IVAN HEL:
MARIAN HATALA
After being demobilized from the army in late July 1959 and failing to get into the university, I had to look for a job by September—a typical Soviet situation for many “marked” young men and women whose families were connected to the liberation movement of the 1940s. My father had returned from a concentration camp as a first-group invalid, and my mother—a serf on a collective farm—could certainly not earn enough to support a son and extend his post-demobilization vacation.
I didn’t want to go back to the forklift factory—the work of a stamping press operator in the frame and body shop was too primitive. Besides metalworking, I had no other trade, and certainly no connections through which I could “get set up” in a cushy job. And besides, who would have dared to take such a risk back then? Only people like Rector Yevhen Lazarenko, who had the courage to issue a special order, post factum, enrolling me as a university student.
After visiting a number of enterprises, I settled on the electron vacuum plant, or the kinescope factory, as it was also called. I started working in a team of mechanics in the repair and mechanical shop, which was later renamed the machine-building shop, as we were producing non-standard equipment—large, moving, automatic vacuum lines for manufacturing cathode-ray tubes for televisions and military radars. The work was complex: every mechanic had to be able to read blueprints, fabricate the necessary part from them using various components (including turned, milled, etc.), assemble units, install assemblies, and from them, entire lines. The design engineers allowed for very small dimensional tolerances, so every part had to be manufactured with high precision, and every mechanic, depending on their skill level, had to be able to work with tolerances of a tenth and a hundredth of a millimeter, and even microns. This meant being proficient with the necessary measuring tools—calipers with an accuracy of a tenth and a hundredth of a millimeter, as well as micrometers that measured to the thousandth.
After working in the shop for a year and a half or two, I mastered all the subtleties of the job—though there is no end to human spiritual or professional improvement—and the shop and mechanic department supervisors offered me the position of team leader. The factory was expanding, mastering the production of new types of cathode-ray tubes, which meant new shops were needed, along with the manufacture of improved lines of non-standard equipment and, consequently, an increase in personnel both in our shop, which had been renamed the machine-building shop, and for the construction of several huge new buildings. I agreed to lead the team.
Now my duties included not only organizing the team’s work and assigning personal tasks but also systematically—every week to ten days—checking the team’s measuring instruments for accuracy in the laboratory-workshop, where they were inspected, adjusted, and repaired. These instruments were checked against gauge blocks by a young man in a blue coat. That’s how we met. It was Marian Hatala.
We weren’t on an assembly line and didn’t have mandatory production quotas, but there was no time for conversation either. Work is work: he checked, I took them, left the faulty ones with the toolmaker, and went back to my shop. We grew closer gradually. At first, our meetings were strictly business. But we quickly became friends, started meeting in the city, going to soccer games together, and browsing bookstores. Marian was a student at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. He was even a year ahead of me, though I was five years older. He had completed three years as a full-time student and then transferred to the evening program because his brothers had married and had to support their families, and his parents were reaching an age where they could no longer provide for themselves and two more sons: Marian’s younger brother, Lubomyr, was still a high school student.
By that time, I was also an evening student, studying at the history department of Lviv University. More importantly, during the preparatory courses, I had become close friends with Yevhen Nakonechnyi, a recent political prisoner, Omelko Ilchyshyn, Liuba Popadiuk, and Petro Protsyk—they were all older than me, had more life experience, a higher education, and access to *samvydav* materials: the early poetic cycles or thin collections of L. Kostenko, V. Symonenko, M. Vinhranovskyi, I. Drach, and others. Of course, I gave them to Marian, Mykhailo Cheryba, and a few other guys at the factory to read. I saw how genuinely Marian admired the poetry of the Sixtiers. And I brought everything I had to the factory and passed it around. But no matter how much I distributed, it was never enough. Back then, neither my group nor his was printing *samvydav*. So the acute shortage of *samvydav* prompted the idea of buying a typewriter and, a little later, making a mimeograph.
But even before that, a certain life event brought us much closer. On his birthday, we became closer than, perhaps, in all the time before. If I’m not mistaken, Marian’s birthday is August 25. He was born in 1942. He was celebrating his 20th birthday and was “treating” his work friends. But he also invited me to his home. The whole family gathered in the “Khrushchevka” on Okruzhna Street: his mom and dad, Marian, his three married brothers with their wives and children, the youngest, Lubko, and me. The apartment was a typical worker’s home, with religious icons on the walls, a portrait of T. Shevchenko, and a television in the corner.
At the table, his father was the first to speak. “The whole family has gathered because you, Marian, have turned 20 today and become a grown man. In our day, we were considered men at 21. Now it’s 18. Eighteen is too early because neither the bones, nor the sinews, nor the head have yet grown strong. At 21, it can be too late, because life no longer waits for a father’s blessing and throws a person around as it pleases. But 20—that’s just right. What should I say to you, son, on the day you become a grown and independent man? Your mother and I, and all of you, children, have lived our whole lives with God. You’ve seen this every day. Just like your older siblings, we taught you the commandments of God, and on them, you must build your own family when the time comes. Your mother and I taught you all to love Ukraine and to live for its good. You know where your eldest brother was and why your eldest brother is an example for all of you. In my whole life, I have known only one woman—your mother, and may God grant that you live your life with your family in the same way. All your life, beware of vodka, for it is a terrible poison for the body and soul. And now, son, come here, and we will bless you,” his father concluded. Marian first went to his mother, kissed her hands and lips, and his mother embraced him, then placed a cross around his neck over his head. She said something to him through tears, but it was inaudible. Marian turned to his father; they hugged tightly, standing motionless for some time, just as everyone else stood silently. Then Marian returned to his seat.
