Ivan Maliuta
Nicknamed “the Zek”
Shortly before the death of the “father of nations,” three students from the T. Shevchenko Kyiv State University were arrested for anti-Soviet and nationalist activities. Rumors of the show trial of these young men swirled and fueled the milieu of the capital’s patriotically-minded intelligentsia into the 1960s and 70s, when a new stage of sowing the Ukrainian national idea began.
Based on interrogation protocols and the stories of acquaintances, friends, and relatives, the author of these lines has attempted to illuminate the portrait of one of that trio of spiritual resistance—Hryhorii Voloshchuk, who faced the most accusations. And who, in these new times, can no longer share his own memories.
In the late summer of 1970, I visited my home village from Odesa.
“Why didn’t you come even for the fortieth-day memorial for Hryts Voloshchuk? Did no one really tell you?” Nina Shevchenko, the school secretary who knew of my critical attitude toward the Soviet authorities, intercepted me with a reproachful tone.
“The memorial for that… reckless artist?” I drew out my words, unable to believe it.
“His wife, Rymma Yosypivna, tried to kill herself after the funeral by taking Luminal. But they saved her at the hospital. She goes to his grave every day, turns to stone…”
Hryts’s mother lived not far from the village center. She must have been somewhere in her garden, for in the house I saw only a young woman dressed in black. She listened to my condolences impassively. Only when she heard that I was planning to visit Kyiv in the coming days did she rise from the table and, from out of nowhere, pull out a small painting of a pine landscape.
“Please give this to the Svitlychnys—either to Ivan or his sister. As a final gift from the painter of Tsybulivka… with residence in the capital region.”
At the time, I knew very little about Hryts. And not just because he was much older than me or was a distant neighbor in our village (which is ancient and very large). The main reason was that we moved in distant circles of Ukrainian life, in different cities. And I had, in essence, only one encounter with him, about two years prior, I believe. Moreover, it was not a very pleasant one.
“What are you looking at? So… vigilant? Staring at me like an investigator,” a clearly inebriated man, who had been fiercely arguing with the tall, stately elder Ustym Voloshchuk near the old shop, intercepted my gaze. The elder was moderate and cautious in his words, but still prone to irony. And all this, as far as I could grasp, was irritating his hot-tempered relative.
“I’m trying to recognize you…”
“Well, I’m a zek, a Stalin-era zek. Pah, a *former* one,” he spat and added, “Although, perhaps a future one too. If one particular ailment doesn’t finish me off…”
Upon learning that I had the opportunity to sunbathe on the Black Sea coast, Hryts began to ask mockingly whether there were any real Ukrainians there, or just a conglomerate of consumers from Odesa’s “Privoz” market.
“In recent years, we even go caroling in Odesa,” I replied, limiting myself to a brief remark due to a lack of time, not wishing to enter a debate. And I walked away, feeling his smile on my back.
Another memory, but a more tangential one, so to speak. And quite an old one. From around 1960, when I finished school.
On a hot day, quite a few boys had gathered at the dam. A young man with graying hair was in charge of the water, splashing all the “extras” onto the bank. No, it was more like he was conducting. Counting to three, he would determine the winner of a contest for the best knowledge of Ukrainian proverbs and riddles. And the winner would immediately jump in toward him.
“Who is this folklore expert?” I asked, approaching the group.
“That’s Hrytsko the zek, he’s in charge.”
“Who?” I asked, surprised by the peculiar nickname.
“The one who drew Stalin himself. And ‘sewed’ Hitler’s buttons on him. With a swastika.”
I was about to laugh, but one of the boys defended the artist, as if I had doubted his talent.
“He just forgot… He told me so himself. He had been drawing caricatures of fascists just before that, so he ‘dressed’ the leader in the wrong uniform. But they didn’t believe him at the trial…”
Behind the Lines of an Unwritten Biography
Voloshchuk, Hryhorii Parfenovych, was born on August 1, 1928, in the village of Tsybulivka, Obodivka district (now Trostianets district. — I.M.), Vinnytsia region, to a peasant family.
