Valeriy Marchenko: A Chronicle of a Murder

(A chapter from the forthcoming book “Secretly Sentenced”)

“In this sorrow, the only consolation can be

a moral victory, a worthy outcome: Artyom

died unbowed. Eternal memory to him.”

(From a telegram by V. Marchenko to Tallinn on the death of

Artyom Yuskevych [1], February 1982)

VALERIY VENIAMINOVYCH MARCHENKO, 37, a philologist, translator (from several languages), renowned Ukrainian dissident, advocate for an independent Ukraine who actively opposed the Russification of Ukrainian national culture, member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, two-time political prisoner of the Perm camps, publicist, and author of numerous samizdat works, such as “Kyiv Dialogue” (Ukrainian: “Kyyivsʹkyy dialoh”), “Behind the Screen of Ideology” (“Za paravanom ideynosti”), “A Dreadful Burden” (“Strashnyy yakysʹ tyahar”), “An Open Letter to My Grandfather” (“Vidkrytyy lyst do dida”), “An Appeal to Metropolitan Filaret of Kyiv” (“Do kyyivsʹkoho mytropolyta Filareta. Zvernennya”), “Meet the Banderite” (“Znayomtesʹ, banderivetsʹ”), “The Situation of Political Prisoners in the USSR” (“Stanovyshche politv'yazniv u SSSR”), “To Believe, and Only That” (“Viryty i tilʹky”), and others, died on October 7, 1984, in the Ivan Gaaz Leningrad Regional Prison Hospital (institution US 20/12) from uremia, as stated on his death certificate. However, many circumstances of this tragedy, which became known to his mother, Nina Mikhailovna Smuzhanitsia, lead to the unequivocal conclusion that his death was the result of a planned medical murder, purposefully carried out by the KGB.

A literary contributor to the Kyiv newspaper “Literaturna Ukrayina” (“Literary Ukraine”), V. Marchenko was first arrested by the KGB at the end of June 1973. He was accused of authoring, disseminating, and attempting to pass to the West works of a sharply anti-Soviet and anti-Russian nature. For instance, his “Kyiv Dialogue” contains these words: “...The absence of elementary legality, torture, violence, murder without trial or investigation... terror, genocide—all these are from the arsenal of the Russian ‘brothers’ in their fight against the people of Ukraine... This predatory, barbarically savage, and unbridled theory of one nation absorbing others will meet with ever-increasing resistance from Ukrainians and all peoples of the neo-empire...” [2].

V. Marchenko was declared a “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist,” and on December 29, 1973, he was sentenced under Article 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR to six years in strict-regimen camps and two years of exile. The verdict stated, among other things, that his works “contain malicious slander against Soviet reality and the national policy of the CPSU... and include calls to fight against the existing state and social order in the USSR...” [3]. In simple human language, this translated to two words: “mortal enemy!”

His mother would later express his ideology in these words: “...Valeriy decided for himself: the KGB are the enemies of his people! Soviet power is not his power! As a student at a Soviet university, a Komsomol member, he realized: ‘I want this to be my country!’...” [4].

A year and a half after the trial, while in prison, he wrote in his “Open Letter to My Grandfather”: “...In opposing an entire empire of lies, I had but one support—the awareness that the yoke is unbearable... And it should not be countered with silent passivity...” [5].

V. Marchenko served his sentence in full in the 35th Perm political camp (Institution VS-389/35) and his exile in Kazakhstan. In the camp, his chronic illness—nephritis (kidney inflammation)—worsened to such an extent that the KGB was forced to agree to the Group III disability status recommended by doctors. Despite his disability, he was still required to meet the full production quota, and when the starving, disease-worn man failed to do so, he was deprived of his commissary privileges.

Throughout this time, he received virtually no adequate medical care. Outwardly, everything seemed normal: he was sometimes admitted to the camp hospital, some tests were run, some medications prescribed... But the reality was far more complex. Nephritis is a dangerous and insidious disease requiring highly specific treatment. Here are excerpts from his mother’s correspondence with the camp authorities.

“To the Chief of the ITK, Major N. V. Pimenov

...Dear Comrade Chief!

On July 22 of this year, I sent a parcel of medicines addressed to you for my son, Valeriy Marchenko, who is in the infirmary... To this day, I have not received any notification that you have received these medications...

My concern is that he needs to start taking these drugs immediately... Nephrology specialists insist on an immediate course of treatment for a new symptom of his illness—hypoisosthenuria [6]—which includes these medicines as part of a complex therapy...

N. M. Smuzhanitsia...” (early August 1974).

She did not yet know that two days earlier, a reply had already been sent from the camp, signed by the acting colony chief (the signature was illegible):

“We inform you that the parcel with medicines has been returned to you, as its contents, according to the Internal Regulations of the ITUs, are not permitted to be handed over...”

But the mother did not give up:

“Dear Comrade Chief!..

I have again sent the most essential medicines for my son—5-NOK [7] and Nevigramon [8]. A very small parcel... It will be addressed to the head of the medical unit...

With gratitude to you...

Smuzhanitsia N. M...” (August 1974).

The replies from the camp were formulaic:

“...According to existing regulations, sending medications to prisoners or to the medical unit is prohibited. Your son is receiving the necessary treatment... At present, his health is satisfactory...

Acting Chief of Institution VS-389/35 Polyakov...” (late August 1974).

Ten years later, testifying as a witness at V. Marchenko’s second trial, the camp doctor, Yarunin, would state that Marchenko “was the only prisoner with such a disease, and he was provided with medical care...” Yet, in the same breath, he would admit that “the necessary medications for treatment were often unavailable...”

His mother desperately appealed, this time to the camp’s political officer:

“Dear Comrade Political Officer!..

Hypoisosthenuria is a disabling condition. The insidious nature of nephritis is such that a minor oversight can cause the kidneys to suddenly fail. This illness prohibits exposure to cold, physical exertion is contraindicated, and a strict diet is necessary...

I earnestly ask you, as a political worker... to petition the authorities to provide my son with warm clothing, assign him manageable work, and grant permission for him to receive the necessary medications...

With gratitude,

N. M. Smuzhanitsia...” (August 1974).

Time passed, V. Marchenko’s health deteriorated, and the medications he desperately needed were still not being accepted...

“...Parcels of medication to the medical unit are not permitted according to existing regulations.

Chief of Hospital VS-389/35 Yarunin...” (February 1975).

“...The parcel with medications has been returned to your address, as sending and delivering medications to prisoners is not permitted.

Chief of Institution VS-389/35 Pimenov...” (May 1975).

And so it went, year after year.

In one of the replies from the camp, a strange phrase, at first glance, unexpectedly appears: “...I also wish to inform you: that your son is misbehaving...” [9].

The sinister meaning of this phrase was revealed later when it became known that the KGB had been systematically conducting “soul-saving talks” with the gravely ill V. Marchenko in the camp. The calculation was simple: a prisoner without proper medication, inexorably succumbing to an incurable disease, might suddenly become compliant... They wanted to persuade him to make a public recantation, and from there, perhaps, they could gradually co-opt him, turn him into a tame journalist who, being Ukrainian himself, would (talentedly!) condemn Ukrainian nationalism for a handsome fee and praise the “policies of the Party and government.” But V. Marchenko was unyielding. He was “misbehaving.” This phrase was nothing less than crude pressure on his mother to compel her to persuade her uncooperative son to negotiate with the KGB. They offered her a game in which the life of her only son was at stake...

In late September 1977, he was unexpectedly brought to Kyiv. His kidneys were treated, he was fed a dietary regimen, his teeth were fixed, any medicines were accepted for him, and he was granted several visits with his mother... Then, he was offered the chance to write a recantation. When he refused, they did not give up or leave him in peace but continued to insist, ever so casually: “Just write something, and we’ll edit it...” This was repeated again and again... (In the Ukrainian KGB, he was handled by the head of the investigative department, Colonel V. Turkin, Major A. Siryk, and Lieutenants F. Pokhyl and Selyuk).

His mother was told: “This is your last chance to save your son! There won’t be another!” And during one visit, she faltered: “Valera! Write the recantation! Everyone lies, so you lie too!” The way he looked at her!

He left deeply upset, and in a letter he immediately wrote to her from his cell, were these words: “...I do not wish to belong to that numerous category of people who, unable to withstand the trials, have strayed from the path of morality, justifying themselves with the argument ‘We are not the only ones!’... And I refuse to listen to anyone who tries to convince me that for the sake of biological existence near one’s mother, one can spiritually negate oneself...” He did not want his mother (to whom he was deeply spiritually attached) to see him, when asked how he had lived his thirty years, forced each time to “make puppy-dog eyes and mumble something about his severe illness and intolerable suffering, which he could not endure...” “Is this really the life you would wish for your son?!” he exclaimed [10]...

