A participant in the Sixtiers movement; she produced and distributed *samizdat*.
Born into a large working-class family. In 1935, she graduated from the chemical technical college in Shostka, specializing as a chemical technologist. She had an independent and resolute character. She married a chemical engineer. She received a work assignment in the city of Tambov. From then on, she lived and worked outside of Ukraine for 27 years—in Tambov, Leningrad, and one year in China. From 1937, she worked in Moscow at a research institute for the defense industry. She was the co-author of two inventions in the field of explosives. In 1962, she divorced her husband and moved to Kyiv with her son, having exchanged apartments. For two years, she worked at the Institute of Communal Hygiene, and for one year as a laboratory technician in the Department of Chemistry at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University.
From the early 1960s, K. began to take an active interest in the history and culture of Ukraine and read illegal literature: M. Hrushevsky’s “History of Ukraine,” V. Yavorovsky’s “Our Territory” (1919), newspapers of the Central Rada, the book “The Cultural-National Movement in Ukraine,” and works by V. Vynnychenko. She joined the cultural life of Kyiv, participating in literary and artistic evenings of the Sixtiers.
As an older and more experienced person, K. understood that a cultural revival alone was not enough. She conceived the idea of writing an article on the state of Ukraine’s economy in comparison with other republics, particularly the RSFSR. She aimed, as stated in the indictment, to “promote in the article the idea that the state of Ukraine’s economy testifies to its semi-colonial dependence on Russia.” K. sought help from an economist acquaintance, but the questions she posed frightened the specialist with their “forbidden” nature. K. herself gathered a great deal of statistical data, but did not have time to write the article.
In March 1963, K. was summoned for a prophylactic conversation at the KGB, where she had to explain and justify her interest in national issues. The reason for the summons was likely a slogan written on an election ballot against Russification. Instead, K. became even more active. In 1964, she met Vasyl Lobko, an employee of the Institute of Hydrology who was organizing the “Society of Advocates for Ukrainian Culture,” and an engineer, Oleksandr Martynenko, and she visited the Ivan Honchar Museum. It was then that Olga Borbot, a correspondence student at Kyiv State University, gave K. two copies of the article “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalskyi.” Using the typewriter of Taras Ivanovych Franko, with the help of her friend Olga Kapets (who worked at the Institute of Linguistics and lived in T. Franko’s apartment), K. typed 36 copies of this article. She gave 30 to O. Martynenko and distributed the rest herself to acquaintances. K., along with O. Drobat, also reproduced the article “1933…”
K. was a talented agitator: she encouraged many young people to speak Ukrainian, attend literary evenings, read Ukrainian books, and subscribe to the newspaper *Literaturna Ukraina*. She sent Ukrainian publications to young men she knew who were conscripted into military service. She was concerned about the status of the Ukrainian language and spoke with many about the Russification of universities and schools, even during a conversation at the Ministry of Education. She wrote letters about this to the Ministry of Education and to universities.
With the rise to power of L. Brezhnev and his supporters, rumors spread throughout Ukraine that an anti-Soviet “Banderite” underground center had been uncovered, an illegal printing press found, and weapons, foreign currency, and other items seized. In late August–September 1965, several dozen members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were arrested, among them, on August 25, was K. During a search of her home, a great deal of *samizdat* and dozens of her handwritten and typewritten notes were confiscated. It is evident that K. had been planning to write a series of publicistic articles. Most of these materials were destroyed by court order as harmful; only their titles are known: “How the Dagestani Leaders Build…,” “Poet-Prophet, Teacher of Truth, Spiritual Leader of Peoples,” “The Confounding of Languages,” “What to Do with the Intelligentsia?,” “Statistics as a Mirror of Society,” and “Beginnings of the Labor Movement.”
Only three of K.’s typewritten articles have been preserved in the case files: “Lessons of History,” “A Nationalist?,” and “My Reflections” (V. CHORNOVIL also knew of them, as he mentions them in his book *Woe from Wit*). The first article discusses the fate of Ukraine under the rule of Poland and Russia. The second deals with the absurdity of the usual accusations of Ukrainians being nationalists in the Russian sense of the word. The author writes about the events of 1917–20, the anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings of the early 1920s, dekulakization, and the famine, concluding: “This was the deliberate destruction of Ukrainians.” In the second part, she writes about the roots of “Banderism” and the repressions in Halychyna. In the article “My Reflections,” K. offers concrete advice on how to conduct the national struggle and reminds readers that this struggle cannot be postponed until better times.
