October 17, 1998, Kyiv.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Mr. Marmus, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, where I work, is preparing the Ukrainian section of the “International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents from Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR.” It covers the period from Stalin’s death to “perestroika.” The general name of this project, centered in Warsaw, is “Eastern Europe—A Common Ground.” This is a purely civic, non-governmental endeavor. It relies on the active civic position of individuals, on enthusiasm. We are supported by foreign charitable foundations. In Ukraine, we have not yet received grants for this work.
The Polish resistance movement has been allocated 150 names, the former USSR—excluding national movements—210 names, and Ukraine—120 (including your name). The remaining countries have fewer. This Dictionary is set to be published in English, Polish, and Russian. It will be made available on the Internet. Additionally, each national partner has the right to publish the Dictionary in its own language, expanding its national section at its discretion. We will certainly exercise this right. We will include several hundred, perhaps even up to two or three thousand names of participants in the national liberation, human rights, religious, and workers’ resistance movements, as well as “refuseniks.” According to our data, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, at least 4,000 people in Ukraine demonstrated political or civic activity for which they were repressed through judicial or extrajudicial means.
To carry out such work, we need to collect documents, photographs, and books about this moral resistance to the totalitarian regime. Right now, while most of the participants in those events are still alive, we are rushing to record their autobiographical stories—this is an invaluable, and sometimes almost the only, source! After all, the materials from court cases (to which we still have no access) do not always reflect the truth: the court had its own truth, and the defendant had his, which he often concealed for understandable reasons. Now, a former political prisoner can tell everything without fear.
Someone wise once said that history, unfortunately, is not always what happened, but what was written down. So let’s write down what happened—and let the truth become history. Because although we are not yet old, if we don’t write it down now, we will later forget some things, and then, you see, some more enterprising people will write the history of our time as they imagine it, as it is convenient for them, or as they are commissioned to…
Please tell us where you are from, who your relatives are, in what environment you grew up, and most importantly—what did you do that led to you being accused of conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda and being imprisoned? How were you punished? And then, briefly tell us about the work you have been doing since your imprisonment.
V.V. Marmus: I don’t come from a very large family. I was born in the village of Rosokhach, Chortkiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast. My parents were simple peasants who worked the land their entire lives. My father, Vasyl Mykolayovych Marmus, born in 1904, also lost his parents in his childhood. The family was large. My father remembered the First World War well; he told us about the Petliurites, about the famous Chortkiv breakthrough of 1919. As a boy, I was curious about what happened back then, how the war went. So my father would often tell me about those distant times, how the Petliurites passed through our village, probably on their way to help the then West Ukrainian People’s Republic in the war against the Poles. He told me what life was like under Polish rule, how he had to contend with the gendarmerie. He wasn’t some underground activist or revolutionary; he had to engage in some kind of trade, but there were difficulties with that. He also told us how the communists agitated under Polish rule. Once, they—he and about a dozen other boys—were persuaded to cross the Zbruch River. They had already reached the Zbruch and stopped when some woman came out of a nearby house and said: “Boys, where are you going, who are you listening to?! There’s a terrible calamity over there, in that Bolshevia!” So, my father said, we caught that agitator, gave him a good thrashing, and turned back.
My father told me a lot about the period of the Second World War. Not only he, but my mother also told stories. With the arrival of the Germans, a Ukrainian state was proclaimed in all the villages of Galicia, and local governments were created. My father was part of that village government; he told us how complicated it was because, under such self-governance, people’s characters sometimes clashed, and there was friction between people. Besides, there were many Poles in our village. There were some Ukrainians who said that the Poles should be destroyed. My father stood up for the Poles, and this led to misunderstandings.
By that time, my parents already had three children, and more were born later. Now I have two brothers and a sister. One, Volodymyr, died of illness. Perhaps I was named in his honor because my parents wanted a Volodymyr. He died sometime during the war. The eldest brother was born in 1928, but in 1944, at the age of 16, he was killed by a grenade. Later, the partisans would come by and say: “It would have been better if we had taken him with us; he might have lived, but as it is… Such a foolish death anyway…” Some boys were throwing grenades, and one exploded right in his hands. Now our eldest brother is Stakh—that’s Yevstakhiy, born in 1932. The next is Petro, born in 1941. And then Mykola, in 1947. I was born in 1949, on March 21. And we also have a sister, Hania, born in 1951.
So, my father stayed at home, providing for the family. If it weren’t for the children, he might have joined the underground. He knew quite a few well-known people from the underground; they would come to him for advice. When the front returned, he was drafted into the war. My mother was left alone with the children. My mother was of Polish descent. Her maiden name was Pohribna, Mykhailyna Porfyriivna, born in 1910. She passed away after I returned from imprisonment, in 1988. But my father didn’t live to see me return; he died in 1978.
I must say that our village is located in a place that was very convenient for partisans to stop. On the street near the forest where we lived, there was practically a partisan station because someone from the sub-district or district leadership was always there. Sometimes women would come because material help was needed. The station chief would come and say that a certain amount of bread needed to be baked, or something else prepared, because a detachment would be arriving and would need food. My mother told me all of this, and it moved me deeply.
Another thing that strongly influenced me was those partisan songs. You’d hear them singing—and they sang quietly, of course, because in those times you couldn’t… This shaped my worldview.
All the partisan formations from our area later moved to the Carpathians because it was no longer possible to hold on in Podillia—there were no large forests. But still, even in the 1960s, we had a case where they caught someone who was in hiding. He was surrounded on all sides by the police; he shot back, then blew himself up and practically burned to death. That was Petro Basiuk. It was so significant for us that I regretted not having met him—just to see who he was. But when a person wants something very much, it does come true. There came a time in my life when I met those people from legend, from history. In 1973, I had the chance to meet them.
I already mentioned that I loved songs. They sometimes brought me to tears. It felt awkward in front of others that I would listen to a song and cry. Someone would say: “Why are there tears in your eyes?” “Oh, for some reason,” I’d say, “my eyes are watering.” Later, I started collecting those songs; I had a pretty good collection. But during the search in 1973, it was confiscated from Stepan Sapeľak. He was part of our group; I had given him the notebook because he said he wanted to write down a few songs from someone. So they took those songs. And there were quite a lot of them. They described local events; there was one about the Chortkiv prison, about the village of Stara Yahilnytsia, where partisans fought the Germans in 1942; even about an incident in Rosokhach where three boys were surrounded in a hideout and blew themselves up with grenades. Apparently, their friends composed it. There was one about a hamlet called Penky—a detachment had stopped there, they were surrounded, fought back, and were then annihilated. I think they were reburied in 1990, those boys, in the village of Khomyakivka, because several of them were from there.
