping of the printing press, and the production and distribution of leaflets—all this was largely the result of his efforts.” The talented printer and inventor V. BUCHKOVSKY made the type and other printing equipment himself.
The printing press began to produce leaflets in mass circulation, although it had to be moved several times to different locations (it fit in a suitcase). Leoniuk himself printed some. A meeting of the Steering Committee with Leoniuk’s participation in late 1957 or early 1958 resolved to collect 10% of earnings from the members for the printing press. Leoniuk demonstrated the leaflets “To the Collective Farmer!” and “To the Citizen!,” about 1,300 copies of which he had already given to Kyrylo BANATSKY for distribution in the Kirovohrad, Poltava, and Rivne oblasts.
Due to the fact that the leaflets had already fallen into the hands of the KGB in Ukraine and there was a threat of establishing their place of manufacture, the question of moving the printing press to Ukraine arose. In the summer of 1958, Leoniuk traveled on “Obyednannya” business to Lviv, had meetings with B. KHRYSTYNYCH in the town of Turka and in Lviv, informed him about the organization’s activities, particularly the work of the printing press, and expressed the idea of moving this printing press to Lviv, as well as creating a contact point there—a conspiratorial apartment at the residence of Daria Melnyk.
Leoniuk, with the consent of Ya. HASIUK, sent B. KHRYSTYNYCH, through Daria Melnyk, 5,000 karbovantsi for organizing an underground printing press and samples of documents. His claim at trial that he had sent the money as personal financial assistance to B. KHRYSTYNYCH was not taken into account by the court.
It has been established that Leoniuk, in co-authorship with V. BUCHKOVSKY, wrote in 1957 the “Instructions on the Rules of Conspiracy in the Distribution of Revolutionary Literature,” the leaflets “To the Ukrainian Youth!,” “To the Collective Farmer!,” and “What is Soviet power?” He is the author of the leaflet “The Carpathians Accuse,” and edited V. BUCHKOVSKY’s leaflets “40 Years of the October Revolution,” “Do you see…,” and “To the Citizen!” He also compiled a sample “Report” on the work of the cells, which, however, for conspiratorial reasons, was not distributed.
Leoniuk was the main compiler and author of the collection *Vidhomіn* (Echo) (1958), for which he wrote the preface and the sharp article “The KGB and the Chameleons,” directed against the former political prisoner, poet Yuriy Shkrumeliak, and the wife of the well-known lawyer and political prisoner, Hanna Horbova. (They, Shkrumeliak and Horbova, broke under KGB pressure and wrote a vile article for the Moscow-inspired newspaper *Za povernennia na Batkivshchynu* (For a Return to the Motherland) in Berlin, calling on émigrés to return to Ukraine—in fact, to prison). The same collection published what is perhaps Leoniuk’s first scholarly study—“From Captivity. From the History of the Khanovey Uprising.” (It broke out in 1948 on the Khanovey camp route near Vorkuta. There, prisoners, driven to despair by inhuman abuse, went bare-handed against the guards, captured the camp, and were then shot one by one.) This same collection contains “Our Encyclopedia,” compiled by Leoniuk and V. BUCHKOVSKY—an interpretation of some terms and topical political anecdotes.
A notebook of Leoniuk’s has been preserved, where on 42 sheets there are 84 poems by prisoner-poets, among the authors are I. Savych, Mykola Vasylenko, Hryhoriy KOCHUR, B. Stefaniuk, Volodymyr Sirko, V. Haleta, and unidentified authors. (All these materials are published in B. KHRYSTYNYCH’s book *On the Paths to Freedom*).
Nowhere in Ukraine was a printing press with such a font recorded. But the content of the leaflets revealed that their authors were from the western regions. Therefore, the KGB closely monitored former insurgents released from captivity and settled on the left bank of the Zbruch.
When, in early November 1957, leaflets of “Obyednannya” appeared in the Kirovohrad oblast, the KGB instigated the cancellation of the decrees of the commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the release from places of imprisonment of dozens of “unreliable” persons, and some well-known OUN figures (Volodymyr Horbovyi, Mykhailo SOROKA, Kateryna Zarytska, M. Stepaniak) were brought to the Kyiv KGB pre-trial detention center just in case.
