Metallurgical engineer, collector, historian of Ukraine. Promoted literature that awakened national consciousness. Produced and distributed *samvydav*.
He came from a Cossack family. His grandfathers were prosperous farmers and members of the *Prosvita* society. Books from their library had a positive influence on Ivan’s worldview. His paternal grandmother taught him: “The Gospel and Shevchenko’s *Kobzar* are the two books that should be in every home.” His father was killed in the war.
From 1947 to 1950, Rybalka graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Technical School and began working at the H. Petrovsky Metallurgical Plant in the refractory shop as a foreman, shift supervisor, and, from 1953, as a master and shift supervisor in the converter shop. To deepen his knowledge of history, he enrolled in the correspondence department of the history faculty at Dnipropetrovsk University. He sought like-minded individuals and literature on Ukrainian history, in particular, insisting that the library provide him with Dmytro Yavornytsky’s *History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks*. It was then that KGB agents took an interest in him. After studying for a year, he became convinced that his worldview would prevent him from becoming a historian and dropped out.
As early as 1954, Rybalka participated in the work of a lecture group, delivering lectures on Ukrainian history to workers.
In 1960, he enrolled in the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute (for evening studies), graduating in 1965 as a metallurgical engineer. He worked for 18 years at the Petrovsky Plant in Dnipropetrovsk, first as a master, then as a shift supervisor, and later as deputy head of the shop. He met a nationally conscious engineer, Petro Kuzmenko, and through him, his brother Oles Kuzmenko, who had been imprisoned for his involvement in the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) underground in the Sicheslavshchyna region during the war. He also became acquainted with engineers Yuliy and Oles Kondratenko, Vasyl Korniyenko, and with associate professors Pylyp Lyubashenko and Ivan Shulha, along with a number of other conscious engineers, teachers, and lecturers who were concerned about the state of the Ukrainian language, culture, and the nation as a whole. A circle of 5 to 7 engineering and technical workers was formed. Amid the “Khrushchev Thaw,” the idea grew within this circle that it was necessary to influence the formation of national consciousness among the intelligentsia, students, and workers. At the same time, they understood that if they created an organization, provocateurs would inevitably infiltrate it. They considered educational work the best form of activity—propagating patriotic literature and, later, distributing *samvydav*. They tried not to reveal their contacts. Several such groups were active in the city.
In 1964, Rybalka traveled to the Cherkashchyna region for the Shevchenko anniversary celebrations. He attended events at the regional branch of the Writers’ Union, where he met and befriended the writer Mykhailo Chkhan and also met Viktor SAVCHENKO.
Throughout his life, Rybalka collected bonds and coins that were in circulation in Ukraine and gathered relevant literature. At the book market in Kyiv, he met Lohvyn Bablyak and, through him, the Kyivans Yuriy Ohulchansky and Erast Binyashevsky, from whom he began to receive necessary books, and subsequently, *samvydav* literature. He visited Ivan Makarovych Honchar’s private ethnographic museum in Kyiv, where he was documented by KGB agents. He had contacts with people from Lviv, in particular, a Mrs. Mariya Viter helped him obtain the *Ukrainian Calendar* from Poland, which at the time was a good source of information on Ukrainian history and culture.
Together with O. Kuzmenko, Rybalka developed a so-called Leniniana: in their propaganda, they used selected quotes from V. Lenin on the national question, taken from the collection *Lenin on Ukraine*. Even as late as 1990, Rybalka delivered a lecture titled “Lenin’s National Policy” at the Society for the Ukrainian Language. Nationalists received it favorably, while KGB agents accused him of using Lenin’s works tendentiously.
On January 22, 1968, the anniversary of the proclamation of the Fourth Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, a blue and yellow flag was hung on the agricultural institute in Dnipropetrovsk. The KGB scrambled to find out who had done it. In connection with this, KGB Colonel Tutyk interrogated Rybalka as well.