There were two major battles near Rosokhach in the Halyleia forest in 1945. Even planes took part; one plane was shot down by the partisans. Tanks and self-propelled armored carriers were used in the battle against them. People talked about this too. They showed me several hideouts. I visited the spot where those three blew themselves up with grenades many times. You look at it… The hideout had already collapsed, but when you, a 14-15-year-old boy, look at it, you imagine them being shot at from here and there, surrounded… I even knew of one hideout that hadn’t collapsed yet. You’d crawl inside, sit there, and imagine yourself as a partisan. All of that shaped my consciousness, my attitude towards those events, towards those people.
If I am to tell the story sequentially, I certainly cannot omit the Sixtiers movement in Ukraine. I listened to foreign broadcasts, Radio Liberty, through the noise of the jammers. I know that even earlier, there was the “Vyzvolennia” [Liberation] radio station, before Radio Liberty existed. I had been listening since those times. It was also somewhat connected to the religious movement because in our village, there were many people who did not attend the official church, which was affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. They listened to broadcasts from the Vatican. But I was still more interested in politics. And so, I listened more and more often to those broadcasts that talked about the political life of Ukraine. It was from there that I learned a great number of names—Ivan Kandyba, Levko Lukianenko, Ivan Svitlychny, Viacheslav Chornovil, Yevhen Sverstiuk, and many others. They were often talked about then, so it was interesting to listen. Then it became known that they were arrested. I was overcome with a feeling that here were people fighting somewhere! In conversations with my friends, it almost came to arguments that here we were, just walking around, doing nothing—while people were fighting somewhere, so let’s do something too.
Of course, we were not of the same high rank as those people, but still, we wanted to do something at our own level. And we did. I remember in 1970 in Lviv, they destroyed the graves of the soldiers of the Galician Army and even damaged the grave of Tarnowsky himself. A former member of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine wrote an open letter to the Lviv Regional Party Committee, calling those actions vandalism. We copied that letter by hand and distributed it for people to read. There were some rather interesting poems—we also reproduced them and gave them to people like us to read, and to older people, and sometimes we pasted them up.
At that time, we got a tape recorder, on which I recorded something like a speech a few times, with a call to fight for Ukraine. We would play that recording, for instance, when young people were coming home from the cinema in the evening, and everyone would listen—who is that speaking? Of course, they might not have recognized the voice, but they listened. It was interesting to watch those young people from the side, to see what they would say, what they thought about those words and the content of the speech.
Once we even made a stamp, copying it from Ukrainian currency from 1918. And wherever we found some papers, we stamped it everywhere—let them see what it is.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: It had a trident on it?
V.V. Marmus: Yes, with a trident, and a Cossack with a rifle, and on both sides it said “Ukrainian State.” I could give a whole series of such examples, but I won’t.
We had a group of about ten guys, all nationally conscious. But later, some started to drift away—two got married, and if we were planning to do something serious, it was, of course, no longer appropriate to involve them, as they were family men now. Although if something were needed…
I personally had several firearms; we would go to the forest to learn how to shoot.
There was another matter: we were preparing to restore a grave mound in the village. I’m referring to the mound that was partially dismantled in 1959. A man who had returned from the camps (and he returned mentally ill—they drove him to that state there) erected a cross on it. And then the village intelligentsia was forced to dismantle the mound. Later, it was completely destroyed by a bulldozer—they took advantage of the fact that the military was quarrying stone and sand in that area to build aircraft aprons. So the local kolkhoz party organizer took advantage of this, or perhaps it was on someone’s orders from the district, and the mound was completely leveled. This affected me deeply, and I said then: “If this mound is not needed, then neither is the one in the village dedicated to the unknown Soviet soldier.” And later, two boys went and vandalized, damaged that monument—as retribution for the destruction of the mound.
We had an intention to repair the Sich Riflemen’s mound, so we thought, maybe we could gather people at night, so they wouldn’t even know who organized it. Because one or two people couldn’t do it; a lot of people were needed.
We were greatly outraged by the mass arrests in January 1972. We listened together to the information about the arrests connected with the arrival of Yaroslav Dobosh. He came as a tourist of Ukrainian descent, a member of the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM). Everyone he visited was arrested. Then came the repentant statements in “Literaturna Ukraina” and “Radyanska Ukraina.”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: From Zinovia Franko, Leonid Seleznenko, Mykola Kholodny, Yaroslav Dobosh himself, and later, in November 1973, from Ivan Dziuba.
V.V. Marmus: Well, I read Dziuba’s statement in the camp—there was a clipping. When we were under investigation, the investigators told us that Dziuba was sitting there in Kyiv: “You will be in prison, and he will be free.”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And tell us, how did you create the organization?
V.V. Marmus: I wanted to say something about literature first. I had a lot of literature. There were periodicals published back in the Austrian and Polish times, various semi-religious journals. There was a rather interesting journal, “Misionar” [The Missionary]. Although religious, it was anti-Bolshevik. There were calendars from “Chervona Kalyna,” “Prosvita,” “Zolotyi Kolos” [Golden Ear], and various pamphlets. There were Vyacheslav Lypynskyi’s “Letters to Brother Tillers”—as separate pamphlets. One of the boys brought me several such booklets. And many others—there was Hrushevsky’s “History,” a book called “Dzvinochok” [The Little Bell]—for youth, very interesting, illustrated. There was a bound set of journals.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And where did you get that literature? Was it available in the village?
V.V. Marmus: I collected coins; I was interested in Ukrainian money. All the boys knew about it. Sometimes, I didn’t even have to ask; they would bring things to me themselves: “Look, I found an interesting book—what is it?” Of course, I would take it. That’s how I collected many such books. But I became more and more interested in later events. For instance, I had to read articles about the Banderite movement under the rubric “The Yaroslav Halan Post”...
V.V. Ovsiyenko: In the journal “Zhovten” [October], by Taras Myhal?