In 1945, he completed seven-year school, and five years later, the Kyiv College of Applied Arts, specializing in artistic ceramics. He completed and defended his diploma project, “A Ceramic Decorative Fountain for a Kolkhoz Park of Culture and Recreation,” with honors. He received excellent marks in all subjects. Except for a foreign language. He principally justified his aversion to German with his hatred for the fascists—the echo of the war, which had claimed the lives of his father and older brother Tymish, was still too near.
That same year, 1950, as a top student, he was enrolled without entrance exams into the philology department of the T. Shevchenko Kyiv State University, as they planned to open an art history division there.
At the end of 1952, Hryhorii Voloshchuk was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activity and nationalism. His co-defendants were two of his classmates and friends—Mykola Adamenko from the Chernihiv region and Rostyslav Dotsenko from Kyiv.
From criminal case file No. 149919 on H.P. Voloshchuk (in three volumes).
The first interrogation took place on the day of his arrest, December 29, 1952.
— Denies anti-Soviet activity. Although he admitted to ironically calling the leader of nations “father,” and saying his work on linguistics was copied from the works of V. Lenin and K. Marx, — Captain Akhmideyev diligently noted.
But by the second nighttime interrogation (and almost all of them were conducted at night to exhaust the prisoner and “break” him faster), Voloshchuk began to confess to his anti-Soviet views, which he had manifested back when he was a student at the college of applied arts. Why? Because the history of Ukrainian art was not taught, which offended his national dignity. And during his university studies, it outraged him that everything Russian—literature, art, and culture—was given prominence.
The specific charges against this student-prisoner are evident from his forced, beaten confessions.
In the spring of 1952, while studying the works of T. Shevchenko, I prepared a term paper on his novella “The Twins.” Speaking at a special seminar, I interpreted the poet's attitude toward the activities of B. Khmelnytsky and the unification of Ukraine with Russia from a nationalist position… When reviewing Belinsky's critique of T. Shevchenko’s work “Haidamaky,” I again made an incorrect judgment…
The investigator immediately demanded explanations as to what exactly led to such “incorrect judgments,” why he tore up a book with the leader’s biography, etc.
— I displayed anti-Soviet sentiments because I was not sufficiently provided for financially, my mother in the village had a very hard life, the head of the village council did not reduce her taxes, and the kolkhoz chairman refused to help with fuel and to repair our house.
However, later the investigator had to sweat profusely, literally extracting confessions. As confirmation of the denunciations.
2.01.53, 20:30–01:20.
— Admitted to making malicious comments about certain radio broadcasts. Confirmed that he was called a nationalist. In particular, he was called this by Anatolii Trubaichuk, a second-year student in the philology department.
3.01.53. In my opinion, this was a slightly easier day for the prisoner. The investigator was clarifying his relationship with his classmate, Mykola Adamenko. Hryts decided to take the blame upon himself. He said that Adamenko wrote poetry skillfully and that his mother also had a hard life on the kolkhoz. He noted the latter, obviously, to preemptively cover for his friend regarding critical lines in his poems.
Sometimes they would call him for interrogation every other day. Perhaps the investigator was catching up on sleep and reporting on how he was “breaking” the stubborn student. He has now confessed to being interested in nationalist literature, having read some works by B. Hrinchenko, M. Hrushevsky, P. Kulish, and others. Where did he find them? In the attic of his grandfather, Avksentii Skolskyi. The books belonged to his son Naum, a kolkhoz accountant who was arrested before the war. Right, we’ll believe that. Once the NKVD agents had been to that house, it was unlikely any counter-revolutionary literature remained there. Indeed, he pressured the student—and he gave up what coincided with the data from the Komsomol informant (he couldn't very well call him a snitch.—I.M.). It turns out, he got these books from Vasyl Novosvitnii, who was studying in the Russian department. Where did they meet? At the Kryzhopil station. Well, that's plausible, since he’s from Sokolivka, a neighboring village.
Right here—an order with the classification “Top Secret.” To not touch V. Novosvitnii for now, as well as Oleksandr Serhiienko and Andrii Radchenko. It is inexpedient to interrogate them “for operational reasons,” as a separate case awaits them (Novosvitnii was later expelled from the university.—I.M.).