When Oles Honchar’s novel *The Cathedral* was published (1968), the secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, O. Vatchenko, recognized himself in the character of the “upstart” Volodka Loboda and banned *The Cathedral* in his region: the book was removed from libraries and was not for sale. Rybalka wrote a letter to L. Bablyak asking him to get 10 copies of the novel. The letter reached its addressee, but it was photographed en route: Colonel Tutyk interrogated Rybalka again. “It’s something else, to call the regional committee secretary a ‘mug’!” he exclaimed, and quoted from his letter. To this, Rybalka replied: “It is remarkable how the Constitution is violated, which states that the privacy of correspondence is guaranteed by law, yet the very bodies that are supposed to enforce the Constitution are the ones breaking it.”
In 1967, Rybalka, as a competent engineer who was the deputy head of the Central Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, was offered the leadership of the ministry's metallurgical laboratory (the ministry was located in Dnipropetrovsk). This laboratory studied the capacities of metallurgical plants and set standards for material consumption in production. For work-related matters, Rybalka often visited plants in Kyiv and Moscow, which allowed him to maintain a wide network of contacts. He brought back literature needed for propaganda from Kyiv and Moscow, including 7 or 8 issues of the *Chronicle of Current Events*. However, he later had to destroy the issues of the *Chronicle* when mass searches began in 1972.
In 1968, on the recommendation of Ivan Makarovych Honchar, Oleksandr Kuzmenko brought Ivan DZYUBA’s work *Internationalism or Russification?* to be distributed in the Sicheslavshchyna region. In Moscow, Rybalka bought an old “Moskva” typewriter cheaply. His friends replaced the Russian letters with Ukrainian ones, and over a long period, from 1968 to 1969, Rybalka typed two batches—10 copies—of Dzyuba’s book (about 200 pages). Only O. Kuzmenko and a worker named Loi, who stored the texts and the typewriter, knew about this. The copies were bound. The books were read by dozens of people, including a worker named Nikolayenko. His wife, a teacher, also read it and showed the book to other teachers. Someone reported it to the KGB. Under pressure, Nikolayenko confessed that he got the book from Rybalka. Cornered by this testimony, Rybalka had to confirm it, but he said that he had bought the typescript at a book market in Kyiv, had not given it to anyone to read besides Nikolayenko, and had already burned it. The case was left open, with the agents saying, “We’ll catch you yet.” Under the threat of a search, he truly had to burn three copies in the steppe. One has been preserved to this day.
Rybalka also typed one batch (4 copies) of M. Braichevsky’s work *Reunification or Annexation?*. For this, too, he had a ready-made story that he had bought it at a book market in Kyiv.
A letter from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to writers, as well as poems by Mykola KHOLODNY, Volodymyr SIRENKO, Vasyl SYMONENKO, Ivan SOKULSKY, and others, circulated in this circle.
At an exhibition of German technology in Kyiv in 1970, E. Binyashevsky, in Rybalka’s presence, expressed his outrage in German that the inscriptions on the exhibits were in Russian and German. The next day, Ukrainian inscriptions appeared, but Binyashevsky and Rybalka were interrogated by KGB agents about this incident.
Rybalka was friends with the Kuzmenko family, whose apartment in Dnipropetrovsk was a meeting place for nationally conscious people. Here he met with the later-imprisoned Mykola KULCHYNSKY and Mykola PLAKHOTNYUK, with the poetess Hanna Svitlychna, a person with a disability who was brought from Pavlohrad.
As early as 1969, Rybalka began to be summoned to the KGB for interrogations, being taken from his work. They demanded that the leadership of the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy dismiss him from his position, but the head of the technical department, V.I. Zhyhulin, stood up for him, leaving him as acting head of the laboratory. In 1988, during *perestroika*, the staff of the Central Laboratory elected Rybalka as its head, where he worked until his retirement on October 30, 1995.
In the mid-1980s, Rybalka actively joined the Ukrainian national movement. He was one of the founders and leaders of the Society for the Ukrainian Language and the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy) in Dnipropetrovsk. He frequently speaks in the press, with lectures, and with reports on historical topics.
In the 1990 elections, he was a candidate for deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. From 1990-93, he was a member of the DemPU (Democratic Party of Ukraine). Since 1993, he has been a member of the OUN, working in *Prosvita* and in the All-Ukrainian Union of Veterans.