V.V. Marmus: Yes, Myhal. Someone named Lozovyi wrote “The Ear of Grain Must Ripen.” There was also Belyaev’s “Under Black Banners,” “Echo of the Black Forest”... There were many such Soviet pamphlets. Although everything was distorted in them, I learned to read between the lines and take what I needed. Taras Myhal wrote in a sarcastic style about what was happening in the Ukrainian community abroad.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: But at least there was some information?
V.V. Marmus: From there, I learned that the Great Assembly of the OUN had taken place, and other events, gatherings. In conversations with the boys, we discussed these events. For example, I had a clipping (the KGB agents took it from me) that a large rally had taken place somewhere near New York, where Nelson Rockefeller spoke and supported the Ukrainian movement. There was a caricature: Rockefeller with a trident raised high. You could sometimes find things like that even in the newspaper “Radyanska Ukraina.” There was even something about Bandera’s assassination. Of course, they didn’t write that he was killed by communists, by KGB agents. They wrote that he was killed by the Germans, by someone named Oberländer—to cover their tracks, because, they claimed, he was afraid of being brought to justice. But still, that information was there.
And it's interesting—there were no photographs of either Melnyk or Bandera anywhere back then. It’s obvious why—so that no one would know what Stepan Bandera looked like. And there was this semi-documentary film “Murder in Lviv.” One time in Lviv, we watched that film and went to see the projectionist. It must have been 1966 or 1967. The film was showing at the Lesia Ukrainka cinema. I went with a slightly older boy (because if I, being younger, went alone, he might not listen to me, a kid). We went up, fibbed a little: we need this for such-and-such a cause, cut out two frames with Bandera for us. This must have impressed him; he manually wound the reel, found the spot, and cut out four little frames of Stepan Bandera for us. We struggled for a long time to make a negative from that positive, and then photographs from it. It cost us a lot, because you couldn’t find photographers like that at the time—it’s not like it is now.
In short, all our consciousness was directed along this path until the organization was created. You could say that we existed as an informal organization for a long time; it was a group of boys united by common views. Later, I took on the task of writing the organizational documents, something like a charter based on the principles of, perhaps, the underground Banderite organization: it is led by a leader, whose instructions must be mandatory for all to follow, and secrecy must be maintained. Then I wrote an oath, which also obliged us to maintain secrecy. It began with the words: “Before the image of the Holy Mother of God, before the faces of my comrades, I solemnly swear to serve Ukraine faithfully, to fight for its independence…”—a patriotic text like that. And at the end: “If I betray this oath, may the hand of a friend wipe me from the face of the earth.” That’s how we swore, raising our hands with two fingers up. The KGB agents later asked us why two fingers and not three, and some couldn’t explain it.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And why?
V.V. Marmus: They said that’s how they swore, but we didn’t know such subtleties. Later we found out that they really did swear that way in other organizations. But why exactly? If someone asked why we cross ourselves with three fingers and the Poles with their whole palm—even that is not easy for a simple Christian to explain. But we did it that way. Slowly, nine boys took the oath, including my brother Mykola. The first three were my relative Petro Vitiv, who was actually still a minor at the time, born in 1956, seven years younger than me; Petro Vynnychuk, born in 1953, a bit older; and Volodymyr Senkiv. The four of us were the first to take the oath. This was my main support. And then older boys joined us—my brother Mykola, born in 1947, Andriy Kravets, Mykola Slobodian, Mykola Lysyi. Stepan Sapeľak was the last to take the oath and join us. Everyone was already aware of the plan: on January 22, 1973, blue-and-yellow flags were to fly over Chortkiv, and proclamations were to be posted for the 55th anniversary of the proclamation of the Fourth Universal of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Kyiv. And leaflets too. Here, I can read the texts. They had this content: “Dear comrades!”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Why “comrades”?
V.V. Marmus: Because we had to camouflage it a bit. We could have written the same text with the words “honorable society” or “citizens.” But we wanted to mislead the KGB a little. We were preparing for a huge commotion, for them to be searching for us. And the ending—“Long live a free Ukraine!” Because all Soviet propaganda rails against “independent,” “independents.” We deliberately avoided that, replacing it with: “Long live a free Ukraine!” Of course, we meant the same independent Ukraine. I can read it:
“Dear comrades! Today marks 55 years since the day when the independence of the Ukrainian State was proclaimed in Kyiv by the IV Universal of the Central Rada.
This historic act demonstrated the will of the Ukrainian people, their age-old aspiration for independence.
However, today’s official Soviet historiography tries to portray this event in the eyes of our generation as anti-people.
This gross distortion of historical reality is condemned with indignation by the progressive public. It is condemned by everyone who holds the interests of the nation dear.
Dear comrades! Let us worthily commemorate this significant date, which is rightly considered our national holiday!
Long live a free Ukraine!”
This was written with poster pens on wallpaper, about half a meter wide—just regular wallpaper. In addition to this, there were slogans with calls to action:
Freedom for Ukrainian patriots!
Shame on the policy of Russification!
Long live the growing Ukrainian patriotism!
Freedom of speech, press, and assembly!
And other such slogans. This was also written in large letters so that it could be read from a distance of 10–20 meters. Because it was intended to be pasted high up, so it couldn’t be torn down immediately. All of this was neatly written in block letters, then any traces of fingerprints were wiped off, rolled into tubes, packed, and awaited the appointed day. Before that, a few of us went to Chortkiv, specifically chose the locations, figured out how to get there and where to raise the flags, so that we could act according to a plan, rather than walking around during the operation wondering where to hang them.
We carried out this operation on the night of January 22, 1973. It was done, one might say, with lightning speed. Although it was a rather cold time, with wind and snow, and our hands were cold, there were enough of us boys. We divided up the tasks, who would do what and where, and pasted everything. I personally, along with Vitiv, raised the flags. Of course, we also pasted leaflets, but in four places, the two of us tore down the Soviet flags and raised the blue-and-yellow ones in their place. We raised the first flag at the covered market, the second at the “Myr” [Peace] cinema. To be honest, we also wanted to put one on the flagpole near the district party committee building, but it was so securely fastened that we couldn’t get it down. We had a fifth flag, so we just left it on some tree there. It wasn’t even mentioned during the investigation. And another one was on a flagpole at the forestry enterprise by the road.