They held him in Kyiv for six months, then took him back to the camp. His mother was left with a persistent feeling that his refusal to cooperate with the KGB, after such conditioning, was something they would never forgive him for...

On the way to Perm, at the Kharkiv transit prison, he was exposed to a draft and contracted pneumonia. (He later told his mother that he had the impression he was “deliberately exposed to the draft” during the transport). For the remainder of the transport, plus sixteen days in the camp, he received no adequate medical care. When he was finally hospitalized, one and a half liters (!) of fluid were drained from his pleura.

“To the Chief of the Perm Medical Directorate of the MVD

...My son, V. Marchenko... is gravely ill... The month-long journey from Kyiv to the ITK has further aggravated his condition... I earnestly request that you transfer him to a dietary regimen and order the ITK chief to receive the medications I have sent... I earnestly ask for your assistance in allowing him an additional parcel with rosehips and black currants.

Mother of prisoner Marchenko...” (May 1978).

This letter, as expected, was sent down to the camp.

“...V. Marchenko's condition is satisfactory. He is provided with medication as recommended by doctors. The parcel will be returned to you...

Chief of Institution VS-389/35 N. M. Osin...” (June 1978).

Shortly before this, his mother had written to the USSR MVD:

“...5-NOK, black chokeberry fruits, levomycetin [11], lespenephril [12]—these are scarce medications, and I know for certain that they are not available in the camp hospital...” (July 1978) [13].

“To the Chairman of the All-Union

Society of the Red Cross

...My son, Valeriy Marchenko... has been in the strict-regimen camp VS-389/35 for 5 years and 1 month... He is seriously ill with a chronic, progressive kidney disease... and related diseases of the internal organs... In April of this year, during a difficult, month-long transport from Kyiv to the camp (he was taken to Kyiv in the fall, also a month-long transport), he fell ill with pneumonia... In response to my inquiries, I received answers like: ‘Health condition is satisfactory...’, ‘Undergoing prophylactic treatment...’ (during an acute case of pneumonia!)... He is currently in the hospital, where he is being treated with prednisone [14], which, as is well known, has a negative effect on the liver and kidneys... Only now have they agreed to accept 5-NOK and lespenephril (after so many years of refusal! —V.K.)...

I am appealing to the Red Cross... with a request to petition the Soviet authorities for the early (11 months of camp and two years of exile remain) and swift release of V. Marchenko from custody...

With hope in you...

Smuzhanitsia N. M...” (July 1978) [15].

In his mother’s opinion, the fact that the KGB finally allowed V. Marchenko to receive medications vital to his survival was a testament to his extremely grave condition. The KGB no longer feared that these drugs would significantly help him. Let him take them! He was already doomed! Now no one could say he wasn't treated adequately in the Gulag!

The work was also killing him. He states this directly in his appeal to the Minister of Justice of the Ukrainian SSR, V. I. Zaichuk [16], where he asks to be employed in the camp according to his profession [17]. He explains that he is the only specialist in Ukraine in the field of translating modern Azerbaijani classical literature and proposes that he be allowed to sign a contract for such a translation with one of the republic’s publishing houses.

“...The undisputed winner,” he wrote to the minister, “will be Ukrainian culture... Furthermore, there is another important aspect. I am gravely ill with a kidney disease. Work at the factory in the camp is beyond my strength. I am unable to meet the production quota (which, by the way, has already been raised twice, without the technical improvements required by the KZOT [18] [19]). Failure to meet the quota, despite my Group 3 disability, is used by the camp administration to punish me. And... the consequences of the efforts of those who are ‘habituating’ me to labor are not long in coming. I am now a crippled man; listlessness and other symptoms of the disease have become constant for me...” (late December 1977).

He addressed a similar request (to help him translate Shakespeare into Ukrainian while imprisoned) to the Secretary-General of UNESCO. Meanwhile, in his mother’s aforementioned appeal to the Red Cross, are these words:

“...The exact results of his tests are concealed from us, which gives the camp administration grounds not to release him from work...”

And so it went, day after day, until the end of his camp term...

“To the Chief of the Medical Service Directorate of the USSR MVD...

My son, V. V. Marchenko... is in an extremely grave physical condition. He has chronic pyeloglomerulonephritis [20], chronic cholecystoangiocholitis [21], renal hypertension [22], with high blood pressure (sometimes reaching 230/160). In the camp, he developed pancreatitis [23], endured severe pleurisy [24], and is under constant threat of tuberculosis (or perhaps already has it?). His current condition is unknown to me...

I ask you to support my petition... to release him from the grueling transport to his place of exile... I ask... you to allow me to transport my sick son to his place of exile myself, and I ask that you assign a place with climatic conditions that are not fatal to his life.

With great hope in you.

Smuzhanitsia N. M...” (May 1979).

She addressed a similar request to the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, Shchelokov [25]. But again, her hope hung in the air...

“...To Citizen N. M. Smuzhanitsia...

...We inform you that Marchenko has been examined by medical specialists; his health condition is satisfactory.

Your son is currently being sent to serve his additional punishment in the form of exile.

Deputy Chief of Institution VS-389/35 N. V. Khorkov...” (June 7, 1979).

Thus, his mother was informed that her son was being sent to exile, without a single word about the date he departed from the camp or, most importantly, his destination! A coincidence?!

Only two weeks later did she receive a telegram from Captain Khorkov, informing her that V. Marchenko had departed from the camp to the Karakalpak ASSR.

“Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

To Minister Shchelokov

I implore you to inform me of the whereabouts of my gravely ill son, Valeriy Marchenko... Institution 389 reported that he... was sent to the Karakalpak ASSR, but a negative response came from there.

Smuzhanitsia N. M...” (July 3, 1979).

“To the Prosecutor General of the USSR...

...By what law can it be explained that my son should have been released from convoy 19 days ago, yet nothing is known of him... he was sent to the Karakalpak ASSR, but he is not registered there. My three appeals to the Minister of Internal Affairs... have gone unanswered...

Smuzhanitsia N. M...” (July 13, 1979).

Only three weeks later did she receive a message from the Aktobe Regional Executive Committee, informing her of her son's location:

“...Valeriy Marchenko is serving his exile in Aktobe region, Uil district, Saralzhin settlement...” (August 2, 1979) [26].

In exile, everything was directed at his destruction. A harsh climate, hard labor... One might argue that exile is not a resort; the conditions are not supposed to be sweet. But V. Marchenko was gravely, one might say terminally, ill. This was known to everyone—from the chairman of the USSR KGB down to the last guard in every prison he ever had the misfortune of being in...

“To the Director of the Uil Agricultural Association

From Valeriy V. Marchenko

Due to the noticeable deterioration of my health recently, I am unable to perform the work of a mechanic in the machine yard (machine and tractor station —V.K.)... My illness is such... that I cannot engage in physical labor involving hypothermia. All this compels me to request a discharge from my position as a mechanic in the machine yard...

However, I can only work with limited capacity. Therefore, I ask you to appoint me as a projectionist’s apprentice in the club—a position more suitable for my condition...” (early November 1980) [27].

He was not transferred from the cold, wind-swept machine yard. He continued to work there—as a mechanic, then as a loader... Three and a half years later in Kyiv, testifying as a witness at V. Marchenko’s second trial, the director of the Uil state farm would admit that “work... in the open farmyard in the Kazakh frosts is indeed not for a sick man...” [28].

“The hard physical labor that I must now perform in exile...,” V. Marchenko wrote to the head of the World Association of Nephrologists, Dr. Alwall, “...is increasingly destroying what little health was miraculously not tortured out of me behind the barbed wire...” [29].

“To the Chief Physician

of the Saralzhin Hospital

Tashimova

From V. Marchenko

After 18 years with chronic nephritis, a hypertensive form has developed over the last few years, and my blood pressure does not drop below 180/120. I constantly feel unwell. Weakness, rapid fatigue, and constant headaches. I sleep poorly, and I have lost my appetite. Recently, my vision has worsened. All this compels me to request hospitalization...” (early October 1980) [30].

At V. Marchenko’s second trial, prosecution witness Tashimova, the chief physician of the Saralzhin hospital, would admit that she had indeed refused to give the sick man a medical leave certificate from work in 30-degree frost in an open yard. She would also state that she had always considered “an arterial pressure of 190/130 to be a working pressure”...

