DYAK, MYKHAYLO DMYTROVYCH (b. August 23, 1935, in the village of Kalna, Dolyna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region – d. August 18, 1976).
Founding member of the Ukrainian National Front.
From a poor peasant family. In 1951, at the age of sixteen, he wanted to join the partisans, but his mother stopped him to prevent the family from being deported to Siberia. He completed ten years of school in 1952 in the village of Vytvytsia. He worked as a Pioneer leader in the neighboring village of Kropyvnyk, walking 7 km daily along partisan trails. In 1953, he enrolled in the law faculty of Lviv University but could not continue his studies due to poverty. From 1954 to 1957, he served in the army. In 1958, he entered the Ivano-Frankivsk militsiya school but left after six months due to a conflict with the commandant. He later returned and completed his secondary legal education in 1964.
On September 20, 1958, he married Hanna Hanuska. In 1966, their son Oles was born, who is now a poet and composer.
On December 19, 1961, militsiya officer Dyak, along with Mykola Fediv, a cadet from the militsiya school, raised a blue-and-yellow flag over the village council building in Vytvytsia. In 1963, they raised two flags in Morshyn.
These events stirred the Prykarpattia region and prompted teacher Dmytro KVETSKO from the village of Kropyvnyk to begin working on a program for an underground organization, which was named the *“Ukrainian National Front.” The UNF* proposed an independent course of development for Ukraine in the form of “people’s socialism,” very similar to the realities of Western European social democracy.
At that time, Dyak was already in contact with the All-Ukrainian National Organization (UZNO), established on January 7, 1961, in the Dolyna district. At Dyak’s suggestion, UZNO, which by 1964 had about 50 members in several regions, adopted the name *“Ukrainian National Front.”* This organization was not uncovered by the KGB and existed until 1991. It is conventionally known as *UNF-2.*
In 1965, Dyak joined the UNF, bringing with him the underground group “Brotherhood of Taras.” In total, he recruited about 50 people into the UNF, mostly young people. He taught them clandestine work, forensics, and shooting with his service pistol.
In its nearly 3 years of existence, the UNF grew to 200 members in several regions of Ukraine. It published 16 issues of the typewritten journal “Volya i Batkivshchyna” (*Will and Fatherland*), as well as dozens of documents and leaflets authored by D. KVETSKO and Z. KRASIVSKY.
In October 1965, Dyak received 20 copies of the pamphlet “Who Are the Banderites and What Are They Fighting For” and materials from the “Information Bureau of the UHLR” from D. KVETSKO and left them in public places in Drohobych and Lviv. In the spring of 1966, KVETSKO showed Dyak a cache of OUN literature from 1947–1948, which had been found by Dmytro Yusyp. Afterward, Dyak took the pamphlets himself and distributed them in Ivano-Frankivsk, on the Dovbush Rocks near Yaremche, in the villages of Knyazholuka, Novoselytsia, and Myslivka in the Dolyna district, and in the village of Otynevychi, the town of Khodoriv, and the village of Ivana Franka in the Drohobych district of the Lviv region. His case file records more than 20 localities where he distributed or left copies of the journal “Volya i Batkivshchyna,” leaflets, and OUN pamphlets—about 250 items in total. He sometimes sent literature in inflatable bags down the Svicha River.
Dyak worked riskily but strictly adhered to conspiratorial methods, which is why he was never caught.
In connection with the trials of the *shestydesiatnyky* (Sixtiers) and the appearance of the “UNF Memorandum,” the official press announced that a press conference for foreign journalists featuring a former Banderite named Dzhuhal would be held in Kyiv on April 19, 1966. The goal was to assert that the Ukrainian national movement was instigated and funded from abroad. D. KVETSKO sent Dyak to Kyiv with 50 copies of the leaflet “Statement of the Ukrainian National Front.” On the night of April 19, Dyak distributed them on the streets and in mailboxes. After this, the KGB intensified its search for the UNF.
On the night of October 30, 1966—the anniversary of the *Lystopadovyi zryv* (November Uprising)—Dyak hung a blue-and-yellow flag he had made at the bus stop in Hoshiv and distributed 15 pamphlets in the village. In Bolekhiv, he smeared the monument to Lenin with bear fat. All the dogs barked at him.
In January 1967, Dyak noticed he was being followed. He discovered a listening device in his home in the village of Staryi Mizun. On March 21, 1967, Captain Dyak, a district commissioner of the Dolyna militsiya, was summoned to the regional internal affairs office, ostensibly on official business, and detained there. He escaped through a toilet window. He was arrested on March 22 near the village of Rakhynia, near the town of Dolyna. On March 23, a search of his home yielded 256 rounds of ammunition for a “Makarov” pistol and 8 for a “TT” pistol, as well as a rifle barrel with a bolt and magazine assembly. D. KVETSKO, Z. KRASIVSKY, and Ya. LESIV were arrested at the same time, followed later by V. KULYNIN. All were charged with treason (Article 56, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR), for which there was no actual basis, and with creating an anti-Soviet organization (Article 64). Dyak was also charged with illegal possession of a weapon (Article 222, Part 1).