The KGB agents later questioned the watchman about how the flag got there. He said: “I don’t know. I came in the evening, sat down, and looked—your flag was there. And in the morning, I looked—our flag was there.” It became something of an anecdote. We raised the fourth flag at the pedagogical college, which caused a huge commotion among the administration. At every place where the flags were hung, we posted proclamations, and not only there.
A month passed. They took Stepan Sapeľak. Right after Sapeľak, they took me, and within about six months, we all ended up in the Ternopil KGB directorate.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: In what order were you arrested?
V.V. Marmus: Sapeľak was arrested first, on February 19, 1973. Around February 17 or 18, he was summoned and then released. In his naivety, he immediately ran to me, which I really didn’t like. I said: “You obviously brought a tail with you!” I told him right away: “Do a cleanup at your place.” Because I had done one at mine. I regret it so much now, because I didn’t know where to hide such things, I agonized over them—and then I just burned them. It still bothers me to this day; I regret destroying such things. And the photographs too. I was actually planning to go underground. I had two pistols, one Belgian-made, the other a TT, and a bunch of ammunition.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: In your article “Flags Over the City,”* (*“Molod Ukrainy” [Youth of Ukraine], No. 7 (17638), January 22, 1998. – Ed.) you wrote that you even went to the forest for shooting practice?
V.V. Marmus: Yes, the boys trained a bit on how to handle weapons. There was also a carbine and a sawn-off shotgun. The situation was such that various plans were being considered. We even thought about things that I don’t want to talk about now, because who knows how it would have ended if we had carried out those thoughts. The other boys also had ideas and plans.
But it so happened that after that warning from Sapeľak, his house was raided, searched, and some things were confiscated. It was undesirable for them to fall into the hands of the KGB. But he only told me that they had hidden everything at home, when in fact it was all left there. They took it. That was on February 19, 1973. A few days later, on the 24th, they conducted a similar search at my place. I discreetly stepped out of the house.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: During the search?
V.V. Marmus: No, when they drove up in the car, I just—zip!—and ran away… Later that evening, I came back, getting ready—I wanted to escape. I’m getting my things, and I see two faces in one window, and in the other too. They come into the house: “Hands up!” They searched me and told me to get ready. The head of the district KGB, Maltsev, was wearing rubber boots and a raincoat. There were about twelve of them in total.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Were they armed? Was it visible?
V.V. Marmus: Of course!
V.V. Ovsiyenko: So they knew you had a weapon?
V.V. Marmus: They assumed. They assumed the boys might have something…
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And might resist?
V.V. Marmus: Yes. Maltsev walked around the house, tossing a Sich Riflemen’s order on his palm. A few times he pressed that order to my father’s head, making his head tilt back: “See, you once wore this and raised your son this way—now get ready!”—this was directed at me. My sister tried to give me something to eat, but he said: “Never mind, we’ll feed him there.” They quickly got me ready, I stepped onto the porch, and two of them grabbed me by the sleeves and put me in the car, shoving me into the very back. They were swearing, seemed a bit drunk—it was unclear to me… We got stuck in the mud for a bit, as it was a kind of spring weather.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: What were you transported in—a “voronok” [paddy wagon]?
V.V. Marmus: No, it was a “bobik,” a UAZ van. The kind with benches on both sides. The car was packed full of them. They drove out of the village with me, and on the paved road in the valley, they stopped. A Volga car drove up, they transferred me to that Volga and drove off. Two of them sat on either side of me. I don’t know why they did that—maybe so no one could report which car they took me in and intercept it, or what?
In Chortkiv, we stopped for a bit and then drove straight to Ternopil. It was already about two in the morning, well past midnight. Maybe it’s a bad thing that I wasn’t interested in who they were or what they were, but they themselves said: “See—they came specially from Kyiv to deal with you!” Maltsev showed me a few books, apparently foreign publications, and asked if I had read them or not. I didn’t look, so he ran up, grabbed me by the hair: “What, you don’t want to look? Look straight ahead! Were you brought here to sleep, or what?!” We talked with them for about two hours, and then they sent me to a cell. This was repeated at different times of the day—during the day, in the morning, and at night—for about a month.
Then they put a supposed Banderite in my cell, who had been brought from Mordovia. I remember his last name well—Pavlyshyn, Mykhailo—and I asked around about him everywhere later, but none of the Banderites in the camps had ever heard of such a name. So, they just planted someone like that to, if possible, get something out of me. Then there was another one—Valeriy Furmanov, who was imprisoned for currency dealings under Article 80. He also said that he had been in Lviv, and some professor there was very interested in me. He asked me to try to remember his name. There were such incidents.
The other boys were also imprisoned; they rounded all of us up. In September, the trial took place. They gave us different sentences. I got 6 years of imprisonment and 5 of exile; my brother Mykola and Sapeľak got 5 and 3; Senkiv and Vynnychuk got 4 and 3; Slobodian and Kravets got 3 and 2; and Vitiv, as he was still considered a minor, though he had technically come of age by the time of the trial, and Mykola Lysyi were not tried.
After a while, we were taken on a transport, moved through various prisons—in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sverdlovsk, Perm. The boys—Slobodian, Vynnychuk, and Kravets—were left in Mordovia, while Senkiv, Sapeľak, my brother Mykola, and I were taken to the Urals.
My first impressions of arriving at the camp with my fellow countrymen in camp No. 35 in the Urals are quite vivid. It’s the Vsekhsvyatskaya station, Perm Oblast. When they took me off the train—convoy, snow up to my knees. The month of February…
I had developed a stomach ailment during the investigation, so it was quite unpleasant for me then—they took me from Sverdlovsk with a high fever to Perm, and then back, because these camps were in the Perm Oblast. They took me off somewhere on the road—I don’t know how many hundred meters the convoy marched us, then put us in a car, and brought us to the camp in Vsekhsvyatskaya, Tsentralny settlement, VS-389/35. There was this sense of anticipation that somewhere here were the people I knew of: Moroz, Svitlychny, Kandyba, the Kalynets family, and now I would meet them… What were they like? There was a kind of youthful romanticism. I had already forgotten it was a prison, captivity. The main thing was to meet them.
At first, they locked us in quarantine. There we met some boys from the Ivano-Frankivsk region—Dmytro Demydov and Vasyl Shovkovy, who had also formed a similar organization around the same time.* (*The “Union of Ukrainian Youth of Galicia,” founded in 1972 in Kolomyia and its members arrested in March 1973. – V.O.) These boys hadn’t actually done anything, but they were given long sentences.