Experts from the Institute of Party History at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, P. Bachynsky and L. Nahorna, qualified K.’s articles as anti-Soviet and nationalistic, which was, in fact, the truth.
The investigators diligently searched for illnesses in K.: in September, she underwent a psychiatric evaluation and was declared sane. K. later wrote in letters that she had always been physically healthy, but in February 1966, she suddenly fell ill, shaking and suffering from pain so intense it caused her to lose consciousness; her head was ringing, and she rapidly lost strength. It is likely that she was being poisoned. In late February, K. began to feel better.
The indictment accusing K., engineer Oleksandr Martynenko, and Ivan RUSYN (whom K. did not even know) of conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Part I, Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR) was signed on February 21, 1966. A month later, on March 21–25, 1966, they were sentenced in a closed session of the Kyiv Regional Court (Judge Matsko): K. to 4 years in strict-regime camps, O. Martynenko to 3 years, and I. RUSYN to 1 year. At the same time, geophysicist Mykola Hryn was also sentenced to 3 years, but the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR commuted his imprisonment to a suspended sentence in view of his public repentance and condemnation of his former like-minded associates.
However, a few people were allowed to attend the reading of the verdict, among them the poets Lina KOSTENKO and Lyubov Zabashta, who tried to take some notes, but the notes were taken from them. Then, after the verdict was pronounced, L. KOSTENKO threw snowdrops to the defendants.
K. served her sentence in the Mordovian camps (initially in camp ZhKh-385/17-A in the settlement of Ozerny, then in camp No. 6, in the settlement of Potma). She worked weaving nets. The daily food ration was 2,420 kcal. K. suffered from a lack of food, especially sugar, and was seriously ill. In her spare time, she read and took notes: “I will return home with a sackful of knowledge, regrets, reproaches, love…,” she wrote in one letter. However, she did not even reproach M. Hryn. In the camp, she remained firm, independent, even sharp, which initially aroused the suspicion of some of her fellow prisoners.
K.’s co-defendant, I. RUSYN, later wrote about K.: “Her testimony was dignified, she did not implicate anyone, which evidently angered the repressors, who demanded five years of a strict regime for her… And so she quietly, alone, went to trial, earning four years of a strict regime. She went quietly… and quietly, after a short illness, passed away… It would not be amiss to investigate her contribution to the cause of national awakening. Unfortunately, we still have forgotten ones, although in general there were not so many of them.” Historian A. Rusnachenko also wrote about the need to “speak of the movement through the fate of a single individual, perhaps one of not the greatest fame.”
K. served about two years in captivity, after which she was amnestied. She was released in very poor health and died soon after (in 1968).
Bibliography:
*Woe from Wit*. – Lviv: Memorial, 1991. — 344 p. (Reprint: *Woe from Wit* (*Portraits of Twenty “Criminals”*). A Collection of Materials. Compiled by Viacheslav Chornovil. Fourth revised and expanded edition. – First Ukrainian Printing House in France, 1968). – pp. 175–180.
Chornovil, V. *Tvory: U 10-y t.* (Works: In 10 vols.). – Vol. 3. (*Ukrainian Herald*, 1970-72) / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2006. – pp. 120, 135, 367, 529, 536-541.
Rusnachenko, Anatoliy. “A Nationalist? – Yes (about Ye. Kuznetsova).” – *Rozbudova derzhavy*, No. 9 (38). – 1995. – pp. 11–14.
Kasyanov, Georgiy. *Nezghodni: ukrainska intelihentsiia v rusi oporu 1960-80-kh rokiv* (The Dissenters: The Ukrainian Intelligentsia in the Resistance Movement of the 1960s-80s). – Kyiv: Lybid, 1995. – pp. 47, 54.
Danyliuk, Yu. Z., Bazhan, O. H. *Opozytsiia v Ukraini (druha polovyna 50-kh – 80-i rr. XX st.)* (The Opposition in Ukraine (second half of the 50s – 80s of the 20th century)). – Kyiv: Ridnyi krai, 2000. – pp. 70, 79, 188.
Rusyn, Ivan. “On 33 Volodymyrska Street.” – *Zona*, No. 5, 1993. – pp. 217-233.
KHPG Archive. Interview with Ivan Rusyn from May 26, 1999.
Author V. Ovsiyenko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. October 1, 2007.
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