From 1998 to 2001, he worked at the University of Ukrainian Studies of the Center for Culture, Education, and Leisure of the Air Defense Forces of Ukraine, teaching officers the history of the Ukrainian army and the history of Ukraine.
For 30 years, Rybalka has been researching the etymology of Ukrainian surnames (he has data on 4,000). For about 15 years, he has been compiling a Russian-Ukrainian metallurgical dictionary, having processed about 80,000 cards, using English, German, Polish, and Czech metallurgical dictionaries, as well as Ukrainian technical dictionaries from the 1920s and 30s.
He lives in Dnipropetrovsk. His wife, Lora Fedorivna, is a mechanical engineer. His son Dmytro, born in 1958, is a police major and a lawyer. His daughter Yaroslava, born in 1970, is a Candidate of Philological Sciences and an associate professor.
Bibliography:
1.
“Contrary to Common Sense (a reply to Russian chauvinists)” / *Dnieper vecherniy* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk). – December 25, 1989.
“Ukrainian Cossacks” / NRU newspaper *Moloda Ukrayina* (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 1. – 1990.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine – The Ukrainian Cossacks (History of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Map)” / *Prapor yunosti* newspaper, No. 89. – July 31, 1990.
“How the Sich Was Destroyed” (Under the pseudonym I. Zaporozhets) / *Prapor yunosti* newspaper, No. 89. – July 31, 1990.
“Political Parties in Independent Ukraine” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 1. – 1991.
“Our Native Land – Ukraine (A debate with the Russian chauvinist Kazimirsky)” / *Sobor* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk). – September 28, 1991.
“Remarks on the Matter (Analysis of the quantitative composition of the Black Sea Fleet ships (10%), a demand for Russia to divide the entire USSR fleet and give up its share – 26%)” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 2 (3). – January 1992.
“The Money of Ukraine: A Millennial Path (History of Ukrainian money, illustrations)” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper, No. 5. – May 1992.
“The Constitution of Ukraine – The Fundamental Law of the Ukrainian State” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 9. – September 1992.
“The OUN in Eastern Ukraine” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 10. – September 1992.
“Who Should be President of Ukraine” / *Vilna dumka* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 2. – September 1994.
“They Saw the Light in Science – Dignitaries Wielded the Mace (On the education and language skills of Ukrainian hetmans and colonels)” / *Sicheslavskyi krai* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 11-12. – 1997.
“So What Happened near Kruty? (Map. Analysis of the battle and tragedy near Kruty)” / Ministry of Defense of Ukraine newspaper *Vartovi neba*, No. 10-12. – January 1998.
“Contrary to Common Sense (A reply to Russian chauvinists)” / *Dnieper vecherniy* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk). – December 25, 1989.
“Adopt it, and Immediately! (A discussion on the pages of newspapers before the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine. Analysis of the proposed draft of the Constitution)” / *Dnieper vecherniy* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk). – 1996.
KHPG Archive: Interview with I. Rybalka from April 3, 2001.
“Our People are Ukrainian (Analysis of the results of the 2001 Ukrainian population census)” / *Sicheslavskyi krai* newspaper (Dnipropetrovsk), No. 19. – December 5, 2001.
Rybalka I.D., Syrotenko V.D. “Let’s Protect Our Ukrainian Ethnic Land (On the Ukrainian ethnic lands that remained under Russia, Poland, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia. Map of the lands).” – *Nasha tserkva – Kyivskyi Patriarkhat* (Religious bulletin of the journal *Borysten*), No. 7. – July 2008. Also: *Batkivshchyna* newspaper, No. 35. – September 18, 2008.
II
Bylinov, Oleksandr. “Blast Furnaces and People.” / *Vitchyzna*, No. 3. – 1960. – pp. 158-159.
Zaremba, Volodymyr. *Fatal Choice*. Kyiv: Prosvita, 2001. – p. 84 et al.
Zaremba, Volodymyr. *Destinies*. Dnipropetrovsk: Porohy, 2002. – pp. 74-75, 77 et al.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Vasyl Ovsiyenko. March 17, 2008. Corrections by I. Rybalka from September 23, 2008, were added on October 30, 2008.
RYBALRA IVAN DMYTROVYCH