They held us for a while and then released us into the zone. Interesting acquaintances began. First, with those people whom we already knew by name. It was interesting to make new discoveries, because in reality, things are completely different. When you don’t see a person, you form a mental image of them, and then you see them—a completely different picture, not what you thought. For example, here is Ivan Kandyba—small, but I had imagined some giant, a strong, big man.* (*June 7, 1930 – December 8, 2003, founding member of the Ukrainian Workers’ and Peasants’ Union, later a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Imprisoned: 1961–1976, 1980–1988. – V.O.)
V.V. Ovsiyenko: By the way, I had the same impression when I first saw Kandyba.
V.V. Marmus: He’s an interesting man; he would ask what people were saying on the outside. But almost a year had passed since we were free, because we were taken in the spring, tried in the fall, held for a bit longer, transported for about two months… We were held in Kyiv for quite a long time, sat in Kharkiv for a long time, and also spent time in Sverdlovsk. I met Ivan Svitlychny—a very interesting man. But most interesting was meeting people from legend, who supposedly hadn’t been around for a long time—soldiers of the UPA. There were still many of them in the 35th camp. There was Vasyl Pirus, practically a fellow countryman, he was from the Buchach Raion, Dmytro Verkholiak, Dmytro Besaraba, Oleksa Savchyn, Vasyl Pidhorodetskyi. Dmytro Paliychuk, with whom I developed a close relationship. There was Tsepko, Stepan Mamchur, Yevhen Pryshliak. There were boys, there were. Conversations with them began; I asked them so many questions that it even aroused some suspicion that he was being too curious.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And who from the Sixtiers was there?
V.V. Marmus: Ivan Svitlychny, Semen Gluzman from the dissidents, Ihor Kalynets, Zinoviy Antoniuk, Mykola Kots. Later they brought Yevhen Proniuk, Valeriy Marchenko. There were quite a few people. Mykola Horbal was there from the very beginning. Bukovsky was also there at that time—an interesting personality, one of the Russian dissidents. He was a bit interested in us. After all, we were considered the youngest, so he was curious about what brought us to the camp.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And was Stepan Sapeľak with you too? I’m curious, why were we not brought together with Sapeľak?
V.V. Marmus: No, Sapeľak was in the 36th. A little later they brought my brother Mykola.
In the camp, I want to say, various actions were carried out. I was a bit cautious about it. We wrote petitions, but I saw, and others said so too, that some guys, of Russian origin, were just asking to be sent to the “krytka.”* (*For systematic violations of the camp regime, prisoners were transferred by court order to a prison regime for up to three years and transported to the Vladimir, and later Chistopol, Prison. – V.O.). But for Ihor Kalynets, when they refused to give him a visit and his wife arrived, we wrote protest letters to the prosecutor’s office. There was a similar action for Yevhen Proniuk—he had something wrong with him there…
V.V. Ovsiyenko: He had tuberculosis, and they weren’t treating him.
V.V. Marmus: Yes, tuberculosis. So we also made demands. Then suddenly they take me for transport. It turns out they had created a new political zone in the settlement of Polovynka, the 37th camp. They formed it by sifting out a certain number of prisoners from each of the existing camps and transferring them there.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: What year was that?
V.V. Marmus: It was around 1975. I remember that we read the information about the conclusion of negotiations and the signing of the Helsinki Accords while still in the 35th camp, so after August 1. So, sometime in the fall, they took me and someone else. They also brought people from Mordovia there, including our boys—Slobodian, Kravets, Vynnychuk. Also Yaromyr Mykytka, and from the Moldovans, there was George Ghimpu.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, that was indeed towards the end of summer 1975. I remember when the boys were taken from the 19th camp in Mordovia.
V.V. Marmus: At that time, they also brought Vasyl Lisovyi, Vasyl Dolishniy, and Artem Yuskevych from Mordovia… There were about 30 of them. And after some time, they brought Yevhen Proniuk from the 35th. I want to say that through Proniuk, we arranged a line of communication with my brother, who remained in the 35th. After all, relatives are allowed to correspond—to write from zone to zone. The KGB agents there were handing out books, something about bourgeois nationalism. My brother had such a book, and so did I. We used its text to pick out letters, wrote letters, and tried several times to report on the actions that were being carried out and prepared, and the names of those who would participate. We tried to make the letters long so that we could fit more information in. Later, on the anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Accords, a KGB agent came and asked: “What are you preparing here for the anniversary?” And he told me that if nothing happened, they would bring my brother here. But there should be nothing! I said I couldn’t know if there would be anything or not. Although the action did take place, my brother was brought over after some time. Of course, this zone couldn’t be compared to the others, because we didn’t have such active figures. And there were only about 50 people in total. A small zone. Then they opened another one across the fence. They brought some old people there, some of whom even died on the way. Professor Yuri Orlov also ended up there.* (*Chairman of the Moscow Public Group for the Promotion of the Helsinki Accords, arrested in February 1977. – V.O.). We even tried to establish contact with him, wrote to him, because we worked at the same enterprise. They would bring us into the residential zone, and take them out to work. We worked in two shifts—we were on the second, and they were on the first.
Once, we planned to stage a protest about the poor food. The products there were bad. And at that time, Sergey Kovalyov was in the PKT* (*“Pomeshcheniye kamernogo tipa” [cell-type lockdown facility], the same as the BUR – “barak usilennogo rezhima” [high-security barracks] – where inmates were sent for up to six months for regime violations. – V.O.), and I think Oles Serhiyenko and possibly Semen Gluzman were with him. We couldn’t find a way to get a message to him to support us. I took a note, a few candies, the boys watched to see if anyone was coming, and I crawled under the barbed wire and ran quickly along the path of the off-limits zone to the PKT, climbed over the wire there, and knocked on the window. He was sitting there with his back to the window and turned around. He might not have even understood or thought it was some kind of provocation.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And that forbidden zone wasn’t under fire?