What I heard and saw moved me to the depths of my soul. After all, I had undergone a similar, perhaps even stricter, upbringing from my own father. But every Galician family that took part in the liberation struggle and went through the terror of the Russian occupiers could be open only among their closest and most trusted relatives or friends, could express their hatred for the enemy, and talk about the horrors of the beastly tortures during investigations, in Siberian mines, in logging camps, in closed prison centers... These topics were “taboo” not only—or perhaps not so much—because there was a danger of being sent to *katorga* again, and people were paralyzed by fear. Those who had been through the prisons and camps didn’t share their experiences for other reasons as well: they didn’t want their stories to be perceived as attempts to complain, as whining, as their own weakness.
But in Marian’s home, they spoke openly about the UPA, the underground, and *katorga*—without pity or fear, but as an example for everyone, especially the children. This was captivating and striking. That day, I developed a deep respect for this family and complete trust in Marian. I felt that he would be my brother-in-arms and comrade, that we were now forever bound by a common destiny. That day, from the words of his father and later his brother, I learned that Marian’s eldest brother had been in the UPA and, during a battle with the NKVD, had been shell-shocked and wounded before falling into their hands. In Drohobych (then the regional center), he was treated in the prison hospital, tortured for a long time, and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to 25 years because Stalin had abolished the “supreme measure”—slave labor was needed on the post-war “construction projects of communism.” The father also made a toast, a very short but frank one: I will probably not live to see it, but I wish for you to live in your own state. Remember those who did not spare their own lives for it and who now lie in our forests and in foreign lands, not even buried in a Christian manner.
That day I learned that Marian and his whole family came from the village of Pidzvîrynets, which is only 6-7 kilometers from my village. They had a farmstead on the Hrabyna khutir. Marian’s father was secretly informed that his family was on a list for deportation to Siberia. The night before the deportation, just a few hours before the village was surrounded, the Hatala family, having gathered their most valuable belongings, abandoned their home. Some time later, they settled in Levandivka in an abandoned house and legalized themselves as “resettlers from Poland.” Pidzvîrynets, Hrimne, Klitsko, Horozhanna, Kolodruby, and so on—these were neighboring villages, a partisan region where the liberation war raged, and where great and often victorious battles were fought. For instance, in Tatarynîv, there was a non-commissioned officer school. NKVD punitive squads tried to destroy the training of these NCOs and threw several garrisons at them: battalions from Komarno, Shchyrets, and Mykolaiv went on the offensive with the intention of encirclement. Artillery, 5 tanks, and 5 "Kukuruznik" biplanes were deployed. The battle lasted three days. The killed punitive soldiers were carried away in trucks and a convoy of carts, while at night, the partisans broke through the encirclement and went through the swamps into the Carpathian forests. It was to these villages that the Carpathian forest massifs extended. Therefore, they were convenient for basing partisans. In Hrimne, for example, there was a *kryyivka* (bunker) belonging to Roman Shukhevych. As is now known, in these forests, my uncle—the regional OUN leader Zynoviy Tershakovets (Fedir)—was in charge. He organized, hosted, and was responsible for the security of the famous meeting attended by R. Shukhevych, Bey—the leader of Bukovyna, Halasa—the leader of the Volyn region, and others, where it was decided to change the tactics of the struggle. As a child, I was a witness to these events, and I heard many stories as an adult, so every mention of the surrounding villages stirred up corresponding associations and memories. It turned out that Marian was also from there—my fellow countryman. Naturally, the amplitude of our mutual sympathy jumped even higher.
That day, impressed by the sentiment and the attitude towards me, by the display of complete trust, I opened up myself, told him about my family: my father—a volunteer soldier in the UGA, a participant in the Polish-Ukrainian War and a recent political prisoner, my sister—a liaison, my two aunts—Basilian nuns, and, of course, my uncle Zenko, who died in battle with the NKVD as the Regional Leader of the OUN. I said that I had refused to join the Komsomol and had been expelled from school. And I wished for Marian to graduate from the Polytechnic, defend his dissertation, and continue the cause of our fathers, older brothers, and sisters. That day became a day of mutual revelations and confessionals for us, and it was etched in our memory for life.
After the birthday, we were already openly, with complete and unconditional mutual trust, discussing any topic and exchanging literature. And first of all, of course, we talked about “what is to be done?” and “how to act?” It was 1962 on the calendar—the peak of the Khrushchev “thaw.” The youth were electrified with social and national demands. I. Svitlychnyi, I. Dziuba, and I. Drach were already visiting Lviv. *Samvydav* began to circulate. Thousands of participants in the liberation struggle returned from the Siberian camps. They were present in many, if not every, family: some had a father, but most had older brothers and sisters. Young, sociable, and sincere, they would tell—if the audience inspired trust—a mass of different stories from their life in the forest or in the camps. And the youth who had grown up in that decade listened with fascination. However, they had returned to a different world. Their activity was the result of the organizational work of the 1930s-40s. And the armed struggle was an adequate response in those historical circumstances—in the conditions of war and the brutal post-war state terrorism of the occupiers.
But the stories of recent political prisoners about the heroics of the struggle were inspiring, yet they did not provide answers to the pressing organizational questions for us: how to create a group with all the attributes of an organization, how to establish connections, ensure conspiracy, where to get weapons, against whom to use them, who should issue verdicts, and so on? I was five years older than Marian. And I already had a bitter, but in hindsight—positive experience. While still in the army, I gathered a group of four Western Ukrainian boys—weapons in the hands of young men call for “heroic deeds.” So we planned to desert and go to the Carpathians with "Kalashnikovs"—there was an undiscovered partisan *kryyivka* in the forest near Borynia, which a member of our group told us about. It was supposed to be our base. But during training exercises (maneuvers), he developed pneumonia and was discharged. So the escape didn't happen—one link fell out, and we could no longer act. It's not even about the fact that we would have been quickly caught and tried as deserters, or even shot on the road. However, this taught me nothing. Unfortunately. And it was only in the camp that I saw that there were many of us who made similar mistakes.