Hryts's attempt to save his fellow countryman nevertheless gave the investigator the idea that it would be worthwhile to look into the prisoner’s relatives as well. And so, in response to a request, a so-called review of the archival investigation file 228554 from 4.12.1937 on Yustyn Severynovych Voloshchuk (a cousin of Hryts’s father.—I.M.), born 1899, who worked as a kolkhoz chairman before his arrest, arrives. It turns out he served in Petliura's army in 1918–1919. In 1930, he was a participant in anti-kolkhoz unrest. He allowed wheat in the stacks to spoil and was sentenced to 10 years in a Corrective Labor Camp. But he does not appear in H. Voloshchuk's case file.
7.01.53.
Regarding the presented charges, H. Voloshchuk pleaded guilty. He testified that Rostyslav Dotsenko had given him Yefremov’s book “History of Ukrainian Literature” and Vynnychenko’s “The Sun Machine,” Pidmohylnyi’s work “The City,” and Khvylovyi’s novel “Waldshnepys” to read.
16.01.53.
Admitted to “throwing the autobiography of one of the leaders of the Soviet government against the wall.”
17.01.53.
— Who contributed to the formation of your anti-Soviet views?
— I have already thought about this. No one had such an influence on me.
21.01.53.
— Did you have the book “The Ukrainian Muse”?
— No. But I saw it and partially read it.
— Where did you get this nationalist book?
— I first saw it in the dormitory. It belonged to a student who dropped out of KSU and left somewhere.
31.01.53.
— Which of your relatives have been prosecuted by the authorities?
— In 1947, my mother, Tetiana Oksentiivna, was sentenced by the Obodivka people’s court to a fine of 100 karbovantsi for failing to pay the meat delivery tax on time.
10.02.53.
Regarding Rostyslav Dotsenko’s apartment: who visited, who he met with. Voloshchuk insists that he would go there to listen to music, as Dotsenko had a phonograph with records. Well, a convincing version, the investigator thought, as his roommates also considered him a music lover. But nationalist literature was also stored there. We’ll pick up Dotsenko in a few days; the warrant has already been issued.
12.02.53.
— When and where did you draw tridents?
— In notebooks or on separate sheets of paper.
— Who saw you drawing them?
— Probably Adamenko and Dotsenko. In the dormitory—Hrytsai, Kostenko, Deineka.
— And for what purpose did you draw them?
— I knew the trident was a sign or emblem of Ukrainian nationalists, but I didn’t understand why it was depicted that way. By drawing the trident, I was analyzing its image. Someone said that it contained two letters ‘V,’ which stood for Volodymyr the Great.”
— Did you state that it would be better if Ukraine became independent?
— I do not deny this.
5.03.53. Senior Lieutenant Serkin interrogating.
Voloshchuk admits that his anti-Soviet statements were heard by Volodymyr Kovtun, Ivan Koval, Vasyl Shcherbak, Volodymyr Kostenko, Ivan Kyrychenko, and Oleksandr Staietskyi. But only R. Dotsenko and M. Adamenko shared his views. He evidently realized that the latter two had been arrested and therefore decided to cover for the others.
8.04.53.
Says he doesn't know for what purpose he noted in his notebook the phrase: “All people with common sense will be locked up in Siberia or the Kuril Islands.”
He was informed of the negative conclusion of the expert commission regarding his manuscripts. This refers to the term paper on T. Shevchenko’s novella “The Twins” and the report “Artistic Features of Ukrainian Folk Dumas.”
19.04.53.
Pleads guilty to “reading anti-Soviet nationalist literature throughout 1951–1952…” Confesses to “slandering Soviet radio broadcasts and one of the leaders of the party and the Soviet government…, tearing up and destroying a biography-book of one of the leaders of the Soviet state, the pages of which he used for toilet paper.”
How they interrogated people then, demanding the necessary confessions, can be imagined even from H. Voloshchuk’s statement to N. Khrushchev dated 31.10.1961, requesting help with his rehabilitation: “I will not describe how the investigation was conducted. I will only say that after half a month of interrogations, on January 14, I forgot my own last name.”
