Dmytro ZHOVTIAK. THE BLACK FOREST. A documentary novel. As told to Leonid Kononovych. 2006.
Dmytro Zhovtiak was born in 1926 in the village of Rudnyky, now in the Snyatyn district of the Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, to a peasant family. He had an incomplete secondary education. From June 1944 to January 1946, he served in the Soviet Army. After demobilization, he worked underground as a stanychnyi (local leader) in the OUN territorial network. He was arrested on November 24, 1947, and sentenced by the Special Council of the USSR Council of Ministers under Articles 54-1a, 11, and 9 to 25 years of imprisonment. He served his sentence in the concentration camps of Inta (Komi ASSR). He was an activist of the underground organization "Obiednannia" ("The Union"), which operated in Inta and Ukraine from 1956. He was organizationally connected with Ya. Kobyletsky, V. Zatvarsky, and Ya. Hasiuk. He kept the organization’s materials and typed leaflets on a typewriter. In August 1956, he was released by a commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. For some time, he worked at a mine in Inta, where he suffered a concussion. In 1958, he moved to Ukraine. He had an organizational meeting with the leader of "Obiednannia," B. Khrystynych, in Ivano-Frankivsk. The organization was exposed in 1959. Thanks to his concussion, Zhovtiak avoided arrest. He lives in his native village and takes an active part in public and political life. Dmytro Zhovtiak is the father of the well-known politician Yevhen Zhovtiak.
The entire novel is published on the website of the writer Leonid Kononovych at: http://laoljan.mylivepage.ru/files/Дмитро ЖОВТЯК.Чорний ліс (повість).rar.
…In 1953, Stalin died. They said that in the free world, it was a terrible tragedy for everyone, people cried and tore their clothes, and during the funeral, such a crowd formed that several dozen souls were trampled to death—but in the camps, the news of the murderer and tyrant’s death was met with a joy the likes of which I had never seen in my life. Everyone hoped for improvement. Soon, it did come—in 1954, the regime in the Inta zones was significantly relaxed. Some were released, others were transferred to settlements, meaning they lived outside the zone and went to work freely, and we were de-conveyed, so I could visit friends in the city and, of course, strengthen ties with other camps. Moreover, the camp administration lifted restrictions on correspondence. We were able to not only receive letters and parcels from home but also subscribe to magazines, newspapers, and even order Ukrainian books on a cash-on-delivery basis. Many prisoners, especially the young ones, began to write poems, short stories, and memoirs about the struggle in the underground and camp life. One of the UPA fighters, Bohdan Khrystynych, at this time created a “Synopsis of the History of the Ukrainian National Revolution,” in which he outlined the entire course of the national liberation struggles. In my opinion, this work is extremely relevant even today, as it very consistently, accessibly, and concisely depicts the entire complex, and at times exceptionally tangled, history of the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine. I remember that after reading it in manuscript (*), I was simply struck: it is difficult to sort out the course of events of 1917–1920 in Ukraine, but in Khrystynych’s work, they were analyzed very clearly and precisely. In general, cultural life in the camps became extremely lively: spontaneously, without the permission of the authorities, drama circles began to emerge, staging Ukrainian plays. At that time, I also wrote a dozen poems, which I later sent by mail to Ukraine. [We omit the poems].
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*This work is published in full in the book: Bohdan Khrystynych. On the Paths to Freedom. The Underground Organization “Obiednannia” (1956-1959) — L.: LNU named after Ivan Franko, 2004. (See also: https://museum.khpg.org/1233416874;
https://museum.khpg.org/1233402295;
https://museum.khpg.org/1116509297 ).
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That’s what was written in that captivity, whenever there was a free moment—in those poems, the soul found some refuge and, for a moment at least, forgot about the harsh, severe reality.
It should be noted that imprisonment was experienced differently by different people. Some were deeply stunned by captivity, considering it a shame and a heavy trial. To such people, I always said: “Be proud that you were imprisoned. You are serving a sentence for fighting for Ukraine. Of course, we lost this fight. But think about something else: if Ukraine became free, and you had not taken part in the struggle, would you have the right to call yourself a Ukrainian?” One way or another, my conscience was clear: I fought for Ukraine along with all decent people and did everything to drive the invader from our land.
And in 1956, a commission from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR arrived in Inta and began to review sentences, in particular, those that had been handed down by the OSO. I was one of the first to be summoned by the commission.
“Well, here we have,” said the chairman of the commission, “Zhovtiak, Dmytro Vasylovych… sentenced by a decision of the OSO to twenty-five years!” He looked at me. “Tell us, Dmytro Vasylovych, how did you manage to get such a term?”
I repeated, word for word, what I had said during the investigation.
“The whole case,” I concluded my speech, “was fabricated from beginning to end. I am suffering innocently, Comrade Chairman.”
“But the witnesses,” said the chairman, “testified that they saw you, Porokh, Kureliuk, and two others burning down the kolkhoz… What do you have to say to that?”
“And I will now prove to you that this testimony is false,” I said. “The witnesses, in particular, showed that we were armed—supposedly I had an automatic rifle, and Kureliuk had a machine gun. However, during the investigation, there was no mention of this weapon. Why didn’t investigator Petukhov ask us where that automatic rifle and machine gun were? Because he knew they didn’t exist, Comrade Chairman!”
The members of the commission looked at each other.
“Alright,” said the chairman, “we will look into it… Do you have any requests, Zhovtiak?”
“During my arrest,” I said, “they took my boots, the greatcoat in which I went through the whole war, and four hundred rubles in cash. I want all of this returned to me, and if that is not possible, then at least to the state—so that bandits do not benefit from that property!”
Everyone became alert. I realized I had gone a bit too far and hastily clarified:
“Don’t think that I am calling the organs of Soviet power bandits. I am talking about those people who hid in the forests while I was fighting, and then surrendered and began to slander honest citizens.”
“Alright, Zhovtiak,” the chairman said wearily, “we will think about how to return your confiscated property… You may go.”