Interestingly, both witnesses—the farm director and the chief physician—admitted that they regularly informed the regional authorities that “Marchenko had not embarked on the path of correction” [31].

On behalf of the KGB, he was covertly monitored by numerous officials, not to mention the informants who riddled all public places he frequented. (This included the Uil and Saralzhin hospitals, where informants were “planted” under the guise of patients). In 1980, his apartment in Saralzhin was searched by two Aktobe KGB agents with the sanction of the Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR [32]...

From the character reference for V. Marchenko, written by the chief of the Uil district police department, Major Darmenkulov:

“...He did not violate public order or the terms of his exile, but he did not change his views or beliefs...” [33].

V. Marchenko returned to Kyiv, and the KGB immediately put him under tight surveillance. Total surveillance was established over him; he noticed it almost on the first day of his return. At times, it was ostentatious, clearly aimed at demoralizing him. Sometimes he noticed strangers trying to discreetly overhear his conversations with friends... At home, there were strange anonymous phone calls, sometimes threatening...

Shortly before his second arrest, as if summarizing his two years of freedom, he wrote a statement to Y. Andropov, who was then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR:

“In the very first days of my return, I encountered... persecution that extended my term of exile indefinitely. Before I found a job as a watchman in a flower nursery for 75 rubles a month, I had visited more than 20 workplaces...”

Meanwhile, a local police officer would visit his home and, with innocent eyes, ask why he was not working anywhere.

“...For a year, I was under administrative supervision...”

He had to report regularly to the police station and be home by 10 p.m. And every day, two minutes before that hour, the figure of a police sergeant would already be looming in his doorway, strictly ensuring that V. Marchenko was not, God forbid, even a minute late.

“...In addition, I was secretly monitored. I was watched at home from a neighboring apartment, I was followed on the street, whether I was going to church alone, to the market with my mother, or to the cinema with a friend. My mail is read, and some letters disappear. My phone is bugged. In the fall of 1981, I received a threatening phone call from an unknown person who identified himself as a former prisoner...

At work, my belongings were rummaged through by a female employee who was in contact with a KGB officer. Unidentified individuals enter our apartment and our dacha during our absence. Someone systematically searches the workplaces of my parents and relatives. They are looking, I understand, for evidence of my anti-state activities...”

The KGB was clearly looking for a pretext to imprison him for another term, and on July 15, 1983, a search was conducted at V. Marchenko’s apartment and their family dacha...

“...During the search... they seized my fictional articles, dating to the 11th and 19th centuries. They seized my translation of the story ‘The Force of Circumstance’ by the English writer Somerset Maugham... they took two invitations for medical treatment in Italy...

No other materials of any value to state security were found, although the search was conducted very thoroughly. Afterward, I was taken for interrogation, even though I was ill—with a blood pressure of 200 over 105, and they had no right to do so...”

And then there was an attempt to impose a fabricated charge on him.

“...Investigator Boyarsky stated that workers from the RSMU [34], who were laying a water pipeline to the cooperative gardens... found a canvas packet in our garden with two brochures of the ‘Chronicle of Current Events,’ wrapped in the last page of my translation of ‘The Force of Circumstance’...

This is proof that... they want to pin Article 62 of the Ukrainian SSR Criminal Code on me... Who would hide incriminating evidence together with their own signature?... I declare with full responsibility that this is a provocation... by the KGB... July 20, 1983.” [35].

In late September 1983, he was arrested for a second time. He was again charged under a political article, accused of the “production (from 1974 to 1983 —V.K.) and dissemination among Soviet citizens of documents slandering the Soviet social and state system,” as well as the “transfer of these documents abroad, where they were actively used by the ideological enemies of the USSR...”

The trial was practically closed (only his mother and aunt were allowed into the courtroom, and none of his friends) and effectively lasted one day—March 13, 1984. (The verdict was read out on March 14) [36]. The indictment featured publicist works he had written in the camp— “Open Letter to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,” “Meet the Banderite,” “Anton Oliynyk,” “Open Letter to the Journalists of the GDR,” “Open Letter to the Director-General of UNESCO,” “The Situation of Political Prisoners in the USSR,” “Cherchez la Femme,” and others.

Three of his other works, also presented at the trial, came to light at different times: the essay “What Helped Him Endure” (“Shcho dalo yomu vytrymaty”), about UPA member Kyselyk, was written in the Kyiv KGB isolation ward when Valeriy was brought from the camp to Kyiv for “prophylaxis”; “An Open Letter to My Grandfather” (“Vidkrytyy lyst do dida”) was written in exile in Kazakhstan; a letter to Halya Horbach with the attached essay “There, in the Kyiv Caves” (“Tam, u kyyivsʹkykh pecherakh”) was written in Kyiv a few months before his second arrest.

Some of the works presented by the prosecution (including the essay “What Helped Him Endure”) had been seized in prison or in the camp at the time; the rest had been published in the West and were broadcast, in the prosecutor’s words, by “radio stations hostile to the Soviet Union”... In each of his works, according to this prosecutor, V. Marchenko expressed “terrible slanderous fabrications, with the aim of undermining and weakening Soviet power”...

Here is an example of a dialogue between the prosecutor and V. Marchenko regarding a particular work:

– For what purpose did you produce this document, hostile to Soviet power in its content?

– With the purpose of telling people the truth.

– Do you claim that everything you wrote is the truth?

– The absolute truth!

– How did this document get outside the ITL?

– I will not say.

– Why?

– Because you throw people in prisons. You don’t need the truth. You need to put a man in prison.

– Marchenko, imagine what would happen if every person in our country started writing whatever they pleased, and even passed it abroad?

– It would be like a real democratic country...

One of the prosecution’s arguments was a negative character reference issued to V. Marchenko by the camp administration. It stated that he “never embarked on the path of correction.” And the ITL and KGB workers, summoned to court as witnesses, testified that on various occasions they had confiscated from V. Marchenko the handwritten texts of some of the letters now incriminated to him.

One of the witnesses was the deputy camp chief, Polyakov, the same man who for years had assured Valeriy’s mother that her son was “being provided with the necessary treatment”... Without a single word about V. Marchenko being a Group III disabled person, Polyakov testified that he “did not meet the production quota and was therefore often punished.”

His mother confirmed that she had been constantly told at the time that “because her son was not meeting the quota, he would not be hospitalized, and medications from her would not be accepted...” and she testified that providing medical assistance to her son in the camp, and later in exile, required “superhuman efforts” from both her and him.

In his final statement, V. Marchenko said (reconstructed from the memory of his mother and aunt):

“When I entered the University, I learned that five million Ukrainians voluntarily renounce their native language, the beauty and richness that every person receives at birth... Concerning this unnatural phenomenon—why Ukrainians on their own land are losing connection with their native language—I wrote two articles in 1973: ‘Behind the Screen of Ideology’ and ‘Kyiv Dialogue,’ which never saw the light of day and which no one had a chance to read. For them, the Kyiv Regional Court punished me with eight years of imprisonment.

Being in the Soviet Perm concentration camps (it turns out Ukraine is the only country in the UN that exiles its prisoners beyond its own territory), I encountered lies and lawlessness. As a free man, that is, one who considers himself free wherever and in whatever conditions he finds himself, I could not remain silent and wrote about it. For this, I am now being tried.

I am against lies, stupefaction, and falsehood. I am for free, uninhibited thought. I defend human dignity and, in upholding high moral principles, I am guided, as a Christian, by God’s commandments. As a citizen and a man, I am ashamed of my country, where women serve 25 years of hard labor just for their convictions. In the entire history of states, there have been no such shameful facts...”

The judge interrupted the defendant, not letting him speak, and kept asking:

– What do you ask for?

– What do you want from the court?

But V. Marchenko asked for nothing, continuing instead to name facts of lawlessness in the camps, speaking of constant searches, of the seizure and disappearance of artistic literary works, translations...

Valeriy Marchenko:

“I am accused of slandering Soviet medicine. In the 35th Perm zone, the VTEK assigned Ivan Svitlychny [37] to perform ‘light’ work—assembling units from small parts, knowing that he had no fingers. The medical commission deemed him fit for this work, and the commission’s findings stated that he had ‘five healthy fingers on both hands’ (instead of two). Then, on a sheet of paper, they traced Ivan’s right hand with its one finger (the little finger —V.K.) and sent it to the prosecutor in Perm—no answer came. Is this slander against Soviet medicine?

For my death in the camp, you, citizen judge, will be to blame. And here, under this coat of arms of the Ukrainian SSR, I propose hanging the handprint of Ivan Svitlychny with the medical affirmation—‘5 fingers!’ The sentence (will be —V.K.) is essentially the same as that affirmation...”

