Born July 24, 1938, in the city of Odesa.
Worker, student, participant in the national liberation movement. Together with V. Kuksa, he raised the Ukrainian flag in 1966.
His father was a port worker, his mother a cook. To escape shelling, in 1944 the family moved to the village of Yakymiv Yar in the Shyriaieve raion, where Heorhiy completed seven years of school. He was interested in the national liberation struggle of the UNR period and listened to the stories of front-line soldiers and displaced persons from Galicia about the UPA's fight. He worked for a short time on a kolkhoz and then, from 1955, as a plumber-fitter at a construction site in Kyiv. From 1957 to 1960, he served in the army. In 1962, he graduated from evening school and enrolled in the evening department of the Kyiv Institute of National Economy (KING). He attended rehearsals of the amateur folk choir “Zhaivoronok” (Lark), where Ukrainian youth gathered and where samizdat literature circulated. It was an era of the collapse of the world colonial system and of national liberation movements. In discussions, he came to believe that a country as economically developed as Ukraine could be independent, like neighboring Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Poland. He expressed such thoughts in seminars: for example, Lenin recognized the independence of Finland and Ukraine on the same day. The West defended Finland, but the Bolsheviks occupied Ukraine. So why not hold a referendum now, based on the Constitution of the UkrSSR, which states that it retains the right to secede from the USSR?
He wanted to act to awaken the national consciousness of Ukrainians. M. proposed to Viktor KUKSA, with whom he shared a room in a workers' dormitory in Sviatoshyn, to sew a national flag and hang it in a public place, for instance, over the central railway station. However, they later settled on the building of the Kyiv Institute of National Economy (KING), located on Brest-Litovsk Prospekt opposite the “Bolshevik” factory. They sewed the flag from two women's scarves. They copied the national coat of arms from UNR banknotes, cut it out of black fabric, and stitched it onto the flag. M. wrote in block letters with ink: “Ukraine has not yet perished, she has not yet been killed. DPU.”
The abbreviation was intended to be read as “Democratic Party of Ukraine,” a currently non-existent entity, so that the act would not be attributed to, for example, the OUN.
They raised the flag on the night of May 1, 1966, knowing that in the morning, columns of workers and students would be forming there to march in the May Day demonstration on Khreshchatyk Street. M. stood guard near a fire escape with a homemade pistol, loaded with sulfur, with which he was to signal any danger. V. KUKSA climbed onto the roof, cut down the red flag with a kitchen knife, and tied the blue-and-yellow one in its place. They poured a bottle of aviation gasoline around the ladder so that a dog would not pick up their trail.
In the morning, the flag change was noticed by retired officers, who reported it to the KGB. The “criminals” were hunted for over nine months. All the male students were summoned to the military enlistment office and required to fill out some forms in block letters. Provocateurs “worked” on them, initiating pseudo-patriotic conversations. M. did not hide his worldview, so it was not difficult to suspect him. A graphological examination also pointed to him, but the KGB was looking for “connections with the underground.”
KGB operatives arrested M. and V. KUKSA on February 21, 1967. By the verdict of the Kyiv Regional Court on May 31, 1967, in a closed session, M. was found guilty of conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda under Part 1 of Art. 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR and of manufacturing and possessing a firearm (the homemade pistol, Art. 222, Parts 1 and 3) and sentenced in aggregate to 3 years of imprisonment in strict-regime camps. V. KUKSA was sentenced to 2 years under the same Part 1 of Art. 62 and for possession of a bladed weapon (the kitchen knife), Part 2 of Art. 222.
M. served his sentence in Camp No. 11 at the Yavas station, Mordovia, and in Camp No. 19, in the settlement of Lesnoy, where Ukrainians made up three-quarters of the inmate population. These included former insurgents such as Vasyl Yakubiak, Vasyl PIDHORODETSKYI, Stepan Mamchur, and Dmytro Basarab, and Sixtiers such as Panas ZALYVAKHA, Mykhailo and Bohdan HORYN, Ivan HEL, Yaroslav LESIV, Oleksandr MARTYNENKO, Mykola OZERNY, and others. Ukrainian life thrived there: national and religious holidays were celebrated, and history was studied. There, one could get to know the entirety of Ukraine, which was fighting for independence.
In the zones, M. worked as a plumber.
After his release in 1970, he struggled to get a job but was eventually hired as a 3rd-category plumber (although he had been a foreman before his arrest) at Kyiv Specialized Administration No. 521 (KSU-521). He later became a brigadier, foreman, and site manager. He rejected an offer to inform on the Sixtiers circle, with whom he continued to associate, and therefore never received his diploma from KING, even though he had been arrested in his fifth year and had already written his thesis. After three years, he received an apartment in the village of Bucha near Kyiv. He and his wife, Vira Mateiko, have three sons. He has been retired since 1994 as a “Chornobyl liquidator” but continued to work for a long time.
He participated in the independence movement. From 1990 to 1995, he was a deputy of the Bucha Village Council. He has been a member of the Democratic Party of Ukraine (DemPU) since 1998.
By a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated May 20, 1994, the court decisions regarding the conviction of Heorhiy M. Moskalenko under Art. 62 Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR were annulled, and the criminal case in this part was closed based on para. 2 of Art. 6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine due to the absence of corpus delicti. However, he was still considered convicted for the aggregate of crimes under Parts 1 and 3 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR, and sentenced based on Art. 42 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR to 3 years of imprisonment in a general-regime correctional labor colony.
