KULCHYNSKY, MYKOLA HEORHIYOVYCH (b. April 10, 1947, in Dubno, Rivne region).
Journalist, educator, public and political figure.
Both his father and mother were highly educated people. His father was imprisoned for 10 years in the Vorkuta camps for his connections with the Ukrainian national underground. Before that, he had been in the Polish concentration camp “Bereza Kartuzka,” and he was arrested by both the Germans and the “first Soviets.”
In 1957, when his father returned from imprisonment, the family moved to Novomoskovsk in the Dnipropetrovsk region. His father found a job as a choirmaster in the famous Cossack Holy Trinity Cathedral. The family atmosphere was filled with song, music, and literature. On the icon corner were icons adorned with embroidered towels, and on the left wall hung a portrait of Shevchenko, also decorated with towels. The children grew up as if there were no occupying Russian communist government. His older brother Bohdan began bringing samvydav literature from Kyiv. Kulchynsky joined the Komsomol to become a Pioneer leader and instill a love for Ukraine in first-graders. Even in the army, Kulchynsky received Ukrainian journals and newspapers published in Czechoslovakia and Poland.
In January 1969, Kulchynsky was demobilized. He sought meetings with the Ukrainian intelligentsia in Dnipropetrovsk. He became friends with the KUZMENKO family—Oleksandr and Olena—and with Ivan SOKULSKY. Together with his brother Bohdan, they considered creating a printing press and searched for type fonts.
Kulchynsky was arrested on June 14, 1969, on a riverboat where he worked as a sailor. He was accused of distributing samvydav literature. During the search, one investigator, upon seeing his father's manuscript on the history of the Ukrainian people—written from memory in Vorkuta and concluding with quotes from Franko, Shevchenko, and Lesia Ukrainka—said: “It would have been better if your son had read less of these Frankos and Shevchenkos and these histories, then he wouldn't have ended up in prison. And he will definitely be imprisoned.” Another investigator said during interrogations: “It would have been better if you had been a thief than to stand up for this language.”
He was charged along with Ivan SOKULSKY and Viktor SAVCHENKO under Part 1, Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR for conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
During the investigation, Kulchynsky confessed to taking a typewriter from I. SOKULSKY to type his own poems. In reality, he was retyping samvydav literature on it, including the “Letter from the Creative Youth of Dnipropetrovsk” (in defense of O. Honchar's novel “The Cathedral”). He distributed it by leaving copies at train stations and bus stations, and by mailing them to addresses from telephone directories. Regarding the samvydav, he claimed that some strangers had given it to him on a train or a plane. He behaved with dignity during the investigation and at trial.
Moscow lawyers V.B. Romm and Y.Y. Sarri, who had previously defended Russian dissidents, argued at the session of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Court that there was no crime in the defendants' actions. As a result, Kulchynsky's case was reclassified under Article 187-1, “Slander against the Soviet state and social system.” Kulchynsky did not plead guilty to the crime. On January 27, 1970, he was sentenced to 2.5 years of imprisonment in general-regime camps. Viktor SAVCHENKO received a 2-year suspended sentence with a three-year probation period. In this case, I. SOKULSKY was imprisoned under Part 1, Article 62 for 4.5 years.
In zone No. 77 in the Zaporizhzhia region, among criminal prisoners, he felt like an unarmed man in a cage with wild animals. He was beaten to make him their lackey, and a second time on the orders of the camp's operative officer. However, he remained true to himself and even earned respect for his position and his article, because all the criminals fiercely hated the Soviet government. If only he would stop speaking Ukrainian, he would have been completely one of them....
After his release, from 1973 to 1990, he worked as a tower crane operator at the Poltava Construction Mechanization Administration.
In 1975, Kulchynsky's home was searched, but fortunately, the samvydav, which was in his work bag on the floor under the kitchen table, was not found. He refused to cooperate with the KGB. After two months of interrogations, he was read a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated December 25, 1972, with a warning of criminal liability in case of future anti-Soviet statements. Meanwhile, he went to work, always carrying warm socks, underwear, sugar, and dried bread with him.