I walked out the door.
“Well? What happened?” the zeks who were waiting their turn asked me.
“It seems they’re going to rehabilitate me…” I replied. Then I caught myself and rushed back to the door behind which the commission was sitting.
“Where are you off to again?” the zampolit grabbed my arm.
“I forgot to say that my unjust witnesses should be convicted!” I exclaimed.
The zampolit smiled.
“Go on, go on… you’ve troubled people’s heads enough!”
It was August 1956. A few days later, I was released from the camp ahead of schedule, and I could go home.
[The author then presents the program of “Obiednannia,” which is published here: https://museum.khpg.org/1234269201]
When I was released from the camps, I thought deeply. The path home was open. I could have returned to Rudnyky, settled in my parents’ house, and lived on my native land… But how exactly? They wrote from home that the whole village worked on the kolkhoz, they were paid almost nothing for their labor-days, and people survived on what they could grow in their gardens and barns. To go into kolkhoz slavery, to work as I had worked in the camps, that is, for free? No, I thought, that will not happen! I did not break out from behind barbed wire to become a disenfranchised slave again and toil for the Soviet grandees. Besides, the management at work asked me to stay and work at the mine, because there were no specialists, and I was considered a good mechanic, and I didn’t drink vodka.
Alright, I said, I’ll stay, but give me a vacation so I can go home.
During the conversation with the commission, they asked me where I wanted to go for permanent residence, and I named my village. I had already decided to stay in Inta, but I had a dual calculation: first, they paid for my ticket and I could visit Ukraine at the state’s expense, and second, I wouldn’t be sitting in this Inta forever—someday I would have to return home, and the referral from the camp would be there, making it easier to get a residence permit.
I was traveling in the train car with three of my fellow countrymen, also Banderites. One of them was the boy we had once given ten lashes to for misbehaving. After supper, I climbed onto the top bunk but didn’t take off my shoes—thieves could easily swipe them at night.
Besides us, there were several Russians in the compartment.
Just as I was about to doze off, three men entered the compartment. They were all covered in tattoos, and I immediately saw that they were blatnye (professional criminals).
“Money!” one of them sternly ordered my neighbor.
He was an old man, and I saw that he was frightened.
“I said: hand over the money!” the blatnoy repeated in a commanding tone.
I propped myself up on my elbow.
“Hey,” I said, “you scum! Why are you bothering the old man? You want a fist in the face or what? Get the hell out of here, so I don’t even have to smell you!”
He turned and poked two fingers at my eyes. Usually, one defends against this with the edge of the hand, but I raised my leg and kicked him in the face with my heel as hard as I could.
He grunted and fell to the floor.
“Beat the scum!” shouted the boys.
The other two rushed to flee. They were caught at the door and began to be pummeled with feet and hands. This lasted for about ten minutes. The blatnye shrieked like cats in a junkyard, but the Muscovites also jumped down from their bunks and joined our men. I lay on my bunk and supervised the affair.
“Enough,” I finally ordered.
The blatnye were thrown out into the vestibule. The Muscovites returned to the compartment and climbed back onto their bunks. Our boys came back too—they were out of breath, some had their fists bloodied.
“Where are you from?” I asked one of the Russians.
“From Moscow.”
“And you?” I asked another.
“Also.”
I shook my head.
“So why didn’t you stand up for your countryman?”
He was silent.
“We,” I said, “are from Western Ukraine, Banderites. You fought against us, killed our people, tortured us in prisons—and yet we stood up for you! Because we fought not against the Russian people, but against the Bolshevik system. We wanted to win our own, independent state, in which all its citizens would have equal rights! You considered us bandits, murderers who hate Russians and are ready to cut them to pieces. Have you now seen that this is not so?”
“Of course!” several voices responded.
“Young man,” said the old man, “I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life! I will tell everyone how the Banderites defended me from ruffians. I never thought you would be of such help to me…”
The next day we arrived in Moscow. Saying goodbye, the old man shook my hand. And I got on another train and headed to Ukraine. And so, after ten years in the camps, I found myself in my native village again.
Needless to say, everything there had changed. There were not even any rumors about the underground—the last members of the armed units were killed back in the early fifties, and I couldn’t even find their graves. People were trying to adapt somehow to Soviet rule. Those who managed to get to the city, get a job at a factory, or enroll in studies were luckier; the rest went to work on the kolkhoz. The youth were eager to leave the village, but they didn’t have much success escaping the kolkhoz—peasants were not issued passports, and documents could only be obtained by someone going to work somewhere outside of Ukraine, to the North or beyond the Arctic Circle. After a short stay in Rudnyky, I returned to Inta. Later, my sisters came to me, and I arranged jobs for them.
Meanwhile, our organization was growing. News of it even reached the authorities. Once, near the mine, I happened to overhear a conversation between some high-ranking official from the camp administration.
“There’s information that the blatnye are raising their heads again,” said a young lieutenant of the internal service.
“It’s nothing,” replied the colonel, “the Banderites will quickly clip their wings!”
Later, I even managed to turn one young man who worked as a secret KGB collaborator. His name was Yosyp, and he was from our village. When I came home to Rudnyky, I was asked to find him a job somewhere in Inta. The boy was very young, I didn’t know him, but I agreed to help, because I knew that young people were trying to break out of the kolkhoz at any cost.
As it happened, after returning to Inta, a messenger came to me from a neighboring district: three people were urgently needed for some urgent matter. I only had two. After thinking, I called Yosyp.
“Can you go to the neighboring district?” I asked him.
“Alone?”
“No, with two others. With these fighters.”
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“I can, of course.”
“Listen carefully,” I told them. “You get on the bus and go to the fourth district. A man will be waiting for you at the stop. You will recognize him by the fact that he will have his hand inside his coat lapel. The password is such-and-such.”
“And then?” asked Yosyp.
“Then they will tell you what to do.”
The next day, Yosyp met me near the mine.
“So how did it go?” I asked.