Who, then, was the first informant in this criminal case? An interesting point here is a little-noticed document dated 16.12.52 stating that the head of the special department of T. Shevchenko KSU, O. Yelisarov, handed over to an employee of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Lieutenant Colonel M. Shyshkin, the term paper of student H. Voloshchuk, “T. Shevchenko's Novella ‘The Twins’.” Evidently, the instructor Mykola Malyna had timely informed on the anti-Soviet sentiments of his student, as well as his two friends. Especially since his review, dated back to 18.05.52, was attached: “Even during the seminar classes, Voloshchuk stated that the unification of Ukraine with Russia in 1654 was not a progressive phenomenon because, he claimed, Russia had an autocratic system, while in Ukraine, the hetman was elected by the people. And that Shevchenko was allegedly an opponent of such a unification, for which he condemned B. Khmelnytsky.”
And finally, an excerpt from the character reference for H. Voloshchuk, signed by the university rector, Professor A. Holyk: “His academic performance was ‘good’ and ‘excellent’… There were instances when Voloshchuk refused to answer at seminars on the foundations of Marxism-Leninism, displaying bourgeois-nationalist, anti-Soviet views.”
The case hearing was scheduled for 14.05.53 with the participation of prosecutor Utina. In a closed court session, of course.
“The portrait of Stalin turned out badly for me,” Hryts Voloshchuk said, with what at first glance seemed naive simplicity, in response to the accusation that he drew a caricature of the leader. Consequently, he pleaded partially guilty, specifically to tearing up the portrait and biography of Stalin. Of course, that was enough to warrant “the highest measure,” in zek terminology. But the tyrant, thank God, was already gone. And this saved the reckless artist. On the basis of Art. 54-10 Part II and 54-11 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR, he and Mykola Adamenko were sentenced to 10 years, and Rostyslav Dotsenko to 8 years in corrective labor camps (the latter with confiscation of all property) and deprivation of rights for 3 years each. Incidentally, while in the CLC, Dotsenko was later (in 1956) given another 7 years (for participating in a camp's underground anti-Soviet organization).
The witnesses, besides the informant-pedagogue M. Malyna, were students, mostly his classmates.
If I were to make a film about this trial, I would present their voices off-screen, without naming them for ethical reasons.
First voice.
— Voloshchuk said that life on the kolkhozes is bad, people work for nothing and pay high taxes.
Second voice.
— Voloshchuk tore up Stalin's biography. He read nationalist books. He said that Soviet literature does not reflect reality.
Third voice.
— Voloshchuk said that Ukraine should be independent. Mykola Adamenko supported him. I myself saw he had proverbs with anti-Soviet leanings.
Fourth voice.
— Voloshchuk claimed that the radio mostly lies.
Fifth voice.
— Voloshchuk said that kolkhozniks live well only in the newspapers.
No one recanted their previous testimony in court. This is understandable. After all, each was threatened with punishment, primarily expulsion from the university. (True, M. Adamenko claims in his memoirs that Oleksandr Staietskyi tried to retract his previous testimony against the prisoners in court. But I found no confirmation of this in the court proceedings protocol). Later, some of them sought opportunities to apologize to Hryts.
So let us not reproach such witnesses. Especially since, in the times of democracy, they served Ukraine in one way or another. Thus, the lessons of Hryts Voloshchuk’s sacrifice indeed became an example for them for the rest of their lives.
And what of those who informed? God be their judge.
When the Guard Convoy Departed into Memory
In 1956, Hryts Voloshchuk was released under amnesty along with Mykola Adamenko.