Marian and I also often talked about forming a group. In fact, the core was already there: Marian, Mykhailo Cheryba, and a few other engineers—friends of Marian's to whom he passed on *samvydav* that he received from me. That is, we ourselves were not producing anything yet.
However, none of us perceived *samvydav* as the optimal—the main—form of our activity. I was a participant in meetings with Ivan Svitlychnyi and Ivan Dziuba. I became close with Liuba Popadiuk, O. Ilchyshyn, Y. Nakonechnyi, V. Baidak, and a short time later with Mykhailo and Bohdan Horyn, and Myroslava Zvarychevska. For them, cultural work, the dissemination of *samvydav*, had already, let's say, become their life's purpose. But for us, besides organizational ones, no other forms of struggle existed. None of us could propose anything new, different from what our predecessors had done. We were enchanted by the past and could not break out of this enchanted circle, to formulate a program of action adequate to the new circumstances, to find appropriate forms of struggle. Anyone who tried to form a group, a combat unit, an organization (call it what you will) based on the structural model of the underground faced a number of problems, not only of an organizational but primarily of a moral and ethical nature. For example, who should be recognized as the most vicious enemy subject to elimination? Who should issue the verdicts, taking on the responsibility of a judge? Who would take the execution of verdicts upon their conscience? Many similar questions arose. So, although subconsciously and emotionally our hands reached for automatic rifles and grenades, mentally, at the same time, weapons were no longer perceived as the exclusive and effective means of struggle.
Ultimately, starting in the early 1960s, *samvydav* was already spreading in Lviv. I didn't get it every day, of course, but holding the sheets of cigarette paper and being captivated by what was written, you understood that this was also the underground, that someone was doing this and that this activity was very important, necessary, and extremely dangerous. Still, until I met Mykhailo Horyn, organization and weapons prevailed as the form and means, rather than the weapon of the word. Therefore, I was a consumer of *samvydav*, but I didn't even try to print it. It was only after a few meetings with Horyn and conversations on the topic of "what is to be done" and "how to act" that he convinced me that creating an organization did not meet the needs of the day, and that producing and distributing *samvydav* in small groups was the optimal form of struggle against the occupier. (I emphasize that we were already using the word "occupier" back then). At the same time, Mykhailo sincerely admitted that before meeting Svitlychnyi and Dziuba, he himself was looking for people to create an organization. And I was one of the candidates. But Svitlychnyi and Dziuba convinced him of the ineffectiveness of organizational struggle under a totalitarian regime. M. Horyn's arguments and his references to the Kyivans convinced me. In fact, as early as the fall of 1959, Omelian Ilchyshyn and I were tidying up the riflemen's graves at the Yanivskyi cemetery and saw how people reacted to this—tidying up the destroyed graves, lighting candles on November 1st, and holding memorial services inspired the many who came to the cemetery on that day. Together with O. Ilchyshyn, on the instruction of V. Baidak, in 1961 we laid a wreath of thorns at the foot of the statue of T. Shevchenko in Kaniv, and this was a resonant event—many people were interrogated by the KGB. A year or a year and a half later, I involved M. Cheryba and M. Hatala in tidying the graves and distributing *Samvydav*, and they in turn involved other young people from their circle.
But if Horyn, Nakonechnyi, Ilchyshyn, and I accepted the production and distribution of *samvydav* as a very important activity, even as the meaning of life, Marian Hatala’s group—factory engineers and workers—regarded *samvydav*, tidying graves, and posting leaflets as a genuinely necessary, yet auxiliary, preparatory, and mobilizing activity. It was temporary, to be followed by, or to run parallel with, that decisive, fateful, and heroic struggle. Whenever a discussion—sometimes a heated one—erupted about “what is to be done,” Marian would extinguish it very quickly, essentially with a single phrase, or more accurately, a formula: “Friends, calm down. Right now, we are doing what the circumstances demand. The time for a true deed is not yet here. But the time will come when only our blood will wash the occupiers’ filth from our land.” Marian was not a verbose speaker or polemicist. He never raised his voice or lost his temper. He always remained calm, composed, and delicate. However, when he began to speak, everyone would fall silent and listen to what he had to say. And Marian, after two or three sentences related to the substance of the debate, would resolve the dispute with one phrase: arguments over trivial matters are pointless if each of us remembers that only my blood can wash the occupier's filth from my land. This phrase was not uttered by Marian all that often, as heated discussions were rare, but it sounded like a motto for life, an inner determination.
Jumping ahead, I will say that in 1968, after my return from prison and our first meetings, around late September or early October, Marian shared two profound secrets with me. He spoke of the first as a fait accompli, which he was both proud of and disappointed by, as he didn’t know if it had achieved anything: the Soviet press, as well as the Western “enemy” voices, remained silent about the act of sabotage. In early September, as the Muscovite horde was advancing into Czechoslovakia on all Galician roads, Hatala, along with Cheryba and two other young men, loosened the railway track fastenings at night in the mountains and used jacks to spread the rails. This was how Ukrainians showed solidarity with the Czechs and Slovaks, but they didn’t know if even a single train had derailed—to appear there would have meant getting caught in a roundup. Post factum, I didn't reproach the boys for their audacious and fruitless sabotage, especially since they themselves had survived. But I said that they had seen from their own experience: even if you carry out sabotage on all the roads, you cannot stop the occupier with it. We must raise awareness and mobilize the entire nation. Only then will we achieve our goal. And this is work for decades.