“We sorted it out,” he replied. “Mr. Dmytro, is it customary here that when you’re asked, you have to go immediately?”
I smiled.
“My friend,” I said quietly, “that was not a request—that was an order! Got it?”
“Of course…” he said, embarrassed. “So, this is, like, some kind of organization?”
“Well,” I said, “there are many of us here, and we are all friends… And friends help each other, that’s all.”
He shifted from foot to foot. It was clear he wanted to say something, but didn’t dare.
“Mr. Dmytro…” he finally said.
“Well?”
“The thing is… well, you see… in a word, I was summoned to the KGB!”
I became wary.
“How could you be summoned there, if you’ve only been in Inta for a few days?”
“Well,” he stammered, “you see, here’s the story… It started back in Rudnyky, but I didn’t want to tell you, because I thought it would all blow over…”
“What would blow over?” I didn’t understand.
He sighed deeply.
“The thing is, at home, the local KGB recruited me as a seksot (informant)… They forced me, you see? That’s why I left for Inta, so they would lose my trail. But it turned out they summon me here too. They asked about you, by the way.”
I burst out laughing.
“What a naive boy you are, Yosyp! This is the Soviet Union—wherever you go, your file will follow you, you understand? You’ve made me laugh!”
“So they’ll never leave me alone?” he asked.
“Of course not!” At that moment, a good idea struck me. “Listen, friend, can you work for us?”
“How so?”
“They will summon you and give you assignments. You will come and tell me everything. I will tell you what to write for them. Agreed?”
He nodded.
And so we got our own agent in the KGB. Yosyp brought us simply invaluable benefits: he met with his handler at a safe house on Polyarna Street in Inta, and we set up secret surveillance on that apartment. Within a few months, we knew all the snitches who came to that apartment with reports.
At that time, among the people involved in the organization, an idea arose to expand our activities. Many of the released Banderites had already managed to visit Ukraine. They saw the same thing I had to observe during my recent trip home: only memories remained of the underground, and even those, over time, became overgrown with rumors and lies spread by Soviet propaganda. The generation of fighters for Ukraine’s freedom had fallen in battle, the rest were deported to Siberia, and the youth who had grown up in that time had a vague and very mistaken idea about the activities of the UPA. In general, the impression was as if an old, ancient forest had been cut down, grass quickly grew in its place, and now there was not even a trace where mighty, spreading oaks had once rustled. When I was traveling home, this image literally haunted me; could it be, I thought to myself, that all those sacrifices that our generation made on the altar of Ukraine were in vain, could the deaths of Gonta, Khmara, Don, Syvyi, those girls from Novoselytsia and hundreds of thousands of other Banderites who fell in battles with the invader be in vain? Could these Bolshevik dregs and their henchmen really rejoice in the fact that they had destroyed the flower of the Ukrainian nation and brought an entire people to its knees? Why then was it necessary to work in the underground, to go through prisons and transit camps, to sit in camps for long years?
The thought that we were still members of the OUN and should continue the struggle had haunted me even in confinement, and I remember sharing it in the camp with Yaroslav Kobyletsky and Volodymyr Zatvarsky.
“We need to do something,” Zatvarsky said to this. “They are celebrating victory too early!”
I looked at him inquisitively.
“What exactly? Start an armed struggle?”
“We have no contact with the leadership,” he replied. “The OUN has ceased its activities in Ukraine. And without its guidance, any terror would be simple banditry. It seems to me we should start with propaganda activities.”
“I heard that in Vorkuta our people created the Transpolar District of the OUN,” Kobyletsky interjected. “Maybe they managed to establish contact with the underground that survived in Ukraine.”
“Who knows…” Zatvarsky muttered. “As for me, that district there exists rather formally! We still need to take up the propaganda of the ideas of Ukrainian nationalism. Look, all the newspapers are screaming that the Banderites collaborated with the Germans, that they killed children, raped women, betrayed their own people… We need to inform the population, especially the youth, about the goals of the nationalist movement. Well, and then we will think about what methods to resort to!..”
“Will any of our people agree to take part in this?” I asked.
Zatvarsky smiled.
“I’ve already managed to talk to a few… I think about twenty souls will gather.”
“But it’s about time to move from talking to working,” I remarked. “To gather and, at least, organize something! Instead, we’re just sitting here in this Inta…”
“Alright,” said Zatvarsky, “I’ll try to arrange it.”
It was March 1956. We had already been de-conveyed. At the end of the month, the first meeting took place in the house of a Lithuanian in Inta, where Bohdan Khrystynych, Yaroslav Hasiuk, Yaroslav Kobyletsky, Volodymyr Zatvarsky, and several other OUN members who were involved in organizing camp resistance gathered. Although there was a temptation to fully use the organization for underground work, it was decided at the meeting to limit it to a narrow circle of reliable, proven people. At the same time, a dispute arose as to whether we had the right, without the permission of the main OUN leadership, to create such an organization and generally engage in underground, particularly propaganda, work. Such thoughts were expressed by the old members of the OUN, who were accustomed to discipline and strict subordination to their superiors. Of course, there was a certain logic in this, but these people did not take into account that the political situation had changed, the OUN was no longer in Ukraine, there was not even contact with its foreign branches, and finally, they did not take into account that during the war years this organization had changed a lot and lost its rigid, centralist character. I want to note that these doubts were not a manifestation of any fear of the Soviets or, so to speak, a slavish psychology that requires someone to give them a slogan for struggle—they were not like that, because the people who gathered for this meeting belonged to the most dedicated and reliable cadres of the OUN. They recognized one slogan: “You will win a Ukrainian state or you will die in the struggle for it.” And we were all ashamed that the party-Soviet scum had run wild on our land and was doing whatever it pleased. Finally, the meeting agreed that the work should be started independently, without the permission of the OUN, and entrusted the development of the program and charter of “Obiednannia” to Volodymyr Zatvarsky and Bohdan Khrystynych.