He registered in a suburban area (Motovylivka station, Borova village) and began working on the reconstruction of the former Institute for Noble Maidens, then at the Kyiv Scientific Restoration Workshops (working on St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv, St. Cyril’s Church, and the Bakhchysarai Palace-Museum), and later still at a Kyiv factory for artistic products. He was denied official rehabilitation. But in the summer of 1963, when the three friends, trying to be reinstated at KSU, began to frequent the Kyiv prosecutor’s office and other legal bodies, arguing that the phrase “za otsutstviyem sostava prestupleniya” (due to the absence of a crime) itself signified rehabilitation, some kind-hearted female secretary in one of those institutions added the words “i reabilitirovan” (and rehabilitated) to his amnesty certificate. So, in 1963 he was reinstated as a full-time student and got a place in the university dormitory. After graduating from the university in 1965, he went on assignment to the Luhansk region (Oleksandrivka village, Krasnodon district) to teach Ukrainian language and literature in a school. But Hryts lasted less than a year there. In 1966, he returned to Kyiv and married Rymma Mortuk. Lacking permanent housing and work in Kyiv, and avoiding KGB surveillance, he spent more and more time in the Vinnytsia region.
His illness worsened—a neglected stomach ulcer that he had developed in prison. The ulcer perforated in his home village, and he was taken to the hospital in the district center too late. On June 6, 1970, Hryhorii Voloshchuk died of peritonitis.
Now it is appropriate to turn to, so to speak, the free testimonies.
I will not comment on them, in order to preserve this contrasting verbal mosaic.
Sydir Nykonovych Povorozniuk, b. 1925.
— During the 1946 harvest in Tsybulivka, they spent almost the entire day searching for a “saboteur.” And what happened was something I was afraid to tell even my own wife about later.
Hryts Voloshchuk and I met near the village council, by an old barn. I had returned from the front as a Group II disabled veteran and was glad to give my leg a rest for a few minutes.
“What do you think of this mockery of the peasants?” he asked, pointing me to the barn wall with a slogan on it: “Haven’t met your quota—don’t leave the field!”
“Ask your mother, who is hungry, overworked, and burdened with taxes.”
Hryts rushed to me, embraced me, called me brother.
“I have to go to Kyiv soon, to college. You take some charcoal,” he whispers in my ear, “and write this: ‘Haven’t met your quota—die in the field!’”
At first, I was afraid… But late that evening, I did alter the inscription.
The next morning, there was an alarm in the village council. GPU agents arrived, took photographs, and interrogated the neighbors near the barn…
That’s how Hryts and I became friends. Over a shared secret.
9.06.95.
Ivan Parfenovych Bidiuk, b. 1928. A classmate.
Hryts was a clever boy, studied well, and drew well.
We went to Kyiv together to submit our documents for admission. We were returning on a freight train. In Fastiv, they arrested him for some reason, suspecting him of espionage. They held him until evening. That’s when they first called Hryts a zek. As if they had jinxed his fate.
He didn’t like it when his fellow villagers used Russianisms. He didn't know how to be cautious. That’s why he suffered, poor soul, for being so open, for not tolerating lies.
2.02.95.
Maria Kyrylivna Komaihorodska, b. 1932 (widow of Hryts’s brother, Vasyl).
— Hryts drew a picture of his father and older brother. But a ball of lightning flew into the house and pierced the canvas. As if a sign that both were killed at the front. It was written in an army newspaper about Tymokha that he was a sniper and had killed many enemies.
My mother-in-law died in 1982, she’s buried next to Hryts. So I visit them both. Because there’s no one left to even weep at their graves.
And they tortured Hryts because he wanted a free Ukraine and deeply disliked the anti-Christ communists.
4.11.92
Hanna Ustymivna Stepanenko, b. 1927.
— In the village, Hryts walked barefoot. He often slept in the attic. He was friends with Pavlo Rudyi, was his son’s godfather. But with my father, Ustym Voloshko, he often argued over that deceitful politics, calling him a Trotskyite.
One time I asked Hryts where he was heading so early. And he laughed: “To the cemetery. To pick out a spot for myself. I want to be buried at the front. When we are resurrected, I’ll lead everyone not to the kolkhoz, but to a free life.”
After Hryts's death, a KGB agent came from Kyiv. He was asking if any of his friends from the capital had been at his funeral.
4.11.92.
Halyna Vasylivna Chernii, b. 1934 (Hryts’s cousin).
— Around Christmas, I set out to visit my aunt Tetiana, Hryts’s mother. Near the village council, I noticed a carriage with springs, and someone in a white sheepskin coat was shuffling around it.