Marian’s second piece of news stunned, shocked, and crushed me—even now, it’s hard to find the right word, for he was like a brother to me, and I loved him dearly. I knew well the weight of his words. And Marian said that he had decided to set himself on fire and wanted to do it in Lviv, on the square near the opera house, close to the monument of Lenin. He asked me to write the text for a leaflet and help distribute it, or, as it’s called now, to provide informational support. At first, I was at a loss, silent, crushed by his firmly stated and well-thought-out decision. And after recovering from the shock, I lashed out at him: how can you think of death! There is so much work to do, and you want to leave! To flee the battlefield! Are you a deserter? Only the weak shorten their lives out of love for Ukraine instead of working selflessly for it and being punished for it in the labor camps, and upon release, working again, because only such work is a greater expression of love and self-sacrifice than a quick, albeit martyr's death. I will not help you with this, because today is not the time to die for Ukraine, but to live for it. We talked for a long time in Klitsko on the bank of the Vereshchytsia river, quite calmly and reasonably. This was a month, maybe a month and a half, before the self-immolation of Vasyl Makukh.
And after Makukh's heroic sacrifice (November 5, 1968.—Ed.), Marian again spoke of how there were many people among Ukrainians ready to sacrifice themselves, and that such acts would become more and more frequent, though perhaps not through self-immolation. We heard about Makukh from Radio Liberty broadcasts, and in more detail from Ivan and Nadiia Svitlychnyi and Alla Horska during my trips to Kyiv. I would stay with Alla or Ivan, so there was time to discuss all the events. Neither Horska nor the Svitlychnyis approved, or rather, were not enthused by Vasyl Makukh's act, because neither the regime nor the common person would grasp the measure of his sacrifice. But everyone has the right to their own choice, and this choice deserves respect because it is a testament to the self-sacrifice, courage, and spiritual strength of such a person.
We returned to this topic once again after the self-immolation of Jan Palach in January 1969. Marian spoke of another self-immolation event conditioned by the situation and the powerful blow that Palach had dealt to the occupiers. And I compared the examples of Makukh and Palach, and how the world reacted to the self-immolation of a Ukrainian versus a Czech. There were a few reports about Makukh on "Radio Liberty" and "Voice of America," and that was it. Perhaps some information in *samvydav*. But the whole world spoke about Palach's act, and it had a colossal impact on Czech and Slovak youth, and on the world community.
Did I manage to convince Marian? Yes and no. But I tried with all my might to do so, because I really had a great influence on him. Of course, in my sincere intentions and arguments, there were "slips" and contradictions. For example, in a different company or a different conversational context, where Marian might have been a participant, I called the self-immolations of Makukh and Palach, and the self-inflicted gunshots in *kryyivkas*, heroic and sacrificial, but to Marian I said it was cowardice. But this did not mean that I was being dishonest or hypocritical. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the situation in Ukraine was such that the life of a Ukrainian and his participation in the liberation movement were more necessary and effective than death, even if it were "organized" and informationally supported in the best possible way. And who would undertake the preparation and organization of the death of one of their best friends, a reliable brother-in-arms and comrade? Marian agreed with my arguments almost always. And I have no doubt that he was sincere: for almost all of 1969, 1970, and 1971, he did not return to this topic. And I, for my part, did not bring it up. Marian was deeply involved in the process of retyping, transporting, and distributing *Samvydav*. Therefore, I had no doubt that he had finally abandoned his idea. Jumping ahead once more, I will say: when I think of Marian, my conscience still bothers me that I didn't "turn him in" to the KGB, that I didn't get him imprisoned. While in prison, I should have revisited Marian's plan, foreseen his readiness to die for Ukraine, and prevented it. But back then, I was convinced that he was in one of the neighboring cells, arrested like all of us, and that because he wasn't testifying, they weren't interrogating me about him as an accomplice. And then suddenly, an interrogation. A series of questions about Marian, from which I understood everything. In the end, the KGB agents did not hide Marian's death. The investigator concluded the interrogation with a blasphemous remark: he passed judgment on himself, less work for us.
But I, inadvertently getting ahead of my train of thought, have not spoken of the most interesting, productive, and event-filled years of Marian’s life. So I will return to the beginning—the first half of the 1960s. By the end of 1962, Marian was already working as a process engineer in cathode-ray tube shop No. 2. It was a huge three-story building where we—engineers, electricians, mechanics—installed the technological line equipment for kinescope production that we ourselves had manufactured. After the installation work was completed, over 1,500 people worked in the shop. Two-thirds, if not three-quarters, of them were women. The work was clean, in white coats, in a warm and bright facility. On large conveyor-type lines, girls and women welded the funnels to the screens, installed the electronics, created a vacuum in the kinescope, and hermetically sealed the base of the assembled kinescope. And in parallel, during breaks or shift changes... they looked for partners. Some for a permanent one, forever; others for a temporary one or at least "for the work shift." After all, life in the shop (and at the factory) buzzed continuously from Monday to Saturday, in three shifts. In this “women's kingdom,” Marian Hatala worked as a young, sociable process engineer with handsome and noble facial features. It is no surprise that more than one girl "had her eye on him." But he was friendly and equal with everyone, yet inaccessible for closer relationships. He was already dating a student, Natalia Fedortsiv (or maybe Fedunets?), he felt he was in love, and Natalia also loved Marian very much. When they were together, a third person truly seemed superfluous—they needed no one else.