Throughout the court session, V. Marchenko felt unwell; he had a headache, and renal colic appeared... He could only stand by leaning on the barrier, asking the guards for water...

To the judge’s repeated question, “What do you want from the court?” V. Marchenko eventually said, “Just give me your 15 years!”

He was sentenced to 10 years in a special-regime camp and 5 years of exile.

Young women broke through into the hall, threw red carnations at him...

Before the trial, on the KGB’s initiative, a consultation was organized for V. Marchenko with a famous Kyiv urology professor. Without hesitation, the professor officially testified that in the camp conditions, he would “certainly perish.”

Despite this conclusion, the Supreme Court of Ukraine rejected his appeal to review the case, and the refusal came with unprecedented speed: almost the very next day.

According to human rights activists and V. Marchenko’s relatives, the consultation with the urologist right before his show trial was needed by the KGB to apply one more layer of psychological pressure on him: “Look, kid, there’s no way out of the camp for you, only feet first. Come to your senses! There’s still time.”

There was another purpose the KGB apparently pursued with this consultation. Not hoping for V. Marchenko’s repentance, the agents were identifying the weaknesses in his health to know how to medically dispose of him competently...

After the trial, he was granted three visits with his mother. During the last one, as they parted, his mother was not allowed to kiss her son...

On April 2, 1984, V. Marchenko was sent to the camp, and this, as his mother would later recount, is where the direct medical murder began.

When she came to the prison a few days later for his belongings, she was officially given a paper stating that he had been “transported to Mordovia, to the city of Yavas.” She wrote there and soon received a reply that he had “not arrived at the colony.” Distraught, she began to search for her son—twice she traveled to Moscow, sending 15 telegrams to various Soviet institutions...

“To the Chief of the GULAG of the USSR MVD...

(Copy: To the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR...)

I am a mother. I have the right to know the truth about my son: is he alive? 42 days ago, at the KGB investigative isolator, I was informed that Valeriy Marchenko... had been taken from Kyiv to the Mordovian ASSR. To one of the camps.

Where is my son now? My letters, my applications, my pleas—are unanswered.

A terrible silence... Where is he? Is he alive?

The mother of political prisoner Valeriy Marchenko...” (May 1984) [38].

Meanwhile, as he would later tell her during a visit, he was shunted around for 52 days in transit between numerous prisons—Kharkiv, Mordovia, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kazan... He was transported, as was customary, in “Stolypin cars”—all day without water (often after being fed salted herring or sprat), sometimes unable to use the toilet for 12 hours... And this with diseased kidneys! And when he finally arrived at a camp zone where there was a commissary, it turned out he couldn’t buy anything: the money that had been on his prison account in Kyiv had not followed him. The KGB had held it back...

In mid-May, his mother received a message from her son from the Kazan prison. She rushed there, but it was a wasted trip: V. Marchenko had just been transported to Perm. The day before! Mere hours before her arrival! And yet the KGB knew, down to the minute, when she had left Kyiv and when she would arrive in Kazan...

She was denied a visit at the Perm prison...

“To the Chief of the KGB Directorate of Chusovskoy District, Perm Region, Afanasov

On the orders of the KGB, I have been denied a visit with my gravely ill son...

He was in transit for 1 month and 22 days instead of the officially announced... 5-7 days. It is not hard to imagine what is left of a man with such a disease... I have been traveling for ten days... The refusal to grant me a brief visit, the refusal to accept a parcel of dried fruit, I regard as an unwillingness to show me a gravely ill man, driven to the brink, and as mockery of a mother.

I demand immediate, desperately needed medical assistance from a nephrologist... For the life of Valeriy Marchenko, you bear full responsibility.

Mother of political prisoner Valeriy Marchenko...” (late May 1984) [39].

Soon he was transferred to the 36th special-regime political zone (institution VS-389/36-1) for particularly dangerous recidivists...

“To His Grace

the Bishop of the Perm and Solikamsk Diocese

Afanasiy

Your Grace!

...My son, journalist Valeriy Marchenko... has been sentenced to 10 long years in the camps... He will serve this cruel punishment in the Perm region. My son is an Orthodox Christian, a deeply faithful man. He came to religion through great suffering—he has suffered from a severe kidney disease since the age of 16. At 25... while ill, he was sentenced to 6 years in strict-regimen camps and 2 years of exile. Living in the harsh conditions of the camps... (from 1973 to 1979), he managed to enrich his soul with an inexhaustible kindness towards people, a great sense of love and compassion for human humiliation and suffering. To help people, to follow Christ in his deeds—this became his life's creed, and God's commandments became the foundation of all his life's actions.

He turned many who loved and knew him toward religion. Since 1981, upon returning home to Kyiv, Valeriy regularly attended God's Temple, confessed, took communion, and strictly observed fasts. In late September 1983, he was arrested and tried a second time. Without taking his severe physical ailment into account... he was sentenced to 10 years in special-regime camps and 5 years of exile.

As a believing man, he wishes to meet with a priest for confession and communion...

As a mother, I turn to you, Your Grace, fulfill the request of a Christian, a man of tragic fate, find a way for my son to meet with a spiritual father... help this gravely ill man.

Mother of prisoner Valeriy Marchenko” (late May 1984) [40].

His mother hand-delivered this letter to Bishop Afanasiy. He said he would pray for Valeriy, and if the camp authorities permitted it, he would not object and would send a priest to her son. The authorities did not permit it...

Letters started coming from the camp, once a month. His mother received three—for May, June, and July. In one of them, he cryptically informed her that his legs were swelling (due to his diseased kidneys), and yet, because he was not meeting the work quota, he was being forced to work overtime... Much later, political prisoner Vasyl Ovsienko [41], who once managed to shake hands with V. Marchenko in the camp (they were in different cells but crossed paths during a monthly film screening), would write: “...his hand was thin, cold, clammy, and trembling. And he was incredibly gaunt, yet he tried to smile, a pained sort of smile. When we returned to our cell, Viktoras Petkus [42] said, ‘He's not long for this world.’ It was known that, “when a kettle was brought into the cell, V. Marchenko would wait until everyone had taken water, and then he would wet a sheet and wrap himself in it, naked. This was his way of trying to expel toxins from his body through the skin, toxins no longer being eliminated naturally. When he wrung out the sheet, a liquid as white as milk would drip from it...” [43].

Then the letters stopped. His mother wrote herself and received a reply that her son had “departed from the colony,” but it did not say where...

She began writing. First to the Perm regional GUITU (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Institutions, formerly the Gulag), then to the GUITU of the RSFSR, the Prosecutor’s Office of the RSFSR, the Main Medical Directorate of the MVD of the RSFSR... Then she went to Moscow and personally visited all these institutions. No one knew anything...

One day, she was sitting in the Prosecutor’s Office of the RSFSR and refused to leave... At some point, they realized that this desperate woman, ready for anything, would not just leave, and they confidentially told her that her son was in the Perm prison hospital...

It later turned out that when the letters from him had stopped, he had not been transferred to a hospital at all. He had been moved to a prison, where the bunks were not lowered during the day; where once his nose began to bleed, and another time, as he later told her, “mice started running before his eyes,” and he lost consciousness; where even the common criminals threatened a hunger strike if he were not immediately placed in a hospital!

In late August 1984, he was transferred to the prison hospital. A high-security ward, solitary confinement, treatment befitting a “striped one” [44]. His mother understood a great deal when she saw how the hospital staff treated her: in her words, at the sight of her, “they literally retched.” Two weeks later, she was granted a visit, the first since Kyiv. Valeriy arrived swollen (his kidneys were failing) and “as black as asphalt.” His mother realized her son was being murdered...

“To the Chairman of the Perm Regional Committee

of the Red Cross Society, V. I. Mananina...

My son, Valeriy Marchenko... is currently... in the inpatient hospital, institution IZ-57/1 (24 Klimenko St., Perm). He has developed renal failure (uremia), body swelling has appeared, his hemoglobin level is low, and he has lost his vision. He is bedridden, a patient on an IV drip.

I appeal to you, the head of the most humane organization, whose goal is to fight for the life... of a human being, with a mother’s plea—protect my dying son in prison, help have him released on medical grounds due to his critical condition, petition the relevant organizations to review his case... with the need to release him from confinement...

With hope in you, Nina Mikhailovna Smuzhanitsia...” (September 1984) [45].