I had just said hello when my aunt said she’d had a bad dream. Suddenly I heard a horse snort at the gate. I looked out the window—that carriage had stopped. And my aunt immediately clutched her head: “Our sorrow has arrived…”
At the head of that pack was Feshta, the village council chairman, who was very eager to please the authorities.
“Your son is involved in anti-Soviet affairs. Come on, give me his letters!”
And Feshta read out that Hryts had called him a “mad dog that needs to be shot.” He flew into a rage, began prodding the floor and the attic with a rod, looking for a revolver. He pierced the covers of Shevchenko’s “Kobzar,” claiming there must be secret notes somewhere.
After this, my husband, Vasyl, took a care package for Hryts. But they wouldn’t allow a visit, because they were demanding testimony against him.
My dear cousin was held in a solitary cell. He said that once he forgot his own last name—they had beaten him so badly for refusing to get on his knees…
And then I would prepare packages for him with baking soda, honey, and cigarettes.
When he returned, his friends came to the village from Kyiv, singing “Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished.” They were a defiant bunch. And witty. But not everyone understood that Hryts needed to be protected.
And he didn’t die like everyone else. For some reason, he was smiling…
5.11.92
Yavdokha Avksentiivna Kostiuk, b. 1914 (Hryts's aunt).
— I was in Kyiv in ’47 and found my nephew in the dormitory. And he was starving, his face had turned dark. It turns out he had sold his food ration card to buy shoes. I treated him and the boys to pies.
Wherever he took me in the capital, he always told me not to be ashamed of our native language.
Vasyl Tarasiuk, who studied with him then, came to our village three times. I heard them singing forbidden songs. Even back then, they believed that our Ukraine would indeed be free.
5.11.92
Vasyl Ivanovych Zagvozdkin, b. 1926.
We went to school together. During breaks, Hryts would often draw one of the boys. He studied very well, had a good memory. He was stubborn, and most importantly—very conscientious. But people didn't want to understand him.
He painted a portrait of me with my wife. That was… it’s marked here on the canvas: 1.10 1956. He also painted some things in our church, made a cross.
Even in Tsybulivka, Hryts was under surveillance. They searched his place several times. The KGB agents rummaged through things right in front of me, even overturned a trough of flour. They took some papers and books. They thought he had connections abroad.
His mother worried so much about Hryts that she became paralyzed. She tended her garden on her knees.
As I was driving him to the hospital in the truck cab, he was telling me that we must fight for an independent Ukraine. They laid him on a couch, gave him an injection. But it was already too late. And he was smiling. Perhaps his soul was shining so brightly…
4.11.92
Rymma Yosypivna Mortuk-Voloshchuk, b. 1927.
Hryts’s loyal friend was Borys Burkatskyi, who studied with him at the college. Ivan Honchar, a teacher from the Kyiv region, was just as devoted.
What happened to the vase he made for his diploma project? It's somewhere in Paris. He said it was sold from an exhibition for 500 karbovantsi.
“My paints are drying out,” Hryts would find an excuse to go to Tsybulivka to paint portraits of his good neighbors. There is an icon of the “myrrh-bearing women” in the church—that’s his work.
Several times at night, Hryts took down the flags from the village council and the office. It was his way, he’d say, of liberating the village from Commie rule until morning.
After the funeral, those bandits from the KGB came all the way from Kyiv. To make sure he was really gone. They regretted it too. They had gathered so much compromising material and—there you have it!—close the “File,” send it to the archives.
I worked at the radio with Nadiika Svitlychna. They fired me under the pretext of downsizing. The editor there was L., who had once informed on Hryts—he had seen a caricature of Stalin with a noose around his neck. The investigator read out this denunciation, and some colonel started beating Hryts, ordering him to get “on his knees before the Soviet government.” I would leave the office as soon as that stoolie appeared.
I also refused to acknowledge Maria V. Although she repented, she cried before Hryts when he returned from the camps.
And life has no meaning for me without Hryts…
19.09.95
Mykola Antonovych Bilorus, b. 1933. Engineer.