The second meeting took place in June of the same year. In his memoirs (*), Bohdan Khrystynych calls it the constituent assembly: during this meeting, the program and charter of the organization were approved, which, as all present agreed, considered itself an integral part of the OUN. It should also be noted that it was decided to use propaganda methods of struggle against the communist regime. At the meeting, a leadership was elected—a governing body of six people, and Yaroslav Hasiuk became the leader of “Obiednannia,” for whom all present voted. At this meeting, the initiators of the organization took a solemn oath. Here is its text:
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*Bohdan Khrystynych. The Underground Organization “Obiednannia”..., p. 32
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“I, a Ukrainian revolutionary, behind the barbed wires solemnly give this oath before Almighty God, before the image of the Most Holy Mother of Ukraine, before the shed blood of the best sons of the Ukrainian Nation, before the Golden Trident, before the supreme Political Leadership of the Ukrainian National Revolution, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. I swear until the last moment of my existence and breath to give my life without fear of death in the name of the victory of Ukrainian Nationalism.
I swear to be cruel and merciless, strict and severe, unconditionally subordinate and disciplined warrior of the idea of the National Ukrainian Revolution, to guard the secret entrusted to me like the ark of the highest Holiness, to bravely and without hesitation fulfill the duties assigned to me and to give all my strength, labor, and blood for the existence of my nation.” (*)
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*This text is also cited from the publication: Bohdan Khrystynych. The Underground Organization “Obiednannia”..., pp. 189-190
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To a modern person, it is strange to read this text: they are struck by the high pathos of the oath and the fact that the members of “Obiednannia” are undertaking what seems to be a hopeless task—the struggle against the mighty Soviet state. Just think, they were released early, pardoned for fifteen years of imprisonment—and they are at it again! It would seem that if you are let out of the slammer, you should kiss the master’s hand and go home! I think some explanations are needed here. The fact is that our generation was distinguished by a special psychology, at the core of which lay a deep idealism. Perhaps the reason for this was a religious upbringing, which puts spirit first, not matter, and recognizes a person as worthy of their title only when they serve a high idea. It is only a pity that idealism is very rarely combined with practice, it is more of a contemplative psychology, which, as a rule, is not embodied in life—but our generation here was just an exception, because our idealism had a practical character: we loved Ukraine not in words, but in deeds. From an idea, we immediately moved to its implementation: we took up arms and physically destroyed the enemy, as was the case in the forties, or we began underground, propaganda work, for which we organized “Obiednannia.” We all knew that we were violating Soviet laws and that for this we would not only be given new terms of imprisonment, but also the years of camps that the rehabilitation commission had gifted us would be added to them—but we did not want to be two-legged cattle, joyfully roaring a welcome to our executioners, we wanted to be human! I think it is precisely this high idealism that the vast majority of politicians in independent Ukraine lack, who defend only their own selfish interests and the interests of the group to which they belong—this is the reason for all our failures and, in particular, the incredibly bitter defeat of the Orange Revolution.
Soon, Bohdan Khrystynych went to visit his relatives in Ukraine and bought a typewriter in Lviv. It turned out that this was extremely difficult, as printing equipment was under the strict control of the KGB, but he managed to buy an old “Underwood” in a workshop on Kopernyka Street. In the same year, Zatvarsky brought this machine to Inta. None of us had dealt with such technology before, but I quickly learned to work on the machine. I typed not in the barracks, where I lived with my two sisters and brother, but in the mine workshop during the night shifts. So that the clicking would not be heard, I placed the machine on a pillow, hung an electric lamp over it, and then covered it all with a blanket and typed in this makeshift hut. One can imagine how it was to work in such conditions, and yet in this way we printed a whole pile of leaflets.
It soon became clear that a typewriter would not be enough for our purposes. We decided to make our own printing press. However, it turned out that all attempts to implement this idea were doomed to failure, since none of us was familiar with the printing business. But then, in 1956, Vasyl Buchkovsky arrived in Inta. The fate of this man was typical for that era: in 1952, he was arrested for creating an underground student organization at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute and sentenced to twenty-five years in the camps. In 1956, he was released early by the rehabilitation commission and went to live in Ternopil. Less than two months later, the regional KGB department ordered him to leave Ukraine within forty-eight hours. He decided to consult with Bohdan Khrystynych, who at that time had come to his village to visit his relatives, and he advised him to go to Inta. Buchkovsky had experience in the printing business and in incredibly difficult, artisanal conditions, he made printing fonts and stereotypes. This is how leaflets were printed with the titles “Citizen!”, “Kolkhoznik!”, “The Twentieth Anniversary of Moscow’s Rule in Ukraine,” “Nikita’s Press Conference Song,” “Twelve Traits of a Ukrainian Revolutionary,” and other materials. In total, the printing press managed to produce about five thousand leaflets. Part of the printed products was transported to Ukraine, where it was distributed by Kyrylo Banatsky, Yosyp Slabina, and other arrivals from Inta who were allowed to reside in their homeland.
In 1958, I received a vacation and went to Rudnyky again. By that time, I was already over thirty, I had a girlfriend in my native village, and we decided to get married. A few days before my departure, I was summoned to the personnel department. When I got there, two men in civilian clothes were already waiting for me.
“Oh,” said one, “here is Zhovtiak! Sit down, let’s talk.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“We,” he smiled, “are from the district KGB department!”
“Oh,” I sighed, “you are good guys, but it’s better never to see you!”
“And why is that?” one quickly asked.
“Well,” I said, “it just seems that way to me… What are we going to talk about?”
“Sit down,” the KGB officer ordered. “Or rather, have a seat.”
I sat down on a chair.
“So what are we going to talk about?”
“About a few things…” the second one chimed in. “For example, how are you living here?”
Aha, I thought to myself, just talk… I know your approaches, you won’t pull the wool over my eyes!
“Fine,” I replied.
“So, you are satisfied?” the second one asked.
“With what?”
“Well, with your work… and in general, with your situation!”