In mid-September, V. Marchenko was flown to Leningrad, to the Ivan Gaaz Regional Prison Hospital (institution US 20/12). According to his mother, the fact that they did not dare send him by prison transport spoke to his very poor condition.

In late September, his mother visited the priest of the Church at the Smolensk Cemetery in Leningrad (the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God) and asked him to hear her dying son’s confession. The clergyman cursed and said he would not hear the confession of a “criminal.” “He should have thought about piety earlier and gone to church!” he said, his whole demeanor indicating the conversation was over. He reeked of cheap vodka...

At the hospital, his mother immediately sensed the “shadow of the KGB.” They wouldn't accept her parcel, and the prison warden flatly stated: “We will not accept anything from you, and in fact, we will do n-o-t-h-i-n-g (she emphasized the word) that you ask of us without permission from the KGB!” His mother was given the phone number of the KGB agent who, she was told, was overseeing her son.

They met in a small park in front of the Big House [46]. He turned out to be a young man (under thirty) and immediately began in a placating tone:

– Well, Nina Mikhailovna! Do you still intend to quarrel with us, or will we find a more amicable way? You probably want to deliver a parcel? Get a visit, yes? Well, you stop passing information to the West.

– But that’s not me! I’m not passing anything anymore!

They accepted her parcel and granted her a visit. Valeriy was brought in on a stretcher; it was clear his hands were trembling. He was placed on a cot, and his mother sat beside him. A KGB agent sat in the corner and, according to his mother, to his credit, he demonstratively turned to the window, his whole posture showing he was not at all interested in what they were talking about. The visit lasted two and a half hours, and by the end, his mother was consumed by an inescapable despair: her son was dying...

“To the Chief Physician of the Leningrad Regional Hospital (institution US 20/12)

I implore you to inform me daily of the condition of my son, V. Marchenko. I ask you to guarantee treatment at a modern level, that is, using the entire arsenal of modern medicine...” (late September 1984) [47].

On Saturdays, she would travel to Moscow to get an appointment at the MVD or the Prosecutor's Office on Monday. And by Tuesday morning, she was “back here again”—at the hospital...

“To the Minister of Health of the USSR

Article 362 of the RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure [48] provides for release from punishment due to illness. In the case of my son, Valeriy Marchenko... it is patently obvious that the severity of his illness excludes any social danger he might pose. I know for a fact that my son’s condition falls under the list of diseases that prevent serving a sentence, as approved by the USSR Minister of Health.

The deputy chief of the medical department of the Leningrad GVD, Lieutenant Colonel of the medical service P. G. Popov, confirmed on 09.26.84 that ‘Valeriy Marchenko is subject to release from serving his sentence due to his health condition.’

While awaiting a response, I remain in Leningrad at the gates of institution US 20/12.

Mother of prisoner V. Marchenko...” (September 30, 1984) [49].

In Moscow, she managed to get an appointment with the deputy chief of the Main Medical Directorate of the USSR MVD, Romanov. “Here are the documents,” he said, pointing to a stack of papers on his table, “we’ve written him off based on a medical report, as gravely ill.” On wings of hope, his mother rushed back to Leningrad...

The hospital chief (the conversation took place in the presence of the head physician) indifferently shrugged her shoulders: “We have no documents about his medical discharge; we know nothing.” The head physician had a look on his face as if he wanted to say, “What can I do?! That’s the management! I’m just a little person.”

Crushed by grief, the mother rushed to the KGB. An older colonel and another officer—the one she had met in the park—were friendly. Unabashedly, the mother screamed in their faces: “Murderers! What are you doing?!”

The reaction was surprisingly peaceful. The colonel calmly said, “Contact the Ukrainian KGB.”

– There is only one KGB! Are you trying to make a fool out of me?! – she saw she was cornering them.

Suddenly the colonel exploded: “Contact Kyiv! What do we have to do with it?!” Then, quietly, as if to himself, he uttered: “Do they want to stay clean over there in Ukraine?!”

“To the Chief of the USSR KGB Directorate for the Leningrad Region

My son, Valeriy Marchenko... due to his extremely grave condition, is subject to medical discharge. This was confirmed back on September 26 by the deputy chief of the medical department of the GVD of the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee, Lieutenant Colonel of the medical service P. G. Popov, (as well as —V.K.) the head physician and chief of institution US 20/12. The need... for such a decision was indicated on October 1 by the deputy chief of the medical directorate of the USSR MVD, Romanov.

The subsequent delay in making the decision is criminal, as it leads to death under prison conditions. I urgently request your immediate assistance in releasing my dying son from confinement...

Awaiting a response, I remain in Leningrad, near institution US 20/12...” (October 5, 1984) [50].

On that day, from the behavior of the hospital staff, the mother realized something had happened. Everyone suddenly became so polite, so courteous: “How is he feeling? We’ll find out right away! Please wait!”

On the night of October 6-7, 1984, Western radio announced that Valeriy Marchenko had died. Former political prisoner Lyubov Serednyak [51] heard it in Kyiv. The news was immediately relayed by phone to Valeriy’s aunt, who was in Leningrad at the time. However, thinking it might be a mistake, she said nothing to his mother.

On October 9, his mother forced her way into an appointment with the hospital chief (who had not seen her for several days prior). The head physician was also in the office. Both sat grim-faced, and his mother suddenly saw that they were avoiding eye contact. Looking off to the side, the chief informed her that her son, Valeriy Marchenko, had died two days earlier.

The mother broke down, screaming: “Murderers! Scoundrels! This damned regime! Butchers! Damn this KGB!”

They offered her water; she shoved it away. She demanded to be let in to see her son. They refused...

Later, the mother would say that the doctors couldn't have failed to see that Valeriy was dying, and they could very well have let him die in her arms. Why not? But she believes that at some point, they deliberately placed him in conditions that hastened his end. And in that case, of course, she was not needed. She believes they put him in those deadly conditions on October 5, 1984, the day everyone at the hospital suddenly became the very picture of politeness and courtesy...

For a long time, they would not release the body to his mother. First, there was no zinc for the coffin, then this or that official, without whom it supposedly couldn't be done, was unavailable... And besides, they said, he should be buried in Leningrad (the KGB feared that a funeral in Kyiv could provoke demonstrations by human rights activists). His mother wouldn’t even hear of Leningrad!

Day after day went by; she kept waiting for them to say: “He is no longer transportable; we will bury him here!” Then the thought occurred to her that perhaps he had already been quietly buried! In that case, she would have stopped at nothing!

Meanwhile, after V. Marchenko's death, a KGB officer visited his stepfather, Vasyl Smuzhanitsia, at his workplace in Kyiv, beginning with the words: “What a tragedy! What a tragedy!” (V. Smuzhanitsia suffered from Parkinson's disease, a consequence of a stroke he had after being summoned to the KGB over Valeriy, where he was threatened and shouted at). In his mother's opinion, the KGB wanted to persuade him to travel immediately to Leningrad, where he, a very sick man, would inevitably become a burden on her. And the KGB would have succeeded, if not for V. Marchenko's friend, Maryna Syrosynska. She visited them and saw V. Smuzhanitsia packing his bags. When she learned that a KGB car was to take him to the airport, she understood everything. She went out with him and approached the car: “Take me too!”

– There are no orders for that!

She got into the car anyway, and they drove off. They dropped her off along the way. However, she made her own way to the airport, bought a ticket to Leningrad, and sat next to Smuzhanitsia on the plane.

On October 13, 1984, the mother was given her son’s body. In Kyiv, the plane with the coffin was met by V. Marchenko's relatives and friends and an army of KGB agents... The public bus that brought the mother’s sisters and Valeriy’s cousin to the airport was escorted by an entire KGB motorcade...

For the funeral service, Valeriy was brought to the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God on Mostytska Street in the Kurenivka district, where it was the patronal feast day. A KGB-instructed priest immediately held the memorial service before a crowd could gather. And then what Yevhen Sverstiuk [52] later called a “miracle” happened: “When the priest, having fulfilled his formal duties, stepped aside, the coffin remained, the people remained, and the honor guard remained by the coffin. And here they (the KGB —V.K.) could do nothing. Everything went off-script. They were lost! They rushed to find the bus driver, but we had told the driver to come at 2 p.m. And it was only 10 a.m.! So, on the patronal feast day, in the middle of the church, the coffin of a zek, a particularly dangerous criminal, a recidivist, stood for four hours! People stood around it like an honor guard! Under the Soviets—an honor guard! And all the parishioners took notice. Old women lit candles and said, ‘He must have been a martyr.’ But no one explained to them who he was. They only guessed. And the KGB agents could do nothing! It was a miracle! For the first time, I felt the presence of a miracle!” [53].