The radius of surveillance and searches narrowed to the “Inta people,” and then to Inta itself. Total searches and interrogations were conducted there. The KGB men joked that Inta and Vorkuta had been temporarily transferred to Kyiv’s jurisdiction. Although the most experienced cadres of the Kyiv and even Moscow KGB were thrown into uncovering the “Obyednannya” case, the investigative bodies were unable to fully uncover this case over three years.
Based on the denunciation of P. P. Bulavsky, Yosyf SLABINA was detained with leaflets on a train at the Zhmerynka station in January 1958. Although SLABINA did not betray anyone, by early 1959 the KGB had enough material to arrest persons involved in the distribution of leaflets. On April 29, 1960, the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR convicted Y. SLABINA, Anatoliy BULAVSKY, Kyrylo BANATSKY, Hryhoriy RIABCHUN, and Stepan OLENYCH. This was only the first echelon of those convicted in the “Obyednannya” case. The main echelon was Leoniuk (arrested July 29, 1959), V. ZATVARSKY (September 9, 1959), B. KHRYSTYNYCH (October 26, 1959), Ya. HASIUK (January 12, 1960), and Ya. KOBYLETSKY (July 1, 1960).
The basis for Leoniuk’s arrest was the testimony of A. BULAVSKY and K. BANATSKY. The former testified that he “entered into a criminal connection” with Leoniuk and B. KHRYSTYNYCH back in 1954–1956; the latter—that upon returning in October 1957, on Leoniuk’s instruction, he brought to Ukraine about 1,300 leaflets printed in an underground typography in Inta.
Despite psychological and other forms of pressure, Leoniuk for six months denied not only his involvement in “Obyednannya,” but even his acquaintance with his comrades. He began to give testimony only when there were no longer any grounds to deny his affiliation with “Obyednannya.” He tried to take responsibility upon himself, shielding others.
The KGB attached particular importance to the “Obyednannya” case. In the summer of 1959, the main core of “Obyednannya” was already gathered at 33 Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv. The case was handled under the patronage of the Chairman of the KGB of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, V. Nikitchenko, himself. It was conducted by experienced KGB men in anti-Ukrainian affairs: Major Kaliko, Lieutenant Colonel Guzeev, Shevtsov, Ionov, Colonels Pivovarets and Zashchitin. They were tried by the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Yankovsky demanded 15 years of imprisonment for Ya. HASIUK, Leoniuk, and B. KHRYSTYNYCH, 12 for V. Zatvarsky, and 7 for Ya. Kobyletsky. But according to the court verdict, HASIUK and Leoniuk received 12 years each, KHRYSTYNYCH—10, Zatvarsky—8, and Kobyletsky—5. This discrepancy was just a planned spectacle. All were convicted on charges of crimes provided for in Articles 1 and 9 of the then-current USSR Law of December 25, 1958, “On Criminal Liability for State Crimes”—“treason,” the intention to separate Ukraine from the USSR, and the completely fabricated intention to “restore capitalist, bourgeois orders.”
The court accused them of the fact that “having been convicted at various times for committing counter-revolutionary crimes and serving their sentences in the Inta camp, they continued to remain in the positions of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism, conducting anti-Soviet activities, which they did not stop even after their release from places of imprisonment,” that they “distributed among the prisoners various articles and reports of an anti-Soviet nature, in which they slandered the Soviet social system, Soviet national policy, and Soviet reality, and praised the ideas of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists.”
The judge of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, O. N. Zbarazhchenko, appeared in an embroidered shirt and tried to speak Ukrainian. The prosecutor, I. Y. Yankovsky, without an embroidered shirt, accused them on behalf of the Ukrainian SSR.
The defendants admitted the incriminated actions but denied that they were criminal. They tried to prove that the program and charter of their organization, seized on December 21, 1959, in the vulcanization shop of mine No. 9 in the city of Inta, did not belong to them (they were indeed preliminary versions, later substantially corrected), but this was of no avail.
On October 10, 1960, the court stated that the actual organizer of “Obyednannya” was Leoniuk, that it was he who, “having found in the persons of Hasiuk, Khrystynych, Zatvarsky, and Kobyletsky his like-minded associates, after the formation of ‘Obyednannya’ and the election of Hasiuk as leader, who was appointed to this position at his own suggestion, launched active work, first and foremost, on compiling various anti-Soviet documents and distributing them among the prisoners in the Inta camp and in Ukraine.”