“Of course,” I smiled. “Thanks to the Soviet government, it freed me from punishment, gave me a job… I’m working, you see.”
“And do you know a certain Yaroslav Kobyletsky?” the first one suddenly asked.
“Of course,” I readily replied.
“And Zhukovsky, Zhuravsky, Zatvarsky?”
“I know them too. What’s the matter?”
They looked at each other.
“Well, we’ve heard rumors that you and these friends of yours were beating people at the mine when you were still serving your sentence… And in general, you created a whole organization! What do you have to say about that?”
I burst out laughing.
“Guys,” I finally said, “Zhukovsky, Zhuravsky, Zatvarsky, and Zhovtiak had girlfriends at the mine! And since these girls were free, they could have gotten into serious trouble for having relations with zeks. So we invented some kind of organization… But in reality, we were visiting women!”
The KGB officers grimaced—this answer probably didn’t please them. For the next two hours, all they did was ask me about various people connected to “Obiednannia,” and a chill went down my spine: they knew a great, great deal! Just a few months earlier, Yosyp had warned me that the disinformation with which we were feeding the KGB was arousing his handler’s distrust: it was not confirmed by information from other sources—which meant that seksoty had infiltrated the organization’s ranks! Finally, one of the KGB officers placed a clean sheet of paper and a pen on the table and said:
“Well, now let’s put our conversation in writing!..”
So that’s what it is, I thought. You want to recruit me… But I said aloud, decisively:
“No.”
“Why not?” the KGB officer frowned.
“I’m not suited for this,” I explained to him. “If I hear news that a conspiracy against the Soviet government is being prepared, then I will, of course, report it to our dear KGB… But I am not capable of permanent cooperation with you, so don’t even try to persuade me.”
They pressed me for another hour, but they just wasted their time. Finally, one said:
“Alright, Zhovtiak, go home… You’ve given us a headache!”
“I gave you a headache?” I was genuinely surprised.
“Who else!” the second KGB officer chimed in. “It’s difficult to talk to you… Not like with others! And you don’t mind if we meet again?”
I stood up.
“A hundred times over!” I replied.
The next day, they picked me up after work and took me to the police station. They held me for about three hours, but I stubbornly stood my ground: I would not work for the organs. And so this time too, they came up empty-handed.
On my way home, I did everything I could to prevent them from detaining me on the road: if the security organs failed to persuade someone to cooperate, they would stage some kind of provocation—plant a weapon, involve them in a fight, or something similar. After that, they would give a choice: either we open a criminal case against you, or you sign a commitment to work for the KGB. Thank God, nothing like that happened, and I arrived in Rudnyky without incident, where wedding preparations were already underway.
The next day, my fiancée and I were going to the altar. Walking down the street, I heard the wedding guests singing “Oy u luzi chervona kalyna pokhylylasia” (“Oh, in the meadow a red guelder-rose has bent down”)—the song of the Sich Riflemen, with which they went to help the government of the UNR. The words loudly echoed down the whole street: “A my tiyi moskovski kaydany rozirvemo, a my tuyu slavnu Ukrayinu hey-hey rozveselymo…” (“And we will break those Moscow chains, and we will cheer up our glorious Ukraine, hey-hey…”)
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“I hear it,” she replied.
“I’m afraid they’ll drag me to the district again,” I shook my head.
A few days later, I was summoned to the Zabolotiv district KGB department.
“Did you have a wedding?” the head of the district department, Zavgorodnii, asked me.
“I did.”
“Who organized it?”
“My mother did, who else!”
“And who printed the invitations?”
“The invitations were handwritten, not printed,” I replied. And I thought to myself: have these bloodhounds sniffed out the printing press in Inta? It can’t be!
“Who wrote them?”
“My sisters.”
The KGB officer thought.
“At your wedding,” he said gravely, “they sang an anti-Soviet song. What explanation can you give for this?”
“What song?”
“That one… ‘Oh, in the meadow a red guelder-rose’!”
I burst out laughing.
“Comrade sir,” I said condescendingly, “how is that an anti-Soviet song! It existed even in the times of Khmelnytsky. In the film ‘Bohdan Khmelnytsky,’ the Polish ambassadors are sitting at the table, and the Cossacks are singing ‘Oy u luzi chervona kalyna pokhylylasia, Chohos nasha slavna Ukraina zazhurylasia’! Didn’t you know that? It’s also in Korniychuk’s play.”
The KGB officer fell deep in thought. I looked at him and laughed inwardly: what fools these occupiers are! Just like their paid writers: to think of putting the Sich Riflemen’s song two hundred years earlier, as Korniychuk did!
“But they were singing about some Moscow chains there…” he finally said.
“No,” I said firmly, “the song has no such words! It’s about enemy chains. There’s nothing about Moscow. And if they did sing about them, it must have been your protégés, the Komsomol members—ask them, not me!”
“Well, alright, alright…” Zavgorodnii said hastily. “But still, one man did start singing an anti-Soviet song, but you immediately cut him off. That happened, didn’t it?”
That did indeed happen. A friend of my father’s had a bit too much to drink and belted out at the top of his lungs: “Oh, far away beyond the border, Bandera sits at a table.” I went up to him and said: “Uncle, I beg you—don’t sing that one, or there will be trouble!”—He immediately caught himself: “Okay, okay, Mytro… I’ll be quiet!”
I looked at the KGB officer and spread my hands.
“That didn’t happen.”
“No, no,” the KGB officer said insistently, looking me in the eyes, “how could it not have happened? And you did the right thing by forbidding such singing. Well?”
“You know,” I said, “if they were singing something like that, I would, of course, have forbidden it. But I don’t recall such an incident at my wedding, I swear to God! The thing is, I got drunk and was as drunk as a skunk.”
The KGB officer sighed.
“Alright,” he said, “never mind that… We were just talking, but I have a much more serious matter for you. Can you guess what we’re going to talk about?”
“No,” I replied.
“We, Comrade Zhovtiak,” he announced joyfully, “are going to continue the conversation that our colleagues from the Inta KGB department already had with you… Remember?”