On March 18, 2002, a Public Committee (later a Non-Governmental Organization) “For the Rehabilitation of the ‘May Day Two’” was created in Kyiv, which aimed to achieve the full rehabilitation of M., V. KUKSA, and other politically repressed individuals who had been convicted on criminal charges. The organization’s head, former political prisoner Valeriy KRAVCHENKO, held a 20-day protest hunger strike in front of the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine in August–September 2005.
By a decree of the President of Ukraine dated August 18, 2006, M. and V. KUKSA were awarded the Order “For Courage” of the 1st degree. On the day the award was presented, August 23, a commemorative plaque was to be unveiled at the Kyiv National Economic University (KNEU) about the event of May 1, 1966, but it was removed during the night on the rector's orders.
By a decision of a joint session of the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases and the Military Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated January 26, 2007, the verdict of the Kyiv Regional Court of May 31, 1967, and the decision of the judicial collegium for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR of July 4, 1967, regarding M.’s conviction under Parts 1 and 2 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR were annulled, and the case in this part was closed due to the absence of the constituent elements of a crime in his actions, based on para. 2 of Part I of Art. 6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine. M. was finally fully rehabilitated in this case.
He lives in the town of Bucha, Kyiv-Sviatoshyn raion.
Bibliography
I.
Autobiographical accounts of H. Moskalenko from March 18, 2002, and V. Kuksa from April 10, 2002. https://museum.khpg.org/1202325668
II.
Mykola Tsyvirko. “A long-ago drama with women's scarves.” – Vechirniy Kyiv, December 11, 1992. (This article only discusses H. Moskalenko).
Mykola Tsyvirko. “Ukraine's Manolis Glezos.” – Vechirniy Kyiv, February 6, 1993.
Volodymyr Haleta. “To declare independence, all they needed was faith, a knife, a homemade gun, socks, and a bottle of gasoline.” – Nasha Ukraina, 1998, No. 1 (60). – January 9.
Vasyl Ovsienko. “A flag over Kyiv.” – Shliakh Peremohy, 2002, No. 20 (2507). – May 15; Same: Ekonomist, KNEU newspaper, No. 16-19 (1054-1057). – 2002. – June–July.
Kravchenko, V. *Syno-zhovtyi prapor nad Kyievom 1 travnia 1966 roku* (The Blue-and-Yellow Flag Over Kyiv on May 1, 1966) / Foreword by V. Ovsienko. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2004. – 56 p.
Ovsienko, Vasyl. *Svitlo liudei: Memuary ta publitsystyka*. In 2 books. Book 2 / Compiled by the author; Art and design by B.Ye. Zakharov. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2005. – pp. 90–98. https://museum.khpg.org/1202744505; Pershotravneva dviyka (The May Day Two) https://museum.khpg.org/index.php?do=search
Dmytro Shcherbyna. “Recurrences of a murky past.” – Literaturna Ukraina, 2006, No. 34 (5172). – September 7.
*Mizhnarodnyi biohrafichnyi slovnyk dysydiv krajin Tsentral'noyi ta Skhidnoyi Yevropy y kolyshnoho SRSR. T. 1. Ukrayina. Chastyna 1.* (International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents of the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1). – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Lyudyny,” 2006. – pp. 489-491. https://museum.khpg.org/1132346929
*Rukh oporu v Ukrayini: 1960 – 1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk* (The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 – 1990. An Encyclopedic Guide) / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – p. 447; 2nd ed.: 2012, – pp. 503–504.
Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. February 30, 2002. Last proofread August 12, 2016.
SUPREME COURT OF UKRAINE
4 P. Orlyka St., Kyiv-24, 01024
..... March 2007, No. 5-47p06
Certificate of Rehabilitation
By the verdict of the Kyiv Regional Court dated May 31, 1967, Moskalenko, Heorhiy Mytrofanovych, born in 1938 in the city of Odesa, was convicted under Part 1 of Art. 62, and Parts 1 and 2 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (in the 1960 version, which was in force until the Decree of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the UkrSSR of October 14, 1974, which introduced amendments and established liability for the illegal handling of bladed weapons under Part 3 of this article) to 3 years of imprisonment on charges of illegal manufacturing, possession, and carrying of a firearm and a bladed weapon, as well as for, being nationalistically minded, together with V. I. Kuksa, tearing down the Soviet flag from the roof of the Kyiv Institute of National Economy building and replacing it with a yellow-and-blue flag.
By the ruling of the judicial collegium for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR dated July 4, 1967, the verdict was upheld without change.
By the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated May 20, 1994, the court decisions regarding the conviction of H. M. Moskalenko under Part 1 of Art. 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR were annulled, and the case was closed on the grounds of para. 2 of Art. 6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine due to the absence of the constituent elements of a crime in his actions. For the aggregate of crimes under Part 1 and Part 2 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR, H. M. Moskalenko was ordered to be considered sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment.
By the ruling of a joint session of the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases and the Military Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated January 26, 2007, the verdict of the Kyiv Regional Court of May 31, 1967, and the ruling of the judicial collegium for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the UkrSSR of July 4, 1967, regarding the conviction of H. M. Moskalenko under Parts 1 and 2 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR were annulled, and the case in this part was closed due to the absence of the constituent elements of a crime in his actions, on the grounds of para. 2 of Part I of Art. 6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine.
Moskalenko, Heorhiy Mytrofanovych, has been rehabilitated in this case.
Acting Head of the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Ukraine
M. Ye. Korotkevych