V.V. Marmus: I don’t know. I saw a watchtower, a soldier was looking, but maybe he didn’t understand either. Maybe he thought I worked in the off-limits zone, because a few people walked there. Dmytro Kvetsko* (*b. 1935, leader of the Ukrainian National Front, imprisoned in 1967 for 15 years plus 5 years of exile. – V.O.)—he sometimes went into the off-limits zone, because he needed it “for his constitution.” Kvetsko would go to work in the off-limits zone, but he wouldn’t have passed a note to the PKT. But I ran in there and through that crack—because the window was slightly ajar—I threw in the note and ran back quickly so they wouldn’t spot me, because, of course, it would have ended quite sadly if they found out someone had run up there.
Then we passed him information again. I was working in the laundry then, and they would bring laundry from the BUR to be washed. On Kovalyov’s underpants, two letters were written: “SK.” I tore the elastic band, tied a note to the end with the names of those imprisoned with us (because they said he was being released or taken somewhere), and reconnected the elastic band with the calculation that when he put on the underpants, it would definitely break, and when he tried to tie it, he would pull out the note. And so it happened, as he later recalled. Because later I did get to meet him.
We collected a chronicle of events in the camp. I wrote down what events took place. Later, when I heard that I would be taken from there, I left it with Apollon Bernychuk…
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And did you manage to get that information out to the free world?
V.V. Marmus: We tried several times, but unfortunately, I don’t know if it ever got through. There was an Israel Zalmanson* (*From the group of Jewish “hijackers” who attempted to steal a plane in 1970 to escape the USSR. – V.O.). He gave the address of a girl in Moscow who was apparently the wife of Paruyr Hayrikyan* (*Leader of the National United Party of Armenia. – V.O.), something ending in “-ko,” sounds Ukrainian…
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Lena Sirotenko, she’s Jewish, but her last name is Ukrainian.
V.V. Marmus: I managed to pass the information out, but the man told me later, when I met him on the outside, that he went to her place, but she wasn’t home. Her father or someone else met him coldly. So he tied a stone to the cellophane with the information and threw it into the middle of the Moskva River. He said: “What could I say? I was scared.”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: People passed it out from captivity—and just like that, it was lost…
V.V. Marmus: Yes. There was another case. The chronicle was kept continuously, and it’s a shame that it may have perished. Because after I was taken from there, I never heard what happened to that Apollon Bernychuk, who he left it with, or if he is even still alive.
At the end of 1977, I submitted a statement that I was adopting the status of a political prisoner.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: The struggle for political prisoner status began in late 1976—early 1977.
V.V. Marmus: Yes, I stopped going to work, tore off all my patches. They gave me six months in the PKT. First, there was the punishment cell, so I would change my mind and back down. They were a bit ceremonious with me. I sat there for a while, then they transferred me to the 36th, in Kuchino, and put me in a cell with Semen Gluzman and a Lithuanian—Šarūnas Žukauskas. Also an interesting man. Later they moved me in with Oles Serhiyenko and Yevhen Proniuk; I was with them then. Towards the end, Yevhen Sverstiuk was imprisoned somewhere nearby. I remember how we sang carols to him on Christmas, shouted. Then Anatoliy Zdorovyi returned from Kharkiv. He had been taken somewhere. It was interesting there—from there we also wrote, passed information. I sent my indictment somewhere from there, but it turned out it ended up with the KGB.
That, in short, was the situation in those camps. From there, they took me to exile. It was February 1979, about 10 days before the end of my term. I had just received some information, but they unexpectedly grabbed me, and it remained hidden in the zone. I resisted because they had confiscated many of my things—notebooks with records and other things. Later, they did return some of it. But at that time, a report was filed on me: tendentiously selected anti-Soviet information to be confiscated. I then lay down on the ground and said I wouldn’t go unless they returned my papers. I had some interesting portraits there… One of them said he gave his word as an officer that they would return them… They took me and drove me to Sverdlovsk, and from there to Tyumen Oblast. I had to wait there for quite a long time before they released me to exile.
Of course, the conditions there were different. Then it turned out that Semen Gluzman was in the neighboring district, a little to the north—Zinoviy Krasivskyi. And lower, in Kurgan—Stefania Shabatura. We corresponded. We also corresponded with Iryna Senyk. We had quite an active correspondence. Later, contacts were established with people abroad, with Amnesty International.
They kept me in Tyumen Oblast, Isetsky Raion, the village of Shorokhovo. There’s a river there called the Iset, and the town and district are named after the river. My brother Mykola was also in exile there. They made this concession for us: I never expected that we would be together in exile too. When they were releasing me in Tyumen, they warned me: watch out, don’t do anything there, or we’ll separate you. But we were still there together.
A year of exile passed. The head of the commandatura there was a Major Shubin, who turned out to be a decent man. And my brother Mykola’s term of exile was just ending. That major says to me: “Actually, I have the right to give you a leave of absence so you can go home with your brother.” Which he did. That leave turned out to be quite turbulent. They didn’t give us any documents, just a covering letter; I traveled without a passport. They didn’t want to let us on the plane. Then they finally did. And the leave was only a week. We flew on the “Tyumen–Kyiv” plane and immediately went to the Lisovyis’, because I had contacts with Vira Lisova. Maybe not immediately, because we also wanted to see Oksana Meshko. We walked around, but she wasn’t there at the time.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: She was sentenced on January 7, 1981.
V.V. Marmus: Later we started corresponding with her. My brother and I also visited Vasyl Stus. We drank a bottle of cognac there. He gave us a photo and some books: “The Chronicle of the Eyewitness” and the two-volume “Shevchenko Dictionary.”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: To clarify: Vasyl Stus was in Kyiv from August 1979 to May 14, 1980.
V.V. Marmus: Yes, that was in 1980. He asked: “Did you notice—was anyone following you, was there a tail?” There was another situation. We drove up to Lisova’s place, and as we approached, a car drives up, they check our documents. My brother had his passport, they had just issued it to him, but I pat my pockets, and they say: “You don’t have anything.” And into the car, they took us to the KGB, locked us up. They searched us there, took everything—it was a rather unpleasant experience… I said: “Give me some paper, I’m going to write a complaint to the prosecutor’s office right now—on what grounds were we detained? Don’t we have the right to walk around Kyiv? The route slip says: ‘Route of travel: Tyumen–Kyiv.’” And they tell me I should have gone straight from Boryspil to Ternopil. And I said I was supposed to take a train, so I went to the station, and this was on the way. They released us at midnight. I don’t even know which police station it was, or where it is.