— I met Hryts in 1950-1952 through accidental encounters in the company of Rostyslav Dotsenko, with whom I had studied in the same class and continued to see after graduating from school. But Hryts and I became friends later, after his return from the camps, probably in 1957-1958. Rostyslav, who remained in the camps until 1963, sometimes contacted Hryts through me, because Hryts was not very punctual in correspondence and could remain silent for long periods, especially after remarks about his overly “reckless,” disheveled letters “to the zone.” I think it was in the summer (or actually fall) of 1959 that I visited Tsybulivka with him, and it was then I got to know many of his relatives on his mother’s side, the Skolskyi family.
Hryts was five years older than me; from the beginning, he seemed to embody the classic traits of the Ukrainian national character. But over time, I became more and more convinced, felt, that he was losing his constructive bearings in our post-Stalinist reality. In the uncertain atmosphere of deceitful semi-reforms, Hryts could not maintain a balance between semi-good and semi-evil. His benevolence and good humor grew clouded, his internal crises deepened, his alcohol abuse increased, and his psyche vibrated from overstrain.
Rymma Mortuk was the last one who tried to hold Hryts back from falling into the abyss, from his misguided treatment (or, rather, pseudo-treatment). But he broke away nonetheless… It was the long suicide of an extraordinary person who could not find a way out of the trap set for him by Soviet reality and his own unrestrainable nature.
1995
Borys Oleksiiovych Tymoshenko, b. 1939. Writer (from written memoirs).
— In the dormitory room where I was placed as a freshman, I saw a gray-haired student on a bed. It was Hryts Voloshchuk, who had been reinstated after a 10-year break.
Despite the significant age difference, we quickly found common ground. Broken by his experiences and persecutions, he nevertheless eagerly communicated with those who were not indifferent to the idea of national revival.
Voloshchuk did not want to be like the gray masses, but neither could he live as freely as he desired. And therein, I believe, lies the essence of his breakdown.
It seems that on the anniversary of Hryts’s death, Volodymyr Zabashtanskyi and I drove to Tsybulivka. His mother, brother Vasyl, and Rymma were at the memorial meal. At the cemetery, they recalled that even in his coffin… Hryts was smiling. Even the final moment could not extinguish his friendliness toward people. Or maybe it was something else?
23.05.2001
Nina Panasivna Virchenko. Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor.
— It was in the company of Hryts Voloshchuk and Mykola Bilorus that I first heard about Rostyslav Dotsenko, whom I later married.
Rostyslav returned only in 1963. Hryts met him at the train. That same year, both became students at KSU again. Hryts was writing some philosophical prose pieces but didn't even try to publish them anywhere. And his letters were very interesting. He drew a portrait of the mathematician Euler for me.
He lived in poverty. But he was very kind and sensitive. For instance, he helped Tonia Siryk—a friend of mine from prison—get registered. He took care of her little son.
Sometimes it seems to me that Hryts took some extraordinary secret with him. It was as if he was testing everyone, looking for someone to entrust it to…
28.11.92
Ivan Nestorovych Honchar, b. 1935. A teacher from the Vyshhorod district in the Kyiv region.
As the leader of a youth anti-Soviet organization, I was also sentenced to 10 years. I shared a cell with Mykola Adamenko. And I met Hryts Voloshchuk in the prison bathhouse. Later, while studying at KSU by correspondence, I met with him often. He visited me in my village several times.
His slender posture and his inspired, instructive stories always create in my memories the image of a bright personality who, with his bold actions and thoughts, was ahead of his time.
1959
Rostyslav Ivanovych Dotsenko, b. 1931. Writer, translator.
From letters to Mykola Bilorus.
“What is happening with Hryts? He is too struck by a desperate mood to write about himself. That’s what gives life meaning—that things don’t come easy. By what is a person measured, if not by their power of resistance? (29.02.1959).”
“How is Hryts doing? He should remember that you might be the only one there who can help him. In that all-powerful despair. (26.03.1959).”
“Hryts! Hryts! The devil knows what’s going on with you (I understand, but…) Still, don't play this game to the breaking point, my tragic friend, I beg you. (06.07.1959).”
16.10.95
Mykola Petrovych Adamenko, b. 1931. A writer from the Chernihiv region.