For 46 days, Dyak refused to testify. Then, senior investigator Baranov threatened to frame him for a “wet job” (a murder case) and have him executed. The case was heard by the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR from November 16 to 27, 1967. The verdict stated that “Kvestko, Krasivsky, and Dyak, for their actions, deserve the exceptional measure of punishment—the death penalty. However, taking into account that they admitted their guilt, repented of their crimes, and condemned their anti-Soviet activities,” the court limited itself to the maximum sentence for KVETSKO—15 years of imprisonment and 5 years of exile—and long sentences for KRASIVSKY and Dyak: 12 years of imprisonment, with the first 5 years to be served in a prison and the remaining 7 in a strict-regime correctional labor colony, followed by 5 years of exile and confiscation of all their property.
Dyak served his sentence in Vladimir Prison. The diet there was 1,500 calories a day (costing 9–10 rubles a month), and the camp store allowance was 2.5 rubles, which was denied for any infraction, such as lying on the bunk before lights out. In 1972, he was in the Mordovian camps, and later in VS-389/35 at Vsekhsvyatskaya station in the Perm region.
In 1973, Dyak was diagnosed with lymphogranulomatosis (Hodgkin's disease). He was sent to the hospital in Perm Prison several times. For example, Dyak was brought to the hospital on January 24, 1974, but treatment did not begin until February 13. He needed to be treated in an onco-hematology clinic, but no hospital in the MVS (Ministry of Internal Affairs) system had one.
On April 16, 1974, Dyak submitted a statement to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR regarding the activities of the UNF, pointing out that he had been blackmailed and that Article 56 had been applied without grounds. Dyak concluded his statement as follows: *“I do not believe in either the justice or the humanity of the Soviet system. Therefore, it would be futile to demand a review of the case or the annulment of the unlawful sentence. It would also be futile to seek treatment in a specialized onco-hematology clinic. Therefore, with my statement, I only express my protest against the illegal methods of investigation, against the court, against my exile from Ukraine, and I also protest that I, as a prisoner, am deprived of the opportunity to receive treatment in medical institutions appropriate for my illness.”* The statement was secretly smuggled out, and Radio Liberty repeatedly reported on the course of Dyak's illness. Under pressure from the international community and in preparation for the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, a medical commission in May 1975 certified Dyak as a stage 4 cancer patient, and the court released him from further imprisonment.
Dyak returned home on June 2, 1975. With the help of A. D. Sakharov, he was examined at the Moscow Oncology Center on July 19, 1975. Yelena Bonner obtained scarce medications for him. In late 1975, Dyak underwent a three-month course of treatment at the Ivano-Frankivsk oncology hospital. The doctors were amazed by his spiritual strength. A. Sakharov suggested that Dyak go to Israel for treatment, but he preferred to die in his own land: “Mother, be glad that you will have my grave.” He died on August 18, 1976. A funeral attended by many people was held in his native village on August 21. M. HORYN and Ya. LESIV were present.
On September 2, 2001, a memorial plaque with a bas-relief of Mykhaylo Dyak was unveiled on the facade of the Prykarpattia Branch of the National Academy of MVS of Ukraine in Ivano-Frankivsk.
Bibliography:
1.
Dyak, Mykhaylo. “Statement to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, April 16, 1974.” *Suchasnist*, 1974, no. 7–8 (199-200), pp. 219–222; also in: *Ukrayinskyi Natsionalnyi Front: Doslidzhennya, dokumenty, materialy* [The Ukrainian National Front: Research, Documents, Materials], ed. by M. V. Dubas and Yu. D. Zaitsev. Lviv: I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2000, pp. 453–455.
2.
Kheyfets, Mikhail. “Banderivski syny” [The Sons of Bandera]. *Ukrayinski syluety* [Ukrainian Silhouettes]. New York: Suchasnist, 1983, pp. 219–225 (in Ukrainian and Russian; also: *Pole vidchayu y nadiyi. Almanakh* [Field of Despair and Hope: An Almanac]. Kyiv: 1994, pp. 333-339; M. Kheyfets, *Izbrannoe* [Selected Works]. In three volumes. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Kharkiv: Folio, 2000, pp. 152-156; *Ukrayinski syluety* / M. R. Kheyfets; intro by B. Ye. Zakharov; Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Kharkiv: “Vydavnytstvo prava liudyny” Ltd, 2015, pp. 184-185, 187, 189.
Kasyanov, Heorhiy. *Nezhodni: ukrayinska intelihentsiya v rusi oporu 1960-1980-kh rokiv* [The Dissenters: The Ukrainian Intelligentsia in the Resistance Movement of the 1960s–1980s]. Kyiv: Lybid, 1995, p. 74.
Rusnachenko, Anatoliy. *Natsionalno-vyzvolnyi rukh v Ukrayini* [The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine]. Kyiv: Olena Teliha Publishing House, 1998, pp. 105–135, esp. 111–113, 116.
Dyak, O. M. *Mykhaylo Dyak na svitlynakh, u spohadakh, dokumentakh* [Mykhaylo Dyak in Photographs, Memoirs, and Documents]. Edited by Oles Dyak. Lviv: SPOLOM, 2004, 128 pp.
*International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1.* Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006, pp. 238–241. https://museum.khpg.org/1128023459
*Rukh oporu v Ukrayini: 1960 – 1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk* [The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 – 1990. An Encyclopedic Guide]. Preface by Osyp Zinkevych and Oles Obertas. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010, pp. 226–227; 2nd ed.: 2012, pp. 249–250.
Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. May 7, 2004. Last reviewed August 8, 2016.