He was buried in his mother's native village of Hatne near Kyiv, next to his grandfather. Many KGB cars arrived, and, according to a local schoolteacher, “there were fewer Hatne peasants than KGB agents.” A KGB colonel ordered the head of the village council to compile a list of all Marchenkos down to the fifth generation and give it to him [54].

The agents hid behind trees, behind other graves; some came close and, as his mother later recounted, behaved reprehensibly: openly snapping photographs, smirking sometimes directly in her face, and talking deliberately loudly...

Everything was done to make people afraid. On the approach to the cemetery and inside it—on the way to the grave itself—people were warned: “Don't go there. You know you’ll have trouble!”

They were very afraid of a rally, of fiery anti-Soviet and nationalist, by their standards, speeches. Someone remarked: “They're afraid of him even in death!”

But there was no rally.

– We will bury Valeriy! Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake! – Y. Sverstiuk began his graveside speech. And immediately, someone said: “It's starting!” But the speaker fell silent. After a brief pause, he spoke again. This time it was the “Our Father,” and then an excerpt from Lesya Ukrainka:

“A crown of thorns will always be more beautiful than a king’s crown.

The road to Golgotha more majestic than a triumphal march.

Thus it has always been. Thus it will be forever.

As long as people live, and as long as thorns grow.” [55].

Later, Y. Sverstiuk recounted: “We didn't want a conflict either. We only wanted to say at the grave what needed to be said. We quietly filled the grave and dispersed...” [56].

In the opinion of his mother and dissidents, former political prisoners, another miracle occurred in this tragedy with Valeriy. The fact is that prisoners who died in the Gulag were never returned to their relatives. There was a secret internal directive that when a zek died, he could only be buried near the place where he died or was imprisoned. He could only be reburied after his sentence had ended, meaning that even in death, he remained under arrest [57].

But after V. Marchenko's death, intense pressure from the West began to mount on the Soviet authorities: the U.S. Congress and President Ronald Reagan issued statements [58], Western radio stations tirelessly broadcast information about V. Marchenko, and PEN clubs from various countries bombarded Soviet institutions with postcards and telegrams... According to Y. Sverstiuk, “they sensed they were under the control of the mass media. This paralyzed them... The Leningrad KGB agents gave Valeriy's coffin to his mother in defiance of all laws. They were bewildered, they had no strength to resist and were forced to find zinc and release the body... A miracle occurred—a unique case in the history of the Soviet camps, when a zek was given to his family for burial!..” [59].

And here is what Valeriy's mother, Nina Mikhailovna Smuzhanitsia, later recounted: “...I went to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, I knelt down. It was so hard for me then, I simply had no strength! But here, in prayer, it suddenly became incredibly light! And I thought: could he have died? But then I thought: no, they must be giving him to me...

He had such a hatred for prison! Such a yearning to break free from behind bars! And that was transmitted to me with his spirit... I suddenly felt his spirit around me. I felt his presence in the Cathedral. It cannot be put into words. I felt a great spiritual power that no earthly force can overcome!..

The power of the Lord was great over us, over Valeriy!.. ...Zinc appeared, plane tickets... ...There was a great power that tore Valeriy from there!..” [60].

On his Way of the Cross, Valeriy Marchenko came to God. He became a deep believer, prayed a great deal, and told his friends he wanted to become an Orthodox priest. He left us his own prayer, his personal address to the Savior [61]. Among many other things, it contains these words:

“...Send out Your light and Your truth (Ps. 43:3), let them shine upon the earth... Bind me to Yourself with the unbreakable bonds of Love...”

Vladimir Krylovsky

New York

[1] – Artyom Yuskevych (1931–1982), Ukrainian, an engineer-designer by profession, a member of the CPSU, and one of the organizers of the underground organization “Estonian Democratic Movement,” which was at the origin of samizdat periodicals in Estonia (the journals “Democrat,” “Ray of Freedom” – in Russian; “Eesti Demokrat” /“Estonian Democrat”/ and “Eesti Rahvuslik Hääl” /“The Voice of the Estonian People”/ – in Estonian).

After the KGB dismantled the “Estonian Democratic Movement,” he was arrested in Tallinn in December 1974. He was charged with reproducing and distributing over 40 anti-Soviet documents, including the “Program of the Democratic Movement,” the “Program of the Estonian National Front,” the essay “The Time Has Come to Throw Off the Chains of Colonialism,” and works by A. Amalrik, A. Solzhenitsyn, N. Berdyaev, M. Djilas...

In October 1975, under Article 68-1 of the Criminal Code of the Estonian SSR (analogue of Art. 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code), he was sentenced to 5 years in strict-regimen camps. He served his term in the Mordovian and Perm (from 1978) political camps (36th, 37th, and 35th Perm political zones). A fellow inmate of V. Marchenko in the 35th camp. In 1979, upon completing his sentence, he returned to Tallinn, where, in addition to covert KGB “guardianship,” he was under strict administrative supervision for a year. The covert KGB surveillance continued even after this period ended. He died on January 28, 1982, from a stroke. (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, pp. 55, 74; “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 767).

[2] – “58-10. Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog. March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 756.

[3] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “The Verdict,” pp. 30–40.

[4] – Vasyl Ovsienko – “Svitlo lyudey. Memuary ta publitsystyka” (“The Light of People: Memoirs and Publicist Writings”), in 2 vols., Vol. 1, K.: “Smoloskyp,” Kharkiv, 2005, “Pokhoron Valeriya Marchenka” (“The Funeral of Valeriy Marchenko”), pp. 327–337.

[5] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Vidkrytyy lyst do dida, istoryka M. Marchenka” (“Open Letter to My Grandfather, the historian M. Marchenko”), pp. 496–498.

[6] – Hypoisosthenuria – impaired urine density.

[7] – 5-NOK – an antibacterial drug used for infections of the kidneys and urinary system.

[8] – Nevigramon – an antibacterial drug used for urinary tract infections.

[9] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, correspondence between V. Marchenko’s mother and the camp administration, pp. 70–72, 95–97, 107.

[10] – Ibid., “Lyst do materi iz KDB” vid 20.X. 1977” (“Letter to Mother from the KGB of 20.X.1977”), pp. 253–255.

[11] – Levomycetin – an antibacterial drug used for intestinal infections.

[12] – Lespenephril – a drug that increases diuresis and the excretion of sodium salts from the body.

[13] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, mother’s correspondence with MVD officials and camp administration, pp. 277–278.

[14] – Prednisone – a hormonal drug used in oncology and intensive care for connective tissue diseases.

[15] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “To the Chairman of the All-Union Society of the Red Cross,” pp. 284–285.

[16] – Ibid., “To the Minister of Justice of the Ukrainian SSR V. I. Zaichuk,” pp. 256–258.

[17] – “...The administration of the ITU is obliged to ensure that convicts are engaged in socially useful labor... if possible, according to their specialty” (Art. 27 of the Fundamentals of Corrective Labor Legislation).

[18] – KZOT of the RSFSR – Labor Code of the RSFSR.

[19] – “Production quotas... are subject to replacement with new ones as technical, economic, and organizational measures ensuring the growth of labor productivity are introduced into production” (Art. 102 of the KZOT of the RSFSR).

[20] – Chronic pyeloglomerulonephritis – chronic non-infectious inflammation of the kidney.

[21] – Chronic cholecystoangiocholitis – inflammation of the biliary system.

[22] – Renal hypertension – hypertension caused by kidney pathology.

[23] – Pancreatitis – inflammation of the pancreas.

[24] – Pleurisy – inflammation of the pleura.

[25] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “To the Chief of the Medical Service Directorate of the USSR MVD,” “To the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR,” pp. 320–321.

[26] – Ibid., mother’s correspondence with the camp administration, “To the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR,” mother's letter from the Aktobe UVD, pp. 323, 325.

[27] – Ibid., “To the Director of the Uil District Agricultural Association,” p. 382.

[28] – Ibid., “Sud nad Valeriyem Marchenkom 13 bereznya 1984 r.” (“The Trial of Valeriy Marchenko on March 13, 1984”), pp. 438–445.

[29] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Vidkrytyy lyst do Holovy Vsesvitnʹoyi Asotsiatsiyi Nefrolohiv, dyrektoru Instytutu Nefrolohiyi u Shvetsiyi profesoru Alʹvala” (“Open Letter to the Head of the World Association of Nephrologists, Director of the Institute of Nephrology in Sweden, Professor Alwall”), p. 505.

[30] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “To the Chief Physician of the Saralzhin Hospital, Tashimova,” p. 381.