In 1963—the peak of the Khrushchev “thaw”—the distribution of *samvydav* was gaining momentum, clandestine journalism appeared, and the demand for forbidden literature grew. Everything I brought to the factory was quickly distributed, but there was no duplication. The three of us gathered—Hatala, Cheryba, and I. Everyone immediately agreed that the received *samvydav* needed to be retyped. We began to look for a conspiratorial apartment, because ours were definitely not suitable for this. Cheryba said he had an elderly aunt in Levandivka who lived in an equally old house. I didn't go there—for the third year in a row I was constantly being summoned to the KGB, so I was wary of bringing a “tail” with me. The three of us pitched in for a typewriter. Marian bought it and brought it to Lviv. As a process engineer, he quite often traveled with a few other engineers to Pskov—a new kinescope factory was being built there, and various specialists were sent to set up and launch technological lines on which Lviv was already producing well-mastered products. Marian deliberately stayed behind at the factory and then went to Leningrad on his own, where he bought the typewriter. He and Mykhailo took it to the aunt's place. Natalia would come there. The conspiracy was well-organized: I received the *samvydav* materials at the university, where I attended evening lectures, or at the Museum of Ukrainian Art (now the National Museum), where V. Svientsitska, M. Batih, and others gave lectures on art history on certain days. At the university, I received materials from L. Popadiuk, P. Protsyk, Y. Nakonechnyi, and O. Ilchyshyn, and M. Zvarychevska, M. and B. Horyn, and V. Baidak would come to the museum. In the morning, I would take what I received to the factory, pass it to Marian or Mykhailo along with a pile of various blueprints during “production” meetings. They would then take it to Levandivka, where Natalia would retype it. Besides the poetry of Symonenko, Vinhranovskyi, and Drach, these included Ivan Franko’s articles “What is Progress” and “Beyond the Realm of the Possible,” and the books “A Deduction of the Rights of Ukraine” and “Moscow and the Ukrainian Policy of Moscow” by Myroslav Prokop. After the work was finished, the reverse route of the materials began, as did the exchange—bartering for new ones. Thus, another group that printed and distributed *samvydav* emerged in Lviv, and its core was Marian Hatala.
By his nature, Marian was a one-woman man. So even in his thoughts, he could not betray Natalia. Perhaps it was precisely because of his unavailability that girls were drawn to Marian and sought his company. One such girl—a school friend or classmate—worked in the regional committee’s information department. Having met by chance, she invited Marian to visit her at work and led him into the “holy of holies” of this institution—a room with several typewriters and a mimeograph machine. The girl wanted to show off her workplace and the importance of her job, while Marian, with a single glance, grasped the principle of the device's operation. He designed it, made blueprints, and Cheryba and I, along with other parts for various designs, ordered the turned and milled parts for the mimeograph separately. We did the mechanical work ourselves. We carried them out of the factory. When everything was ready, Marian and Mykhailo assembled the mimeograph, but it didn’t work the first time. Marian redesigned the blueprints for some parts based on new calculations, and after assembly and adjustment, the device began to produce high-quality output. As long as we could get the factory's stencil paper, the mimeograph worked well. We saw what a striking difference in productivity it made. But stencil paper was a strictly accounted for material, and the opportunity to get it did not come often. Our attempts to make our own stencil paper were unsuccessful: our homemade stencils either did not let the ink through or smeared the words so badly that the text was impossible to read. We disassembled the mimeograph into separate units and parts, and moved most of them back to the factory, where they were stored among a mass of factory parts “for better times,” arousing no suspicion.
In 1964, the Lviv communist party, government, and writers’ nomenclature was preparing for the unveiling of a monument to Ivan Franko. Initially, it was supposed to take place in late August, to coincide with Franko’s birthday, but it was postponed until autumn due to unfinished work. We were also preparing. I composed a leaflet, the author of which was Franko, while my text consisted of only one sentence: “Ukrainians! Let us remember that Franko wrote this about us and for us.” Below it were the words from the "Prologue" of the poem "Moses": “My people…,” and further below, four lines from “Not the time, not the time, not the time…” I gave the text to Marian. Natalia printed over 100 copies. The leaflet, half the size of an A4 sheet, was compact and eloquent, though not anti-Soviet—after all, Franko died before the Bolshevik coup. The unveiling of the monument was scheduled for October 4, and the evening before, Hatala and Cheryba with their guys distributed the leaflets on the floors of the main buildings of the Polytechnic and the University. Another part was posted at night on the walls of buildings and on trees around the perimeter of the park where the monument stood. Natalia and I did not take part in that action, but we all planned to attend the solemn unveiling ceremony. But in the morning, three KGB agents detained me, took me to Vitovskoho Street (then Dzerzhynskoho), and conducted a “prophylactic” conversation until eight in the evening. Halskyi, having returned from the unveiling of the monument, brazenly mocked me: “Ivan, you’re getting upset for nothing about being detained. Our operatives cleaned the place of the leaflets. I would have definitely thought you were the one who made a mess, but now you have an alibi because you were sitting here.” I was indignant that he had made me miss my lectures at the university, but at the same time, I was mentally mocking him: you took me off the bus when we were going to Kaniv for Shevchenko's anniversary, but Myrosia Zvarychevska still managed to pass the *samvydav* to the West, and you don’t even suspect that I was a lightning rod then. And you fell for it. Today you didn't collect all the leaflets either—something was left for the people too.
It was only the next day that the boys told me they had been at the unveiling but didn't distribute any more leaflets—we had agreed in advance that if something unforeseen or dangerous happened, they wouldn't leave leaflets in the crowd, as they could be noticed and caught in the act. They understood why I hadn't come—I had already been preemptively detained many times, and the boys knew this well, so they could easily figure out why I hadn't shown up. But the story with the leaflets didn't end there; it had a sequel.
Marian gave the remaining leaflets to Natalia, and she, instead of storing them in Levandivka or destroying them, hid them in the apartment where she lived. Unfortunately, the leaflets lay there for a long time, until one of her parents, who came to visit their daughter with treats, accidentally found them. Her parents started questioning her, asking who had tasked her with this, what else she had printed, where she had done it, and so on. Natalia told Marian about her trouble. He told her he would take all the blame and answer to her parents as her fiancé. The story with the leaflets might not have ended so dramatically if not for the arrests of 1965 and the high-resonance wave they sent through Ukraine and the world. The arrests alarmed the parents even more. They started reproaching Natalia, saying she wanted to ruin the whole family: her brothers and sisters would be denied the right to study, her parents—their teaching jobs. By that time, I had already been arrested, and I heard about everything that had happened from Marian only after my return from Mordovia.