“Why wouldn’t I remember!” I replied. “Did they tell you about it over the phone?”
“Yes,” he nodded gravely.
“And if so,” I said firmly, “then we have nothing more to talk about!”
The KGB officer turned red. Only now did it dawn on him that he had let it slip.
“And why not?!”
“Because what you talked about on the phone is already known throughout the whole district! Do you want me to be hanged from a branch? Or torn between two birches, tied by the legs? That’s it, our conversation is over!”
Zavgorodnii almost choked with rage. I thought he was going to have a stroke right there: he turned even redder and became like a beet.
“Well, you are insolent!..” he finally said. “They were right when they said you’re a slippery one! Write a non-disclosure statement and go to hell!”
I took a piece of paper and wrote that I would not tell anyone about this conversation. Then I put my signature and the date.
“Passport?” I looked at him.
He pulled out a drawer and threw the passport on the table.
“I don’t want to see a trace of you here in three days!”
“Fat chance!” I retorted. “I have a legal vacation, and I have the right to be a guest. Is that clear, chief?”
That’s how I got rid of those KGB officers, and when I returned to Inta, I was not summoned again. A month later, there was an accident at the mine, and I suffered a head injury.
Our organization existed until 1959. I thought a lot about who was responsible for the failure of “Obiednannia.” Bohdan Khrystynych in his book (*) claims that it all began in Ukraine. In the autumn of 1957, a member of the organization, Kyrylo Banatsky, arrived in Bila Tserkva, Kyiv oblast, for permanent residence. He brought one and a half thousand leaflets produced in our printing press and passed a part of them to Anatoliy Bulavsky and Yosyp Slabina, who had settled in the Kirovohrad oblast. According to Khrystynych’s version, Slabina was put under surveillance by the KGB, who detained him when he tried to transport the leaflets to Western Ukraine. Yosyp held up bravely during interrogations, did not betray anyone, and even managed to inform a messenger of “Obiednannia” who was visiting Kirovohrad about everything. In 1958, Kyrylo Banatsky was arrested by the KGB, and in January-February 1959—Anatoliy Bulavsky, Stepan Olenych, and Hryhoriy Ryabchun. Further arrests cut short the work of “Obiednannia” and led to the complete collapse of the organization. The question arises: who betrayed the organization and gave up all its members to the KGB?
=========
*Bohdan Khrystynych. On the Paths to Freedom..., p. 49.
=========
Two people were involved in the “Obiednannia” case who gave testimony during the investigation that was beneficial to the KGB—Anatoliy Bulavsky and Ihor Maksymets. As Khrystynych writes, Bulavsky “behaved as the investigative organs demanded of him, that is, he told everything he knew, and even what he did not know. On April 29, 1960, the collegium of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR sentenced him under Articles 1 and 9 of the Law on Especially Dangerous State Crimes to 10 years of imprisonment. But his sentence was quickly reduced to three years. The basis for this was his behavior during the investigation and trial” (*). Maksymets, however, “in the ‘Obiednannia’ case, appeared as a witness, convenient for the KGB organs.” (**) I would like to dwell on this person in more detail.
========
*Bohdan Khrystynych. On the Paths to Freedom..., p. 138.
**Ibid., p. 162.
========
The fact is that I encountered Maksymets at the time when we were de-conveyed and got the opportunity to travel to other districts of Inta. Sometime in the summer of 1956, a football match was organized between the camps. Arriving at the zone where the football competition was to take place, I went into the barracks to a comrade who belonged to our camp resistance organization. During the conversation, he opened someone’s bedside table, and I saw a book lying there—“History of Ukraine.”
“And whose book is this?” I asked him.
“One of our boys,” my friend replied. “Ihor Maksymets.”
I shook my head.
“Listen,” I said, “doesn’t it seem strange to you that such a book is lying freely in a bedside table?”
“What’s so strange?” he was surprised.
“The fact that the guards search the entire barracks every day! They even take prayer books from people, and here lies a ‘History of Ukraine’ and no one seems to see it! He’s a provocateur!”
“You think so?” my friend asked thoughtfully.
“There’s no doubt! Stay away from him!”
Maksymets knew all the members of “Obiednannia,” was on friendly terms with many, so I think he was the very agent who had penetrated so deeply into the ranks of “Obiednannia” and sold out all its members. This is also confirmed by his subsequent fate: he later moved from Inta to Ivano-Frankivsk, graduated from the medical institute, and began working as a doctor. It is known that the path to higher education was closed to former prisoners, especially Banderites. To enroll in studies, and especially in a medical institute, one had to serve the Soviet government well. How? Of course, through betrayal.
One way or another, shortly after I moved to Ukraine and permanently settled in Rudnyky, I had a strange dream. I must note that I see dreams very rarely, and they usually portend some very important events. And so now I dreamed that my friends and I were standing by some cauldron and someone was stirring it with a stick. I looked in there—and mud was boiling! At that moment, some man comes up, takes the stick from the one who was stirring, and with a swing—that mud splattered everyone who was near that cauldron. Only I stepped aside, took out a handkerchief, and wiped that dirt off myself.
The next day, I was visiting my brother, who lived at the other end of Rudnyky. Returning home, I felt a vague anxiety. Some premonition tormented me, it seemed that something irreparable was about to happen, but what exactly—I, of course, did not know. A passenger car drove past me. I looked back and saw that it had turned onto the road leading to Zabolotiv. Arriving home, I learned that people from the district KGB had come to the village.
A few days later, a message came from the village council that I was being summoned to the passport office. After the injury at the mine, I had serious health problems, I was just about to go to Snyatyn to see a doctor and sent my wife to say that I could not come on the summons.
Two more days passed. At night, I had another dream: as if some red-haired lieutenant in a black hat and greatcoat was sitting at the table in my house. Waking up, I decided: what will be, will be—I’ll go and find out what they wanted from me.
Only the secretary was in the passport office. Hearing my last name, she took my passport and went out.