When we got home, they were also constantly taking me in for talks, so much so that it became tiresome. And when I was returning, they raised such a ruckus, as if I had wanted to secretly go to Kyiv. They picked me up from the airport in Kyiv, held me all day, took me to lunch. I didn't want to eat, so they said: “What are you doing here—trying to stage a hunger strike?” And I say: “What else? You took me, my things are left there, you’ll stick something in them and say I was transporting something?” They held me almost until the plane departed.
Major Shubin from Tyumen was dissatisfied; he said: “I thought it would all be fine, but I got a reprimand because of you, for letting you go like that.” That’s how the trip went. But still, it was satisfying to have visited with acquaintances and to have dropped in at home.
What else can I say? In that Shorokhovo, there was a large contingent of “khimiki” [convicts sentenced to correctional labor]—about 500 people. They were building a pig farm there. I had some interesting interactions with them, although they were an incorrigible element: they listened—or didn’t listen—but it turns out they just wanted to get some material benefit out of it. They simply couldn’t believe that this was being done so selflessly, without any personal gain. They told me: “It can’t be that you’re not connected to the CIA, that they don’t give you dollars for this.” Such naive guys they were.
Once, while my brother was still there, we wanted to visit Stefa Shabatura in the village of Makushino, Kurgan Oblast—to hire a car and go secretly. But for some reason, it didn’t work out. We were registered, undergoing checks. But those policemen liked, well, I wouldn’t say liked—they respected us: they said there was no trouble with us, unlike with those “khimiki,” because with them there were constant fights, murders, rapes, and a lot of that. But with us, they had no such incidents.
Once, someone from Melbourne University, from Australia, wrote a letter to the Isetsky Raion Party Committee asking for our release. So they summoned us to give a written reply that we were not being persecuted here. We refused: “There is no falsehood in the letter. But so what—are we here of our own free will, and do we have any rights? We have no documents, we are deprived of everything.” I did write a reply later, but of course, that letter probably didn’t get past the Tyumen Oblast.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Is that publication in the newspaper “A Duck Flew Over the Pipe” related to this?* (*“Tyumenskaya Pravda,” December 24, 1982, author V. Khrenov. – V.O.).
V.V. Marmus: No, that was a different case. That was when the “Deutsche Welle” radio broadcast an article stating that political prisoners were being used in the construction of the “Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod” gas pipeline. I, for one, was not directly on that pipeline, but the farm where I worked served that system to some extent. You couldn’t say I worked directly on the pipeline, but I had some connection to it. So they published what was practically a feuilleton, claiming that I, Krasivskyi, Gluzman, Usatiuk (from the Moldovans), and a few other political exiles in the Tyumen Oblast were being used in the construction of the pipeline.
There were such cases there; KGB agents constantly came, had conversations with us. There were such ceremonies… We corresponded with Zorian Popadiuk, who was in exile in Kazakhstan at the time. He was arrested there, so they came to interrogate us. Taras Melnychuk sent me a letter, saying he planned to risk breaking free by publishing an article in a newspaper. I don’t know why he wrote to me about it, because we weren’t such close friends. Well, we were together for a bit in the 35th zone. And he wrote such a letter. He was imprisoned in a zone somewhere in Vinnytsia.
At that time, we started corresponding with Halia Horbach. She was a bit surprised to receive more detailed information about us so late. I hadn’t bothered with it because I expected Stepan Sapeľak to have provided that information. He was in the 36th zone, and they said there was a good channel out from there. But it turns out it got stuck somewhere. And now, after so many years, it’s not the same. I look at those samvydav publications, and there’s practically no information that such a group of boys was imprisoned.
I was released and arrived in Chortkiv for the New Year of 1984. It was quite a hassle, because before my imprisonment I lived in Rosokhach, and for that reason, they didn’t want to register my residence in the district center. My brother was already living in the village, in our family home. And in Chortkiv, my sister was offering to register me; her place was supposedly fine. They didn’t want to register me because I didn’t have a job. I went looking for a job—they say I’m not registered, so they won’t hire me. I went around like that for about two months, and then I say: “You know what? If that’s how it is, then take me back to where I came from.” I had a rather tense conversation with them, but then they finally gave me registration at my sister’s place. I felt constant surveillance.
When I returned, they gathered our whole family in Rosokhach, and a man named Podoliaka from the propaganda department came and announced that our brother Volodymyr had not been corrected. If he continues to engage in anti-Soviet agitation, the question of his continued presence in the district will be raised. And, he says, you will be treated accordingly. This was a bit frightening for them—how could this be? And he also insisted that I publicly state that I would not engage in anti-Soviet agitation. To this, I replied: “You know, I’m sick of all these talks.” This greatly offended him.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And were you married by then? You haven’t mentioned that.
V.V. Marmus: I was not married—Iryna came later, and we got married in Chortkiv. A young teacher was sent to Shorokhovo (in Tyumen Oblast). I got to know her. It turned out her parents were already starting to pressure her because the KGB had told them their daughter had gotten involved with a Banderite. I might not have had such serious intentions, but the KGB agents were saying, you see, it’s just for fun. I found myself in a situation where if I left her, it would in some way confirm their version. I saw how she felt about me, she came to Chortkiv—and we got married. She got a job as a teacher. That also wasn’t so simple, because the school principal, the third secretary of the district party committee, a certain Poliak, the head teacher, and even the head of the district KGB department, Chernysh, met with her, trying to persuade her, saying, who have you gotten involved with, he’s this and that, go home, and so on. There was such an indoctrination.
At that time, in 1986, several students at the Chortkiv Pedagogical College intended to create an underground organization; they made identification cards, or rather, party tickets with the slogan “Ukraine for Ukrainians!” Maybe there were other signs of an organization, I don’t know, and I never saw those tickets. They were quickly exposed—and I was immediately summoned, asked if I knew them. A certain Sinitsyn, a colonel from Ternopil, came; he was just a lieutenant when we were tried in ‘73. He asked if I knew them and what my opinion of them was.
In the same college, a student named Liuba Kavchuk had the carelessness to speak negatively about the Chornobyl disaster. They pressured her so much that she poisoned herself and nearly gave up the ghost. I wanted to establish contact with her—and they immediately came after me: watch out, they said, it’s not desirable for you to incite her to anything, or you’ll have big trouble.
The elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR came up. Then, in 1988–1989, events developed rapidly. In the spring of 1989, I traveled to Kyiv for the founding congress of “Memorial.” There was a large rally at the stadium; Yuriy Badzio had just been released and was speaking there. Before that, I had photographed the mass grave where the victims of the Chortkiv prison are buried and gave the photo to Ivan Drach at that time. At the same time, we created a “Memorial” chapter in Chortkiv with some young guys. Interestingly, all the boys from our Rosokhach organization took part in the creation of “Memorial,” but the KGB dispersed us. Then we went into a house. By that time, I was already a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union (UHS); the head of the regional branch, Levko Horokhivskyi, was at the founding meeting of the “Memorial” society then. Although both he and I had been warned. This was already being done through the UHS—public organizations were being created; I constantly traveled to Ternopil, and meetings were held at Levko’s apartment.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: The Ternopil regional branch of the UHS was created in January 1989.
V.V. Marmus: Yes, yes, on the 14th, right on the old New Year. We had planned a meeting, but they detained us everywhere—some here, some there. Mykhailo Horyn was traveling with Zinoviy Krasivskyi; they were detained somewhere in Lviv. I wanted to get to Ternopil the evening before, but they stopped me at the Chortkiv railway station, took my passport, because some woman pointed me out, saying I looked just like the man who had robbed her! They held me in the police room at the station, writing some protocols until midnight, then released me. I was walking along the road, and a car was following me, shouting from it, calling me into the car, laughing and jeering. In short, it was a time when they couldn’t do anything serious anymore, but they still tried things like that. Then we gathered from the districts on January 26 and elected Levko Horokhivskyi as chairman.
We created the People’s Movement (Rukh) in the district. There were some of my wife’s teacher friends, I met some people myself, gathered a few of them, and proposed creating an initiative group to establish Rukh. You’ll come, I said, as if by chance to a “Memorial” meeting and make a statement that Rukh is being created everywhere, so let’s create one in Chortkiv too. We’ll set a date, write an announcement. I still have that poster. When Rukh was being formed, Horokhivskyi also came from Ternopil. Although he had been warned, it was done.
We created all those public organizations, and in the end, we established a district branch of the UHS. Horokhivskyi was even surprised that the UHS branch was created so late in Chortkiv. I was elected chairman. We actually hadn’t planned to create it, but Horokhivskyi said to do it. Members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union would come to meetings in the district.
And so it went that when we created the Ukrainian Republican Party (URP) on the basis of the UHS in April 1990, I became chairman again. And so it has been until now—every year they re-elected me. In 1997, we transitioned to the Republican Christian Party (RKhP). It would be desirable for someone else to be elected, someone younger, although we are not very old. I’m not yet fifty, but some might think there’s some kind of monarchy here, because one person is irreplaceable, or what?
I also remember when we created the Society of the Repressed in Kyiv.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: That was on June 3, 1989, on Lvivska Square in Kyiv.
V.V. Marmus: They didn’t open the House of Artists for us. The police were a bit of a nuisance. They hurried us along and demanded that we disperse sooner. So we stood around a flower bed. Bohdan Horyn led the meeting. It was wonderful; I really liked it.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Are you currently a deputy of the Oblast Council?
V.V. Marmus: Yes, this is the second time. I was a deputy of the Raion Council in 1990. Then in 1992, there was a by-election to the Oblast Council to replace a departed member. So I was simultaneously a deputy of both the Raion and Oblast Councils. Currently, I am in the commission for combating crime and corruption, and in the previous convocation, I was in the ethics commission. In the Raion Council, I was also in the commission for combating corruption and crime.* (*V. Marmus was also elected to the Oblast Council in 1998 and 2002. – V.O.)
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And tell us about your children.
V.V. Marmus: I sometimes think I’m getting a bit old, but when I look at my children, I immediately feel young again. I have two sons. The elder is Sashko, born in 1985, and the younger, Vasylko (named in honor of his grandfather, Vasyl), was born in 1992, still little. I would like them to grow up to be normal citizens of the state. I hope they won’t have to sit in prisons as we did. That they get an education, that they work normally—for the state and for themselves.
I have been working for a year now in the district administration as a consultant on religious affairs and relations with political parties. These are my functional duties. True, I don’t have such duties on paper, but I deal with these issues.
Regarding religion, it so happened that this is a rather sensitive issue for us, and no one wants to deal with it. We have interfaith conflicts involving a great number of people. In some places, the situation is practically hopeless because two denominations are fighting over one building. One church per village, but in the village, there are two denominations—Greek Catholic and Orthodox. And both lay claim to the same church. It’s impossible to divide them somehow. Everything is being done to encourage the construction of another church so they don’t fight among themselves. But this is tied to funds. Ambitions get in the way.
There are various parties in the district. There is the Democratic Party, the People’s Movement (Rukh), the Republican Party, although there are only a few people there—those who did not want to join the RKhP with us. There is the KUN (Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists), “Hromada” (3 people), and the KhDPU (Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine). There are public societies—“Prosvita,” the Union of Ukrainian Women, the Society of the Repressed, the Brotherhood of UPA Soldiers. From time to time, I have to gather them and consult on what to do next, how to coexist. That’s the work.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Please tell me, where do your colleagues live now?
V.V. Marmus: Andriy Kravets passed away two years ago. Mykola Slobodian, Petro Vynnychuk, and my brother Mykola live in Rosokhach. The other two who were not tried are also there, and they are honest lads. They are Petro Vitiv and Mykola Lysyi. Volodymyr Senkiv got married in exile and remained in Tomsk Oblast. He tried several times to buy some housing here, but somehow it hasn’t worked out. Perhaps he will still return here. And Stepan Sapeľak lives and works in Kharkiv. He comes here to visit his mother.
This year we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the IV Universal and the 25th anniversary of how we celebrated this event in 1973. So we gathered and met. Of course, we meet more often, but that was an anniversary, both in the village and in the district. The district state administration issued a special decree on commemorating the 25th anniversary of the raising of national flags over Chortkiv.
Published:
Youth from the Fiery Furnace / Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Compiled by V.V. Ovsiyenko. – Kharkiv: Folio, 2003. – pp. 15–35.
Photo by V. Ovsiyenko:
MarmusV Film 5737, frame 33. January 23, 2003, Chortkiv. VOLODYMYR VASYLOVYCH MARMUS.