Natalia was in a depressed state and, under pressure from her parents, gradually surrendered her positions. First, she told Marian she would no longer print *samvydav*. Then her parents forbade Natalia from meeting with Marian, because he would be arrested anyway, and she would be left alone for life. Marian’s attempts to take Natalia and marry her without her parents' permission proved futile due to Natalia’s own refusal: "Without my parents' blessing, I won't be able to live a married life with you." They still met from time to time, but these were no longer lovers' trysts. In the fall of 1966, it turned out that Natalia had leukemia. The disease progressed rapidly because Natalia was in a terrible psychological state. Her relatives believed that this was the cause, and they took their daughter for an examination only when it became obvious that Natalia was beginning to decline physically. By the spring of 1967, she had passed away. Marian took the tragedy very hard. During our first meeting after, I saw a completely different expression on his face: tightly clenched lips, furrows on his brow, a stern look in his eyes. He used to be always smiling, cheerful, audacious, and reckless. He told me: “You know, brother, the world has become empty. I don’t know how my life will turn out, but its meaning is the fight against the occupier. It will take time to become different, but I will never return to the person I was yesterday. But don’t think that I feel wronged or broken. It’s just that a part of my soul has burned out. Or maybe, on the contrary, my soul has been enriched? I have become more mature, I have begun to understand and accept people who have gone through the school of life—the *kryyivkas*, the camps, who have lost loved ones and carry this within them, without complaining to anyone. No one even suspects it.”
Marian had learned to type while I was serving my term, and together with Cheryba and a few other boys (with whom I consciously refused to get acquainted and maintain contact), they retyped and distributed *samvydav*. Marian printed over a hundred copies of I. Franko's “What is Progress” and “Beyond the Realm of the Possible” alone. And just as many of “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalśkyj.” Because he still had copies of those named articles. But until my return, these were generally sporadic things—the boys had no source of supply. After being released from custody, I stopped in Kyiv on my way home. I was met by Nadiia and Ivan Svitlychnyi. That same day, they introduced me to Alla Horska and Vasyl Stus. Later, often visiting Kyiv, I would bring all the Lviv *samvydav* and exchange it for Kyiv's. That's how I got "Cathedral in Scaffolding" and "Ivan Kotliarevskyi is Laughing" by Yevhen Sverstiuk, "Internationalism or Russification?" by Ivan Dziuba, and from Chornovil, I got all 5 issues of the "Ukrainian Herald." So, Marian and his group were loaded with work up to "their ears." True, our meetings became much rarer than before my arrest. I was forbidden to live in Lviv and was exiled to the so-called 101st kilometer, although I wanted to register in my native village. But, as former political prisoners with experience of such a life explained, the rural KGB agent network was either already known to people or was primitive, far from professional. And a professional operative would have stood out as a stranger, a conspicuous figure in the village. Therefore, people returning from imprisonment who were under surveillance were assigned residence in district centers. For me, it was Sambir—a city with a population of 40,000, where all government bodies were concentrated, and a wide network of agents headed by professionals from the city and district KGB operated. They were unknown and unseen, while the newly arrived object of observation remained in plain sight and a stranger in the environment.
However, the KGB agents miscalculated. My sister Olya had been living in Sambir since 1953. She got married there and, with her husband and children, having lived in the city for over 15 years, had a wide circle of acquaintances among the conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia. She worked as the deputy chief accountant of a large trade organization, "ZmishTorh," which supplied both food and industrial goods to essentially all of Sambir. Thanks to my sister, I managed to quickly become one of their own in the city and organize the reprinting and distribution of *Samvydav* there, including books. In Sambir, through my sister and her friends, I met participants of the liberation struggle—political prisoners Danylo Kuzminskyi, Volodymyr Sorokalit, residents of Staryi Sambir Ivan Petryna, Volodymyr Vasiuta, Yosyp Holubets, Volodymyr Zatvarskyi; in Komarno, I established contact with my fellow countrymen who, after serving long prison terms, some even two, had returned from Mordovia, where we "did time" together—Mykhailo Vitr, Andriy Hubych, Vasyl Mysakovets, a resident of Mykolaiv, Vasyl Petriv (pseudonym Roman Pysarchuk), and others. I introduced Marian to most of them. Since I was "under a microscope," Marian also took on the duties of a coordinator-courier—he would pick up the finished *samvydav*, distribute it to the addressees, and deliver it. He often met with Panas Zalyvakha in Ivano-Frankivsk. But later I convinced Zalyvakha that his life's mission was art, because in prison he would not be able to realize himself and his talent would be lost to Ukraine. Therefore, Marian stopped supplying Opanas Zalyvakha with *samvydav*.
In Sambir, most of the materials I brought from Lviv or Kyiv, receiving them from Viacheslav Chornovil, Valentyn Moroz, Nadiia and Ivan Svitlychnyi, Alla Horska, Liubomyra Popadiuk, etc., the first two or three batches—depending on the volume—were typed by Roksoliana Danchyn, a student at the Drohobych Pedagogical Institute. It was through her hands that "The Chronicle of Resistance," "Moses and Dathan" by V. Moroz, and after his arrest, the article "Amid the Snows"—that is, all the journalism and poetry that went into the book of the same name with my preface—passed. The book was about 300 pages long, and this marked a qualitative step forward for Ukrainian *samvydav*. R. Danchyn also retyped all 5 issues of the "Ukrainian Herald," Mykhailo Horyn's book "Letters from Behind Bars," the poetry collection of Zinoviy Krasivskyi "Captive Laments," Mykola Kholodnyi's "Cry from the Grave," and articles by Yevhen Sverstiuk. I would pick up the printed materials from her, arrange them, bind them into books as a bookbinder, and give them to the addressees—part to V. Sorokalit, and part to Kyiv and Moscow. M. Hatala, V. Sorokalit, and Z. Popadiuk also retyped them in their groups and distributed them among trusted people.