About a dozen and a half members of “Obyednannya” appeared as witnesses: the KGB, during the Khrushchev “Thaw,” was not interested in blowing this case out of proportion.
Leoniuk served his sentence in the camps of Mordovia, particularly in the seventh zone, in Sosnovka, Zubova Polyana district. He actively communicated with the new generation of political prisoners—the Sixtiers—but his main occupation in his non-working hours was collecting and studying literature about his native Berestia region. His friends called him the “camp academic.” Levko LUKIANENKO and Yarema TKACHUK mention their conversations with Leoniuk. He was released in July 1971 with a large amount of literature and notes.
Leoniuk came to his wife Iryna in the village of Ternopillia, Mykolaiv district, Lviv oblast, where he lives to this day. His wife’s brother, Bohdan Kulyk, lives there (both were involved in the activities of “Obyednannya”).
He published a number of articles and interviews about the activities of “Obyednannya.” But his most significant creative achievement is the fundamental work *Slovnyk Beresteyshchyny* (Dictionary of the Berestia Region) (published in 1996), which collects materials on the history of the Berestia region, viewed in the context of general Ukrainian history. This work is the result of the ascetic labor of a scholar and patriot throughout his life. Leoniuk sent several dozen copies of the “Dictionary” to libraries in the Berestia region, but the authorities of Belarus banned it on their territory as “nationalist.” He has prepared the second volume of the “Dictionary of the Berestia Region” for publication. He constantly maintains contact with the Ukrainians of the Berestia region—his fellow countrymen.
He was rehabilitated in 1992.
Bibliography:
1.
“Na priu staie Obyednannya” [Obyednannya Rises to the Challenge]. *Zona*, no. 6, 1994, pp. 163–180.
*Slovnyk Beresteyshchyny* [Dictionary of the Berestia Region] [Text] / V. Leoniuk. Lviv: Afisha, 1996, 360 pp.
“Syn Polissia z ‘rozstrilianoho vidrodzhennia’: Do 100-richchia vid dnia narodzhennia Dmytra Falkivskoho” [A Son of Polissia from the ‘Executed Renaissance’: For the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Dmytro Falkivsky]. *Dzvin*, no. 1, 1999, pp. 133-140.
“Z nevoli. Z istorii khanoveiskoho povstannia” [From Captivity. From the History of the Khanovey Uprising]. In B. Khrystynych, *Na shliakhakh do voli. Pidpilna orhanizatsiia “Obyednannya” (1956-1959)* [On the Paths to Freedom. The Underground Organization “Obyednannya” (1956-1959)]. Lviv, 2004, pp. 228-232.
“Poliska rozmezhuvalna liniia” [The Polissian Demarcation Line]. *Haidamaka*. Independent informational and educational resource: http://www.haidamaka.org.ua
2.
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*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.
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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.
Syniuk, Mykola. “Volynskyi slid u kholodyshchakh Pivnochi” [The Volyn Trace in the Cold Storage of the North]. *Volyn*. Electronic edition, no. 894, Jan. 29, 2009. http://www.volyn.com.ua
Lashchenko, Serhiy. “Bilovezkyi zubr mih by ukrainskym symvolom” [The Belovezhsky Bison Could Be a Ukrainian Symbol]. *Krymska svitlytsia*, no. 3, 2008. Jan. 18: http://svitlytsia.crimea.ua
Tkachuk, Yarema. *Burevii. Knyha pamiati* [Storms. A Book of Memory]. SPOLOM Publishing, 2004, p. 112.
Lukianenko, Levko. “Halytske ‘Obyednannya’” [The Galician “Obyednannya”]. *Z chasiv nevoli. Sosnova-7* [From the Times of Captivity. Sosnova-7]. MAUP, 2005, pp. 421-436.
Lukianenko, Levko. “Volodymyr Leoniuk.” *Z chasiv nevoli. Kn. 2* [From the Times of Captivity. Book 2]. MAUP, 2007, pp. 169-178.
Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. January 30, 2009. Corrections by V. Leoniuk from May 26, 2009, entered on June 1, 2009.
LEONIUK VOLODYMYR HNATOVYCH
LEONIUK VOLODYMYR HNATOVYCH
LEONIUK VOLODYMYR HNATOVYCH