[31] – Ibid., “Sud nad Valeriyem Marchenkom 13 bereznya 1984 r.” (“The Trial of Valeriy Marchenko on March 13, 1984”), pp. 438–445.

[32] – Ibid., “Vkraly tranzystor” (“They Stole the Transistor Radio”), pp. 384–391.

[33] – Ibid., “Prokuroru m. Kyyeva vid Marchenka V.V.” (“To the Prosecutor of Kyiv from Marchenko V.V.”), p. 394.

[34] – RSMU – Repair, Construction, and Assembly Directorate.

[35] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Zayava do Holovy Prezidiyi Verkhovnoyi Rady SRSR Yu.V. Andropova” (“Statement to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Y. V. Andropov”), pp. 506–507.

[36] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “Sud nad Valeriyem Marchenkom 13 bereznya 1984 r.” (“The Trial of Valeriy Marchenko on March 13, 1984”), pp. 438–445.

[37] – Ivan Svitlychny (1929–1992) – a literary figure, author of sharp critical and publicist articles that largely defined the spiritual climate of the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 1960s. A well-known translator, primarily of French poets such as P.-J. de Béranger, Charles Baudelaire, and others. A friend of Vasyl Symonenko, Vasyl Stus, Alla Horska, and many other young Ukrainian cultural figures of that time. First arrested in Kyiv in August 1965. He was charged with possessing and distributing samizdat and tamizdat and was supposed to be convicted under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. However, after 8 months in the Kyiv KGB pretrial detention center, the case was closed “for lack of evidence.” According to human rights activists, the KGB intended to cast a shadow on him this way: others arrested at the same time, even less prominent ones, were tried and given various camp sentences, while he, for some reason, was released. Why?...

Second arrest – in January 1972, again under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR and again for distributing samizdat. In April 1973, he was sentenced to 7 years in strict-regimen camps (taking into account the 8-month sentence served in 1965–66 and the inclusion of incriminating materials from those years) and 5 years of exile. He served his term in the 35th and 36th strict-regimen political zones, and his exile in the villages of Ust-Kan and Maima in the Altai Krai. A fellow inmate of V. Marchenko in the 35th Perm political zone.

In August 1981, while in exile, he was paralyzed by a severe stroke and became a Group I disabled person. However, he still served his sentence to the end. In exile and later, until the end of his life, his wife Leonida cared for him. He lived for another 11 years but was never able to return to a normal life.

In 1977, his collection of camp poems, “Hratovani sonety” (“Barred Sonnets”), was published by “Suchasnist” (Munich) after being secretly smuggled out of the camp. Two collections of his works were published in Ukraine – “Sertse dlya kulʹ i dlya rym” (“A Heart for Bullets and for Rhymes”), Kyiv, 1990, and “U mene – tilʹky slovo” (“I Have Only the Word”), Kyiv, 1994; in addition, two children's books – “Yak Husak hovoryv tak-tak-tak” (“How the Gander Said Quack-Quack-Quack”) and “Pobrekhenʹky dlya Yaremky” (“Tall Tales for Yaremko”), as well as a collection of memoirs about Ivan Svitlychny – “Dobrookyy” (“The Kind-Eyed One”), Kyiv, “Vydavnytstvo ‘Chas’,” 1998.

The first recipient of the Vasyl Stus Literary Prize, a laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize (posthumously). (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, pp. 14, 18, 26, 27; “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 750; newspaper “Express-Khronika,” April 18, 1997, No. 16 (494), p. 4, section “About Those Who Knocked on Closed Doors”).

[38] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Zvernennya N. Smuzhanitsi do nachalʹnyka Holovnoho Upravlenyya vypravno-trudovykh zakladiv MVS SRSR” (“Appeal of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Chief of the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Institutions of the USSR MVD”), p. 509.

[39] – Ibid., “Zayava Smuzhanitsi do nachalʹnyka Upravlenyya KDB Chusovsʹkoho r-nu Permsʹkoyi obl. Afanasova” (“Statement of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Chief of the KGB Directorate of Chusovskoy District, Perm Region, Afanasov”), p. 510.

[40] – Ibid., “Zvernennya N. Smuzhanitsi do Yepyskopa Permsʹkoho i Solikamsʹkoho Afanasiya” (“Appeal of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Bishop of Perm and Solikamsk, Afanasiy”), pp. 510–511.

[41] – Vasyl Ovsienko, b. 1949, philologist, teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at a school in the village of Tashan, Kyiv region, later a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, arrested in March 1973. He was accused of producing and distributing samizdat “nationalist” literature, including the journal “Ukrayinsʹky visnyk” (“Ukrainian Herald”), Ivan Dziuba's article “Internationalism or Russification?” and Mykhailo Braichevsky's article “Reunification or Annexation?” and others. In December 1973, he was sentenced under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR to 4 years in strict-regimen camps. He served his term in Mordovia.

In February 1979, while under administrative supervision in his native village of Lenino (formerly “Stavky” /“Ponds”/) in the Zhytomyr region, he defended female human rights activists—Oksana Meshko and Olha Babych—who were visiting him, when the police tried to forcibly remove them from his home. All three were taken to the police station and searched. V. Ovsienko sued the police officers, but a week later the prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against him, turning him from a plaintiff into a defendant, and under Art. 188-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (resisting the police), he was sentenced to 3 years in the camps. He served his sentence in a criminal camp in the Zhytomyr region...

In June 1981, as his term was nearing its end, he was arrested and in August 1981 sentenced under Art. 62-2 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR to 10 years in special-regime camps and 5 years of exile. He served his term in the 36th Perm special-regime political zone (institution VS-389/36-1) for particularly dangerous recidivists. In August 1988, as part of a state campaign to expel political prisoners from confinement, he was flown to Kyiv, then taken in a paddy wagon to Zhytomyr, and released the same day (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, p. 37); “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 755);

– Oksana Meshko (1905–1991), Ukrainian, daughter of one of the peasant hostages executed in 1920 by the Cheka for the volost's failure to meet its food quota; by profession, a chemical engineer, in the future (1976) a co-founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, first arrested in February 1947 and accused of plotting with her sister Vera Khudenko to assassinate the first secretary of the CPU of Ukraine, N. Khrushchev. She was tried in absentia by the OSO (Special Council) under Art. 54-8 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (terrorism) and sentenced to 10 years in corrective labor camps. She served her sentence in the Ukhta camps (Komi ASSR) and in the Irkutsk region.

In 1954, she was released on medical grounds by a commission of the CC of the CPSU, and the remainder of her camp sentence was commuted to exile (which she served in Krasnoyarsk). In June 1956, during the Khrushchev Thaw, she returned to Kyiv.

In the summer of 1980, for her activities in the UHG, O. Meshko was subjected to a psychiatric evaluation and spent 75 days in a psychiatric hospital. In October 1980, she was arrested a second time and in January 1981, under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, sentenced to 6 months in strict-regimen camps and 5 years of exile. The 6-month camp sentence she was supposed to serve was “used up” by the psychiatric evaluation, investigation, and waiting for the appeal response, and she was transported for 108 days to her place of exile in the village of Ayan, Khabarovsk Krai (on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk). In November 1985, having served her exile, she returned to Kyiv.

[42] – Viktoras Petkus, b. 1928, Lithuanian, with a secondary education, in the future a co-founder of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group (1976), a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, first arrested in October 1947 in the Lithuanian town of Raseiniai (Western Lithuania) for belonging to the informal religious-national organization “Ateitininkai” (“Warriors for the Future”), a gymnasium student at the time of his arrest.

In August 1948, while in a Lithuanian prison, he was tried in absentia in Moscow by the Special Council and sentenced under Art. 58-10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code to 5 years in the camps. He served his sentence in the Komi ASSR in the “Minlags” (Inta camps), in the “Rudnik Kazhim” camp (named after the river).

In late 1948, in winter (when the surrounding marshes froze and became passable), he and another political prisoner, a Lithuanian named Kazimir Radziukenas, escaped from the camp but were caught in a roundup and arrested on a train at the Pechora railway station. They had been at large for only three days.

They were returned to the camp and immediately beaten. Young women who had come to entertain the guards stood up for V. Petkus. “Don't touch the kid!” they shouted at the soldiers beating him, thereby saving him from a severe beating, and perhaps even permanent injury. For the escape, he was tried in February 1949 and sentenced under Art. 58-14 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (sabotage) to 10 years in the camps (to replace his previous sentence, which had been interrupted by the escape). He served his time in the same camps.