“Wait,” she said upon returning. “The chief is on his lunch break now.”
I sat down and leaned my elbows on the table, as if dozing. Suddenly, the door creaked, and a man entered the room.
“Well, is anyone here?” he asked the secretary.
“No one,” she replied. And with her finger, she drew the letter Z in the air—as in, Zhovtiak is here.
“What?” he didn’t understand.
I laughed to myself: what an idiot! But only such people worked in the KGB—would a normal person go to work in an organization that deals with provocations?
The secretary drew the letter Z again. That blockhead again didn’t understand anything, and then she went up to him and whispered in his ear.
“Ah-ha…” he said. And, nodding, he went into the chief’s office.
The secretary sat down next to me, and I understood that she had been ordered to watch me so that I wouldn’t leave.
Half an hour later, the chief of police summoned me.
“Why are you living without a residence permit?” he asked sternly.
“And why don’t you register me?” I asked. “I was sent here from Inta, I submitted all the papers!..”
At that moment, two men entered the room. I looked at them and almost cried out in surprise: one of them was the lieutenant I had seen in my dream!
“Are you going to Ivano-Frankivsk?” the chief asked them.
“Yes,” replied the lieutenant.
“Then take this man with you, because the regional police want to see him about his residence permit. Do you have room in your car?”
“Of course!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
The lieutenant smiled.
“You’ll go,” he said. And he took my elbow. “Let’s go!”
Holding me by the elbows, they led me outside and pushed me into the car. On the way, I only cursed myself mentally. You fool, I thought, you goat… you had already escaped—why did you come to them yourself! After thinking a bit, I decided: whatever happens, I will hold on to the end.
“I need to buy medicine,” I said when we arrived in Ivano-Frankivsk.
“What kind?” the lieutenant asked distrustfully.
“Here,” I showed the prescription that the doctor in Snyatyn had written for me.
They stopped near a pharmacy. The lieutenant went inside with me and, while I was buying the medicine, stood next to me, watching my every move.
“Let’s go,” he said, putting me back in the car.
At the police station, it turned out that they had no claims against me.
“The thing is,” the chief told me, “one of our colleagues wants to talk to you… But he went to a funeral in the Zabolotiv district and will be back tomorrow. For now, we will put you up in a hotel. Agreed?”
I shrugged.
“Well, that’s good… And you,” the chief looked at the lieutenant, “have you finished all your business in Ivano-Frankivsk?”
“Well,” he said, “not all of it, unfortunately… I’ll have to stay for another day.”
You oaf, I thought to myself, who are you trying to fool! I can see right through you.
“Well, then we’ll put you both in the same room… You don’t mind?”
“No,” replied the lieutenant.
We were put up in a hotel. The lieutenant had no intention of taking care of his business—he was watching me and did not leave my side for a second.
“Will you be having dinner?” he asked later.
“No,” I replied.
“Well, then I won’t go either… I don’t feel like it.”
Oh no, I thought to myself, this won’t do—I need to walk around the city to know how to escape if I have to! I had rarely been in Ivano-Frankivsk and practically didn’t know the city.
“You know,” I said, “I think we should go and have dinner after all! It’s a long time until evening and in general…”
We went into a canteen.
“Oh,” I said when we sat down at the table, “I feel so unwell… You eat my dinner, and I’ll go out and get some fresh air.”
Outside, I stood against the wall, so that I couldn’t be seen from the door. A moment later, the lieutenant ran out of the canteen. Seeing that no one was there, he flustered about in confusion.
“Are you looking for me?” I asked, approaching him.
He almost swore. Now it was clear that he had been assigned to me as a guard.
“Let’s walk a bit, I feel faint indoors,” I said.
We took a walk through Ivano-Frankivsk, and I mentally noted the path I would take to escape—if, of course, I was lucky enough to break free from here. We returned to the hotel and went to bed. I pretended to be dozing, but all the while I was watching my guard.
At about ten o’clock, a man in civilian clothes entered the room. It wasn’t until the next day that I learned this was Lieutenant Colonel Guzeyev, the deputy head of the investigative department of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, who had come from Kyiv to interrogate me in the “Obiednannia” case. He sat on the bed and began to talk to me.
“How are you, Dmytro Vasylovych?” he asked.
I looked at him blankly.
“Fine,” I replied after a moment in a weak voice.
“Is there something wrong with your health?”
“I had an injury,” I said after a long pause. “Now I don’t always understand everything.”
“What kind of injury?” he asked quickly.
I paused again.
“At the mine,” I finally said.
“But you were celebrating so well at the wedding! And you even built a house. Tell me, please, why did you want to build your house specifically out of brick?”
I smiled to myself. When people were being exiled to Siberia from our area after the war, one communist bought someone else’s house for a song and moved it to his own property. When I was building my house, I decided to build it out of brick—so that no party scoundrel could drag it away!
“Well,” I said blankly, “I don’t know myself… I forgot.”
Guzeyev asked a few more questions and, seeing that I was reacting to them very slowly, said:
“Alright, Dmytro Vasylovych, get some rest. We’ll talk in more detail tomorrow.”
At night, I had another very disturbing dream. It was as if the three of us, I, Kobyletsky, and Zatvarsky, were swimming in some river near the shore. Then I look, and an old gray-haired man comes to the shore. He looked at me and said: “What you want to do, do it now. Or it will be too late!” At that very moment, the bank collapsed and buried both of my friends under it…
I woke up. It was already getting light outside. My guard was sleeping, snoring loudly.
I have to escape, I thought.
I quietly got out of bed and got dressed. Then I looked around the room and saw that my guard had put his shoes out to dry. I carefully opened the door and went out into the corridor.
No one was there. I turned a corner and stopped.
At that very moment, the door to our room slammed shut and I heard loud footsteps. Someone was running down the corridor at full speed.
I barely managed not to laugh. Another moment—and my guard jumped out from around the corner. He was running so fast that he almost knocked me off my feet.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. And he stopped, staring at me like a calf.