Marian and I met most often on weekends in my native village. Especially when business demanded it: on the riverbank with fishing rods in our hands, we could see everything around us and discuss our problems in a calm environment. And when I came to Lviv, I also met with Marian first, often staying overnight at his place. After my imprisonment, I introduced him to Olena Antoniv, Viacheslav Chornovil, Iryna and Ihor Kalynets, Stefaniia Shabatura, Mariia Kachmar, and Yaroslav Matseliukh. In this company, Marian quickly became one of their own, engaged in cultural activities—attending art exhibitions, concerts, Shevchenko gatherings, and other socially significant events, and went caroling in the guise of various Nativity play characters. Here he became close with Stefaniia Shabatura, and she was drawn to Marian, as if seeking support and protection in him, and he chivalrously responded to this call of the soul and knightly supported and protected Stefa. They were both happy together. However, whether their mutual sympathy and friendship were an expression of deep love, I will not venture to judge.
Our last meeting with Marian took place at the end of December 1971. During that December, Vasyl Stus was receiving treatment in Morshyn and would come to Lviv on weekends. We would meet there at the Kalynets' or Shabatura's home. And also in Kyiv, during one of my trips, I told Vasyl that I had "The Destiny of Ukraine" by Y. Lypa and "Nationalism" by D. Dontsov. Stus really wanted to read them, and I brought these works to him. Some time later, he returned "Nationalism" through M. Hatala, because I couldn't make it to the meeting. Unaware of this, I asked Stefaniia Shabatura if Stus had left a book for me with her. When Marian found out about this, he gave me a lesson in conspiracy: "Ivan, you don't talk business with just anyone you can talk to, but with the person you need to talk to." Marian Hatala approached all problems and issues that arose before him with such scrupulousness and principle. For the new year of 1972, Vasyl Stus was in Lviv and went caroling with Marian and his friends. But in Sambir, at 8 p.m., when I was already dressed and about to leave, a police captain came into the house, as he had come for checks many times before, and warned me that I would be detained if I tried to violate the regime. I never met with Marian Hatala and Vasyl Stus again, who were looking for me in Lviv. Vasyl left "The Destiny of Ukraine" with Mykhailo Osadchyi. And on January 12, the arrests took place, the book was confiscated by the KGB during a search and destroyed. I met Vasyl Stus in the Urals, in the Kuchino special regime camp, only in the autumn of 1981, when he was beginning to serve his second term as a particularly dangerous recidivist, and I, as a similar recidivist, was finishing a decade in the same special regime. We were in the same cell for several months until I was taken to exile. And we never had the chance to meet again, as Vasyl Stus died under mysterious circumstances in that same Kuchino camp.
After our arrests in 1972, the KGB, as documented in their reports to Shcherbytsky, began to "work on" M. Hatala only in May. This was a serious failure on the part of the KGB and a testament to Marian's good conspiratorial training and strict adherence to the rules of conspiracy. I quote from document No. 502-1 "Special Report" (Top Secret, copy No. 1): "With respect to M. P. Hatala, the Lviv Oblast UKGB has operational materials indicating that he is a contact of those arrested by the KGB for anti-Soviet activities, namely Hel I., Stus V., Kalynets I., Shabatura S., and others. Shabatura said in her cell that Hatala knows a lot about the hostile activities of the above-named individuals and fears that if interrogated, he may give truthful testimony" (end of quote). However, the first "unofficial conversation" was held with him only on May 18, and the second on May 20, that is, a full 4 months after the arrests. Thus, for three years of his most productive activity, M. Hatala did not fall under the KGB's operational surveillance. This shows that the audacious "professionals"—the KGB sleuths—did not so much anticipate the events and facts of "anti-Soviet nationalist activity" as they played catch-up. For instance, the chief of the Sambir district KGB, Lieutenant Colonel Shal, was demoted to captain for his failures and sent to Kharkiv Oblast as an ordinary operative after the arrests. But unfortunately, we simply have no information about the fate of Marian's "guardian"-handler.
I also have no doubt that Marian was not afraid of interrogations. He was prepared for arrest and investigation both physically and psychologically—his older brother, an experienced underground fighter, had taught him a great deal. And he himself was a strong and courageous man.
Marian planned his step into eternity in advance and took it consciously. On May 25, 1972, he came to the workshop between shift changes, when the first shift was already finishing its work and the second was preparing for theirs. Over fifteen hundred people worked in the shop. So, many workers had gathered in the room. Marian was the lead technologist, and everyone there knew him. He gathered people around him and in a short speech spoke about the occupation of Ukraine, about the repressions against those fighting for Ukrainian statehood. And after the words, “only my blood can wash the occupiers’ filth from my land,” he pierced his heart with scissors. The measure of his self-sacrifice for Ukraine and the strength of his spirit were so great that for its freedom, Marian Hatala consciously gave the most precious thing—his own life.
P.S. When my memoirs about M. Hatala were essentially finished—they were being prepared as a supplement to an interview conducted with me by the well-known public figures in Ukraine and abroad, Vasyl Ovsiyenko and Vakhtang Kipiani—the Head of the SBU, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, and the director of the SBU's departmental archive, Volodymyr Viatrovych, right before their dismissal from their posts, managed to process and declassify a large array of documents under the general title BLOCK, which directly relate to the activities of participants in the national liberation struggle of the 1960s-1980s. In this collection of KGB materials, there are several that directly concern the person of Marian Hatala and his sacrificial act. V. Ovsiyenko, knowing from the content of the interview that Marian was my close friend and comrade, kindly and in a comradely fashion sent them to me, for which I express my sincere gratitude.