Among the boys in our dormitory room, the handsome village lad Hryts Voloshchuk stood out. He was an extraordinary young man, with intelligent dark-brown eyes and a wavy dark forelock. He had a restless nature, a critical mind, and was impulsive—a typical choleric. He hated falsehood. He was bold in word and deed. He was in love with classical and folk music.
He was a maximalist in everything. He looked upon Stalin and Beria as personal enemies.
The investigators inquired what connected me with H. Voloshchuk and R. Dotsenko. I answered: “Hunger.” Because it did plague us. But at the core of our friendship was, of course, the search for truth.
In the Ukhta camps, Hryts worked as a work-rate setter. From there, we returned to Ukraine together.
With his philology diploma, he worked in schools for a while. But he was fired, in his words, “for his ardent, frenzied lessons.”
A traditional view of the different cohorts of fighters for Ukraine's freedom and democracy has now been established. And, of course, first place is given to those who were repressed in the 1970s. I do not want to diminish their merits. But it was much easier for them compared to those who tried to fight long before Khrushchev's “thaw.” In conditions of total denunciation and brutal repression. Without the ability to declare themselves to the world to count on support from the diaspora.
It is in this light that I view the heroic and long-suffering path of Hryts Voloshchuk. And that is why he should not be considered a “wasted talent.”
Ідуть бозна-куди високі віхи,
Десь губляться у сивій далині.
Ні, ти не вмер. Лише кудись поїхав.
Туди, куди ще їхати мені.
Blind faith in the leader-generalissimo, the faithful Leninist, still reigned. His ideologues sowed total disinformation, shrouding everything in lies about nationalists, the Banderite underground, the threat from world imperialism, and so on. And how can one not marvel at the courage of these students from eastern Ukraine who dared to condemn the Bolshevik regime? Seeking answers to their doubts in forbidden historical sources, in accidentally preserved books with tridents—the half-forgotten emblems of Kyivan princes and the Ukrainian People's Republic.
And even after his release from the concentration camp, the most defiant among them—Hryts Voloshchuk—was never able to adapt to the imposed rules of existence. He was too firm in his convictions to be disingenuous, to compromise with his conscience, as the system of power at that time demanded in all spheres of life. And in the early 1970s, when the repressive machine was once again gaining momentum, he would surely have been among the new cohort of imprisoned dissidents.
What is now obvious to us, a consummated fact—the Ukrainian state is and will be!—for him at that time was a pressing need to seek the truth about when, by whom, and why it had been destroyed, a need to openly convince everyone of the necessity of its revival.
Endowed by nature with a sharp mind and a talent for painting, Hryts Voloshchuk could have become a famous artist and publicist. And he would have been a talented teacher. And yet, one could argue about this. About the lost opportunities. He did shine, and quite brightly, in one persona, when he said at his trial with concealed irony that his “portrait of Stalin had turned out badly.” And one can only regret that all those caricatural creations were destroyed by the frightened Stalinist oprichniks.
“Hryts was a defiant artist. He knew the truth about Stalin when we were still learning poems about him,” I recall the late Petro Pasichnyk—a self-taught painter from the same village who consulted with Voloshchuk, showing him his artistic exercises—naively assuring me.
“And wasn't he offended when they called him a zek?”
But he was a noble zek, a political one, not an “urka” [common criminal]. He fought for the rights of others, for all of Ukraine. He even mocked the authorities, saying he “had not defiled with repentance the only title he received from them for resisting the Commies.” Only thanks to him did I understand who the real enemy of the people was.
And though far from all of Hryts Voloshchuk’s talents as a dissident artist were in demand by his time, he did fulfill his calling—to cast doubt on the Communo-Fascist regime, to call his contemporaries to a free life in an independent Ukraine. And by this alone, he is worthy of a special, grateful memory among his countrymen (at the very least, in the naming of a street after him), and among all who had the honor of knowing him.
Is this not the tragedy and greatness of this courageous man? Is that not why his farewell smile was so enigmatic? For the naive and for those initiated into his tormented life.
October 2001.
From the publication in the newspaper “Molod Ukrainy,” Nos. 135-140, 2-13.11.2001