“You must be going to the toilet?” I asked him sympathetically. “And barefoot, too? Here, wear my shoes, or you’ll catch a cold!”
He caught his breath. Only now did I see that drops of sweat had appeared on his forehead.
“I just came out to get some air,” I continued. “It’s so stuffy in the room, it’s frightening!”
He was silent and just looked at me.
“So, will you wear my shoes?” I asked.
“No,” he finally said. His voice was hoarse.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“Well, let’s go back to the room then… Or you’ll catch a cold!”
And we started back: I walked in front, and he followed me, like a guard in a prison.
In the morning, Lieutenant Colonel Guzeyev interrogated me. I answered with a delay and incoherently, so, convinced that there would be no conversation with me, the lieutenant colonel said:
“I see you are quite ill. Will you go home, or would it be better to send you to the hospital?”
I shook my head.
“Better to go home… But I’m afraid I won’t make it on my own!”
“Alright,” said Guzeyev. Then he took my passport and stood up. “Wait a moment.”
Half an hour later, I was taken to the hospital. The doctor immediately sent me for an X-ray. The image showed that there were fragments in my head, left after the injury.
The lieutenant colonel gave me back my passport and said he would visit after I completed my course of treatment.
Two weeks later, I was summoned to the head doctor. My doctor, Lieutenant Colonel Guzeyev, and some man in civilian clothes were sitting there.
“Hello, Dmytro Vasylovych,” said Guzeyev. “How are you feeling?”
I looked at him blankly.
“Better,” I finally said.
“That’s great,” the lieutenant colonel said cheerfully. “By the way, Hasiuk says hello!..”
There was a silence. Everyone was looking at me inquisitively.
“From whom?” I asked after a pause.
“I’m telling you, he’s sick and can’t answer questions!” the doctor spoke up.
The lieutenant colonel waved her away.
“Dmytro Vasylovych, we want to show you something,” he said. Then he took some photos from his leather briefcase and placed them in front of me. “Do you know what this is?”
It was a picture of the “Underwood” typewriter that I had hidden in the wall of the workshop in Inta. So, they found it, a thought flashed through my head. And they uncovered the organization. That’s why Hasiuk is sending me his regards!
“This,” I said, looking blankly at the photograph, “is an accordion.”
Guzeyev burst out laughing.
“No, Dmytro Vasylovych,” he said gently, “this is not an accordion. This is the machine on which you typed nationalist leaflets and proclamations during your stay in Inta!”
“Me? When?”
The expression on my face must have been completely unconscious, because the lieutenant colonel frowned.
“Well, and do you recognize this?”—he placed before me a photo of the tin cans in which I had stored the leaflets. “What is this?”
I took it and turned it in my hands.
“This? Canned food… stew, probably.”
He threw photographs of the leaflets in front of me.
“Canned food? And what is this, citizen Zhovtiak?”
I looked at them for a long time. Then I shook my head and said:
“Newspapers.”
The lieutenant colonel leaned back in his chair.
“You know what,” he said quietly, “either I’m a fool, or you are!”
“A sick person cannot answer questions,” the doctor spoke up again. “You are tormenting him in vain, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”
Guzeyev looked at me for a long time.
“I see we won’t reach any agreement, citizen Zhovtiak,” he finally said. “You can be discharged and go home. Or continue treatment if necessary. But I will tell you one thing: if you are clean here,”—he placed his hand on his heart,—”then it won’t hurt here either!”—he pointed to his head. “Got it?”
I looked at him and remained silent.
On October 3, 1960, the hearing of the case of Volodymyr Leoniuk, Yaroslav Hasiuk, Bohdan Khrystynych, Volodymyr Zatvarsky, and Yaroslav Kobyletsky began in the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR. They were accused under Article 1 of the Law on Especially Dangerous State Crimes of conspiracy to overthrow the state system and seize power. As Khrystynych recalls in his book, the trial was closed, but its organizers tried to give it the appearance of a people’s court. (*) The investigative case consisted of twenty volumes of documents and one photo album, meaning that in a separate volume there were photocopies of the materials of “Obiednannia” (program, charter, leaflets, etc.). As the same Khrystynych testifies, before the trial, Colonel Ionov told him: “You have already served your guilt, but you will receive such terms of punishment so that others will not be tempted.” (**) He kept his word: Leoniuk received twelve years of imprisonment, Hasiuk also twelve, Khrystynych—ten, Zatvarsky—eight, Kobyletsky—five. Even earlier, Anatoliy Bulavsky, Kyrylo Banatsky, Yosyp Slabina, Stepan Olenych, and Hryhoriy Ryabchun were sentenced in the “Obiednannia” case.
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*Bohdan Khrystynych. On the Paths to Freedom, p. 121
**Ibid., p. 122
=======
All of them served their prison terms from bell to bell.
Epilogue
More than forty years have passed since then. Many members of the “Association” are no longer among the living. Yaroslav Kobyletskyi tragically died in 1997, Kyrylo Banatskyi passed away in 2001, the fates of Anatoliy Bulavskyi, Yosyp Slabina, Stepan Olenych, and Hryhoriy Riabchun are unknown, while Bohdan Khrystynych, Yaroslav Hasiuk, and Volodymyr Zatvarskyi returned from the camps and now live in Ukraine. When the Soviet empire collapsed and the Ukrainian people finally gained state independence, I began to build, at my own expense, a monument in the center of the village to the boys who fell in the Rudnyky Forest on June 29, 1946—Don, Buinyi, Doroshenko, Lisovyi, and Tur. This work is now nearing completion. All that remains is to install a stone plaque with the Decalogue of the Ukrainian Nationalist—a text containing words that were the most sacred commandment for our generation, words that sounded like a trumpet call, summoning us to fight the invaders: “You will either gain a Ukrainian state or perish in the struggle for it.”
2006, Rudnyky
Prepared for the KHRG website by V. Ovsienko on February 1, 2016.
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