In October 1953, after Stalin’s death, he was released as he had committed the crime (for which he was originally convicted) before reaching the age of majority.

He was arrested for the third time in December 1957 in Vilnius for possessing “anti-Soviet” literature, which in this case included books published during independent Lithuania—works by the symbolist poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis, the writer Juozas Tumas, and others. In June 1958, under Art. 58-10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, he was sentenced to 8 years in the camps. He served the first 2.5 years in the Irkutsk region in “Ozerlag,” and the remainder of his term in Mordovia, with a two-year interruption spent in Vladimir Prison.

He was arrested for the fourth time in August 1977 in Vilnius for attempting to organize the “Main Committee of the National Movement of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,” was charged under Art. 68-2 of the Lithuanian SSR Criminal Code (anti-Soviet organizational activity), and was also falsely accused under Arts. 241 and 122-2 of the Lithuanian SSR Criminal Code (respectively, sodomy and corruption of minors). In July 1978, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison, 7 years in special-regime camps, and 5 years of exile. He served his sentence in Vladimir (1 year) and Chistopol (2 years) prisons, then in the 36th Perm special-regime political zone (institution VS-389/36-1) for particularly dangerous recidivists. In August 1987, at the end of his camp term, he was sent into exile in Buryat-Mongolia. Due to Perestroika and pressure on Moscow from the Lithuanian authorities and public, he was released in November 1988 (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, pp. 54, 63, 64, 67, 68, 371; “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 778).

[43] – Vasyl Ovsienko – “Svitlo lyudey. Memuary ta publitsystyka” (“The Light of People: Memoirs and Publicist Writings”), in 2 vols., Vol. 1, K.: “Smoloskyp,” Kharkiv, 2005, “Pokhoron Valeriya Marchenka” (“The Funeral of Valeriy Marchenko”), pp. 327–337.

[44] – “Polosatiki” (“striped ones,” from their striped uniforms) was a nickname for “particularly dangerous recidivists”—inmates of prisons and camps with a special regime of confinement.

[45] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Zayava N. Smuzhanitsi do Holovi Permsʹkoho oblastnoho Komitetu Tovarystva Chervonoho Khresta Mananinoyi V.I.” (“Statement of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Chairwoman of the Perm Regional Committee of the Red Cross Society, V. I. Mananina”), pp. 512–513.

[46] – The name Leningraders used for the main building of the city and regional KGB.

[47] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Zayava N. Smuzhanitsi do holovnoho likarya mistsevoyi oblasnoyi likarni zakladu US 20/12 m. Leningrada” (“Statement of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Chief Physician of the local regional hospital of institution US 20/12, Leningrad”), p. 514.

[48] – Article 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR (UPK RSFSR) states: “……”

[49] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Tvorchistʹ i zhyttya” (“Creativity and Life”), Dukh i Litera, “Sfera” publishing house, Kyiv, 2001, “Zayava N. Smuzhanitsi do ministra okhorony zdorov'ya SRSR” (“Statement of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Minister of Health of the USSR”), p. 514.

[50] – Ibid., “Zayava N. Smuzhanitsi do holovy Komitetu Derzhbezpeky SRSR po Leningradsʹkiy obl.” (“Statement of N. Smuzhanitsia to the Chief of the USSR KGB Committee for the Leningrad Region”), pp. 513–514.

[51] – Lyubov Serednyak, b. 1953, from Kyiv, a student at Moscow State University's journalism faculty who came to Kyiv for vacation in January 1972, was arrested and accused of producing (typing) samizdat – “Chronicle of Current Events,” A. Solzhenitsyn’s novel “Cancer Ward,” Vasily Grossman's novel “Everything Flows,” Heinrich Böll's Nobel lecture, some stories by Viktor Nekrasov, and others. However, the main reason for her arrest, which was not mentioned at the trial, was her typing of the “In Absentia Psychiatric Examination in the Case of General Pyotr Grigorenko,” conducted by Kyiv psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman, which was sent to the West and published in Paris and the USA. She was a co-defendant with S. Gluzman.

In October 1972, under Art. 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, she was sentenced to 1 year of corrective labor. This term coincided with her time in the Kyiv KGB pretrial detention center. In January 1973, she was released (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, p. 27; “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 743, the reference to her as a “restaurant warehouse worker” is incorrect).

– Semyon Gluzman, b. 1946, a psychiatrist, arrested in May 1972 in Kyiv (an emergency room doctor at the time of his arrest) and accused of producing, possessing, and distributing samizdat – “Chronicle of Current Events,” A. Solzhenitsyn’s novel “Cancer Ward,” Vasily Grossman's novel “Everything Flows,” Heinrich Böll's Nobel lecture, some stories by Viktor Nekrasov, and others. However, the main reason for his arrest, which was not mentioned at the trial, was his conducting an independent in absentia psychiatric examination in the case of General Pyotr Grigorenko. The conclusion, signed by S. Gluzman, stated that P. Grigorenko was mentally completely healthy.

In October 1972, under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, he was sentenced to 7 years in strict-regimen camps and 3 years of exile. He served his term in Vladimir Prison and the Perm political camps—in the 35th, 36th (briefly), and 37th political zones. In September 1975, he was transferred to the Perm pretrial detention center, where he spent a year. A fellow inmate of V. Marchenko in the 35th zone.

In April 1979, he was sent into exile to the village of Nizhnyaya Tavda in the Tyumen region, where he remained for the 3 years of his sentence (ibid.).

[52] – Yevhen Sverstiuk, b. 1928, a literary figure, executive editor of the “Ukrainian Botanical Journal” of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, arrested in Kyiv in January 1972. He was accused of producing and distributing samizdat between 1965 and 1972, particularly his own publicist articles such as “Ivan Kotlyarevsky smyyetsya” (“Ivan Kotlyarevsky is Laughing”), “Sobor u reshtovannyakh” (“Cathedral in Scaffolding”), “Na mamyno sv'yato” (“For Mother’s Holiday”), as well as “Internationalism or Russification?” by I. Dziuba, and others. In April 1973, he was convicted under Art. 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR and sentenced to 7 years in strict-regimen camps and 5 years of exile. He served his sentence in the 36th Perm strict-regimen political zone and his exile in Buryat-Mongolia (Ludmila Alexeyeva – “The History of Dissent in the USSR: The Newest Period,” Khronika Press, 1984, pp. 14, 23–28; “58-10, Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. Annotated Catalog, March 1953 – 1991,” Moscow 1999, p. 749. The claim that Y. Sverstiuk also distributed “Chronicle of Resistance” (“Khronika protyostoyannya”) by V. Moroz is incorrect.

[53] – Vasyl Ovsienko – “Svitlo lyudey. Memuary ta publitsystyka” (“The Light of People: Memoirs and Publicist Writings”), in 2 vols., Vol. 1, K.: “Smoloskyp,” Kharkiv, 2005, “Pokhoron Valeriya Marchenka” (“The Funeral of Valeriy Marchenko”), pp. 327–337.

[54] – Ibid.

[55] – Lesya Ukrainka – “Zavzhdy ternovyy vinetsʹ bude krashchyy, nizh tsarsʹka korona...”

[56] – Vasyl Ovsienko – “Svitlo lyudey. Memuary ta publitsystyka” (“The Light of People: Memoirs and Publicist Writings”), in 2 vols., Vol. 1, K.: “Smoloskyp,” Kharkiv, 2005, “Pokhoron Valeriya Marchenka” (“The Funeral of Valeriy Marchenko”), pp. 327–337.

[57] – Ibid.

[58] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Lysty do materi z nevoli” (“Letters to My Mother from Captivity”), O. Olzhych Foundation, Kyiv, 1994, “Zayava Prezydenta SShA Ronalʹda Reyhana” (“Statement by U.S. President Ronald Reagan”), pp. 448–449, “Zayava Derzhavnoho Departanamentu SShA” (“Statement by the U.S. Department of State”), pp. 449–450.

[59] – Vasyl Ovsienko – “Svitlo lyudey. Memuary ta publitsystyka” (“The Light of People: Memoirs and Publicist Writings”), in 2 vols., Vol. 1, K.: “Smoloskyp,” Kharkiv, 2005, “Pokhoron Valeriya Marchenka” (“The Funeral of Valeriy Marchenko”), pp. 327–337.

[60] – Ibid.

[61] – Valeriy Marchenko – “Viryty i tilʹky” (“To Believe, and Only That”), Drohobych, Kolo, 2005, “Za prosvichennya rozumu” (Molytva) (“For the Enlightenment of the Mind” (A Prayer)), p. 7.