In 1987, he founded the “Ridne Slovo” (Native Word) club in Poltava, which became the basis for the creation of the People's Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) (1989) and the Taras Shevchenko Society for the Ukrainian Language (TUM) in the Poltava region. Since 1989, Kulchynsky has been the permanent chairman of the Poltava regional organization of TUM (“Prosvita”), serving as its salaried chairman from 1990-1994. From 1994 to 1996, he studied at the Poltava Evening University of Journalism. He is a member of the Union of Journalists and has published a collection of poems.
Until 2000, he was an assistant to members of parliament. Since 1990, he has been a deputy of the city council and chairman of the commission on freedom of information and relations with public organizations. From 1994-2000, he was a deputy of the regional council and chairman of the commission on regulations. He was a People's Deputy of Ukraine of the III, IV, V, and VI convocations (2000-2012), and a member of the “Our Ukraine” faction.
Bibliography:
I.
“Des pid verbolu zhurno idut lita;” “Sontse spovnyla tucha;” “Pisne moia ukrainska” (poems and article) // Chornovil V. Tvory: U 10-y t. – T. 3. (“Ukrainskyi visnyk,” 1970-72) (Works: In 10 vols. – Vol. 3. [“Ukrainian Herald,” 1970-72]) / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2006. – pp. 194-196.
Zahratovane svitlo (Light Behind Bars). – Poltava: “RIK,” 2007. – 136 p. (Poems).
Mykola Kulchynsky: “V ‘zoni’, yak nide, proiavliavsia rosiiskyi shovinizm” (“Mykola Kulchynsky: ‘Nowhere was Russian chauvinism more evident than in the ‘zone’”). “Istorychna Pravda,” April 18, 2011, Roman Kulchynsky: http://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2011/04/18/36171/add_ok/#comments ; August 10, 2011: http://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2011/04/18/36171/
II.
“Sudovyi protses u Dnipropetrovsku” (“The Trial in Dnipropetrovsk”) // Chornovil V. Tvory: U 10-y t. – T. 3. (“Ukrainskyi visnyk,” 1970-72) / Comp. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2006. – pp. 169–173; Ibid: M. Plakhotniuk. “Za nymy – pravda (Vidpovid naklepnykam)” (“The Truth Is on Their Side [A Response to Slanderers]”). – pp. 173-187. See also: pp. 21, 55, 88, 194-196, 350, 369, 431, 567, 630.
Shmorhun I. Rano-vrantsi vitry zaholosiat (The Winds Will Wail in the Early Morning) [a biography of the Kulchynsky family]. – Rivne, 1994. – 27 p.
Denysko H. “Vid soboru kozatskoho do soboru dush” (“From the Cossack Cathedral to the Cathedral of Souls”) [biographical article about M.H. Kulchynsky, photo] // Poltava-rukhinform. Information Bulletin. – 1998. – No. 1. – March. – pp. 1–3.
Skoryk, Mykhailo. Zyma. Spovid pro perezhyte (Winter. A Confession about What Was Lived Through). – Kyiv: “Pravda Yaroslavychiv” Publishing, 2002. – pp. 78, 91, 93, 101, 109-122.
“Mandrivky zhyttia. Interviu z Petrom Pavlovychem Rozumnym...” (“Life's Journeys. An Interview with Petro Pavlovych Rozumnyi...”) // Kurier Kryvbasu, No. 198. – 2006. – p. 132.
KHPG Archive.
International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006. – pp. 365-367. https://museum.khpg.org/1184402471
Rukh oporu v Ukraini: 1960–1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk (The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide) / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – pp. 357–358; 2nd ed.: 2012, – pp. 401–402.
Mykola Kulchynsky, Vasyl Ovsiienko (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group). July 30, 2006. Last read: August 2016.