The documents are three reports from the Head of the Ukrainian KGB, Fedorchuk V., to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPU, Shcherbytsky V. They testify to:
1. The great concern, not to say panic, of the KGB leadership caused by Marian Hatala’s suicide in the workshop of the Lviv Kinescope Factory on May 25, 1972;
a) on that very day (I quote in the original language): “The Deputy Chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, comrade Troyak N. Z., was dispatched to the city of Lviv (on the evening of May 25).” (Sectoral State Archive of the SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 347).
b) Not even a day had passed, that is on May 26, V. Fedorchuk, in a “special report,” informs V. Shcherbytsky about the suicide, provides M. Hatala’s biographical data, and emphasizes: “On the instructions of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, the Lviv Oblast UKGB has taken necessary measures to prevent possible excesses (emphasis added by I. H.) related to the suicide of M. P. Hatala.” (Ibid.).
c) The KGB cynically fabricated rumors about the motives for the suicide, claiming he did it because an order for his promotion was canceled, because of an unsettled personal life, sexual inadequacy, and so on.
2. M. Hatala’s heroic act caused a wide resonance and public unrest in Lviv. The content of Fedorchuk’s reports testifies to this.
a) The KGB was forced to carry out a series of preventive measures to prevent open public demonstrations. This meant: detaining potential instigators; prohibiting anyone from speaking the truth about what M. Hatala said to the people and the purpose of his act; spreading false rumors that would falsify the very idea and motives of the suicide and discredit the person who committed an act of protest against the occupational regime.
b) Factory workers, Komsomol members Sergei Golikov, Pavlo Bantsak, and Bohdan Postiuk, appealed to the Komsomol organizers of the shop and the factory, as well as to the section chief, demanding that a Komsomol meeting be held (even though M. Hatala was not a Komsomol member) to clarify the reasons and circumstances of the suicide. Only after a "clarificatory conversation" was held with them did the people withdraw their demand. (SSA SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 353).
c) M. Hatala’s funeral took place on May 27 with a large number of people in attendance, although the KGB tried with all its might to prevent this. What’s more, despite the fact that the act of suicide was a demonstrative protest against the occupational regime, both the KGB and the regional committee were forced to give permission to bury the body, just as they did a little later with the body of Volodymyr Ivasiuk, on one of the central avenues of the Lychakiv Cemetery, even though burials of ordinary people were no longer conducted in that cemetery.
3. To quell the public unrest in Lviv, the KGB was forced to carry out a series of preventive measures. I quote: “In order to prevent undesirable manifestations on the part of the subjects of the ‘Wave’ case (obviously, patriots who had not yet been arrested and were capable of open protest, as L. Kostenko, I. Dziuba, V. Chornovil and others did in 1966 – I. H.) and their like-minded associates in connection with Hatala’s suicide, the Lviv Oblast UKGB is conducting a complex of agent-operational measures (emphasis added by I. H.).” (SSA SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 352).
A paragraph of similar content is also present in Fedorchuk’s last report to Shcherbytsky. (SSA SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 367).
The emphasis on conducting such measures in two documents testifies to the great importance the KGB attached to this event and how much effort it exerted to suppress and neutralize the people's agitation. Agent-operational measures included:
a) So-called prophylactic conversations, which in reality were a form of crude moral pressure, even terror. A person would be summoned to the KGB or taken from their workplace or simply caught on the street. The "object" would be taken to the KGB administration, often to a KGB safe house, and they would begin (or continue) to "process" them: they would recruit them, promise them education, a position, housing, all sorts of privileges. When the "object" did not yield to the "carrot," they would switch to the "stick"—threats, blackmail, defamation. This was done by trained operative-psychologists. It must be admitted that in psychological terror, the KGB achieved significant success—fear reigned in society, and there was a mass of agents.
b) The fabrication and dissemination of various false or deceitfully interpreted, distorted facts, inventions, rumors, gossip, etc. These would come from the mouths of supposedly close or knowledgeable people. In this specific case, i.e., in the documents concerning M. Hatala, the KGB does not reveal to Shcherbytsky the full content of all its agent-operational measures, but it does present some as possible "motives" for the suicide: the cancellation of a draft order for promotion (a protest against injustice, but not against the occupiers); the words of the shop foreman, to whom female workers in his shop told of M. Hatala's supposed sexual inadequacy, which is also interpreted as a probable cause of suicide; and the death of a loved one, etc. The goal was one and the same—to discredit and defame the person and his act.
c) The KGB refers to the opinions of "anti-Soviet-minded individuals Popadiuk L., Hulyk S., Hnatenko V., and others," who allegedly condemned M. Hatala's suicide. The KGB fully approves of this position and presents and disseminates it among the people as the assessment of the general public. (SSA SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 367).
d) The KGB attributed a blatant denunciation to S. Shabatura, Marian's friend—in her cell, she supposedly said that, I quote: "Hatala knows a lot about the hostile activities (could Stefa call her own activities, as well as those of many of her comrades, hostile—emphasis added by I.H.) of the above-named individuals and fears that if interrogated, he may give truthful testimony." (End of quote. – SSA SBU. – F. 16. – Op. 3 (1975). – File 14. – Folio 346). In prison, before the investigation and trial are concluded, comrades in the same case are never held in the same cell. For example, with Iryna Kalynets. So, could Stefa Shabatura share such intimate thoughts about a person very close to her with cell stool pigeons, "hens," etc.? Absolutely not! Agent-operational measures are nothing but the dirty games of the political police.
The KGB agents cynically lied even to Shcherbytsky because the Moscow totalitarian system was so thoroughly deceitful and vile. At the cost of millions of selfless heroes like Marian Hatala, we destroyed it. Therefore, we must remember those who laid down their lives on the altar of freedom.
Ivan Hel.
September 2010.
In the photo from January 9, 1972, standing: Liubomyra Popadiuk, Vasyl Stus, Olena Antoniv, Iryna Kalynets, Mariia Sadovska, Hanna Sadovska, Mykhailo Horyn. Seated: Stefaniia Shabatura, dressed as a gypsy, Marian Hatala, Oleksandr Kuzmenko.
