With corrections by N. Svitlychna in September 2003
Vasyl Ovsiyenko: September 23, 1998, on Volodymyr Hill in Kyiv, we are speaking with Nadiya Svitlychna. Vakhtang Kipiani is handling the video recording. Vasyl Ovsiyenko is recording on a dictaphone.
Nadiya Svitlychna: So, I am Nadiya Svitlychna. I was born in the Luhansk region on November 8, 1936, in the village of Polovynkyne, Starobilsk Raion. Our oblast was renamed several times, from Luhansk to Voroshylovhrad and back to Luhansk again. As of today, if I’m not mistaken, it’s Luhansk.
I should say something about my childhood—I don’t know what to say because it has somehow been forgotten. There was the war. I recall some very specific events. For example, I remember the moment my brother was injured. My brother, Ivan Svitlychny, was born seven years before me (September 20, 1929. – Ed.). That is, he is seven years older than me. Between us, there is also a sister, Maria, born in 1932. I remember the day my brother was injured. His fingers were blown off on both hands.
My parents were peasants from generations back. My father was Oleksiy Pavlovych Svitlychny (1910–1955), and my mother was Melania Illivna, née Tverdokhlib (1910–1994).
I went to school. I remember a little about school. I didn’t attend the first grade; I went straight to the second because I was already writing letters to my father at the front, having learned to read and write from my older siblings. I went to a village school where there were essentially no professional teachers. Anyone who could, taught.
I finished six grades in the village school, and then I went to Starobilsk Secondary School No. 1. It was the only Ukrainian school at that time. I don’t know how many secondary schools there were in Starobilsk then. Later there were six, but only this one, the first school, was Ukrainian. All the rest were Russian (my brother graduated from a Russian school). By the way, now, in independent Ukraine, this only Ukrainian school has also become Russian.
After school, I went to Kharkiv. In 1953, I entered Kharkiv University, the philological faculty, for Ukrainian philology. Why Kharkiv? Kharkiv is 240 kilometers from us; Luhansk is closer. Probably because my brother and sister had already paved the way there. My brother graduated from the same philological faculty in 1952, and by that time he was already in Kyiv, while my sister was studying at the agricultural institute. So I went, practically, to her. We lived together in Osnova until I got a place in the dormitory. I studied at the philological faculty until 1958.
For a long time, I worked at my assigned post in a settlement in the Donbas, which is now called Antratsyt. It used to be Bokovo-Antratsyt. The “Tsentralno-Bokivska” mine. I worked there first as a teacher, after six months I was appointed assistant principal, and a year later—principal of that school. It was a school for working youth. It operated in two shifts. Miners studied there, or those children who for one reason or another could not study in a general secondary school—a class would be closed, or something like that. So we had students of different ages. And the work was unique. I was a teacher of the Ukrainian language, and at that time, Ukrainian was an elective. A failing grade in Ukrainian was a passing grade for us, so teaching there was not easy. The school was Russian, and I was the only school principal in the district who was not a member of the Party. I was, however, a Komsomol member, even an active one, although I joined the Komsomol late, already at the university. But I didn’t join the Party—thank God, I managed to avoid it. I worked at that school for four years.
Later, I went to my mother in the village: I had to help her, she was ill. I worked there for a while in temporary jobs—at a medical college, in a library, and later I went to Kyiv and lived with my brother from the beginning of 1964. This is where my greatest, perhaps, happiness began. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember my childhood, because it wasn’t that happy. But the sixties were very happy for me, because my brother’s circle of friends was extraordinary, simply rare for that time. Young people, older people came to him, gathered around him. There were such “Svitlychny’s Saturdays.” He bought himself a “Vesna” tape recorder. At that time, it wasn’t very common; people didn’t walk down the street with tape recorders over their shoulders. But he had that “Vesna” and recorded many people—those he wanted to. Young poets came, for example, Ivan Drach, Mykola Vinhranovsky, Iryna Zhylenko, Vasyl Symonenko—and they were young then. Unfortunately, he didn’t record Vasyl Stus at that time. He recorded Borys Mamaysur, Lina Kostenko… No, I’m lying, Lina Kostenko—when we went caroling, we recorded five of her poems as payment for the carols. In any case, at Ivan’s place, there was something to listen to and something to read. He had one of the best private libraries in Kyiv; he wasn’t just a book lover, but a bibliomaniac. His library could compete, for example, with Kochur’s, and a few others. It was a select library. He knew the booksellers, and every Tuesday and every Friday he went to the “Syaivo” bookstore, where they would get him what he was interested in, from under the counter and not from under the counter. He had orders everywhere and paid for all sorts of services with books. In any case, his library was very good, and there was no shortage of people, mostly good people, in his house. They came, they visited. He made acquaintances easily. He was very charismatic in conversation, simple, unobtrusive; it was pleasant to be with him. I loved even just listening to him talk with someone. We didn’t talk much one-on-one—only about what was necessary, but talking on abstract topics was rare.
But we traveled to the Carpathians together, often visited various interesting people. Thanks to him, in 1963, I met people like Borys Antonenko-Davydovych. That is, I began my Kyiv acquaintances even before moving there permanently, because I would visit him, and he always took me with him to everything interesting, to all the interesting people. At that time, Nadiya Surovtsova appeared on the Kyiv horizon. We met her, then corresponded while she was not yet living in Kyiv. And later, when she was already in Kyiv, I was welcome at her place—either on Ivan’s errand or on my own. With the artists, also young at the time—Halyna Sevruk, Liuda Semykina, Alla Horska—we became friends, of course, thanks to Ivan, but then we were friends on our own. Alla Horska even said at first that I looked very much like Ivan, and later—that Ivan looked like me.
Life in Kyiv at that time was very interesting. I still caught the Club of Creative Youth when I was visiting Ivan, and when I moved to Kyiv in 1964, they were just breaking it up. In March, I still attended the last Shevchenko evening at the October Palace—it was an extraordinary evening. Alla Horska made the invitations for this evening. It was folded like an accordion into five parts. On each part was written the title of some work or a quote from Shevchenko, and when you turned the last page, two inscriptions appeared side by side: “I am punished, I suffer, but I do not repent” and “In a free, new family.” Those invitations were confiscated immediately, even that same evening, and later during searches, but I managed to keep mine.
The program of that evening was very interesting: it was only Shevchenko. Unlike today’s talkers, no one there gave any reports, no one read their own works, only Shevchenko, and three poems at that: “The Dream,” “The Caucasus,” and “To the Dead, and to the Living…” Yevhen Palamarenko read them. He read from somewhere offstage, so he wasn’t even visible. On stage, as I recall, there was, I think, a prop structure that imitated the Caucasus, and also, I think, an open book—I don’t remember the details. Les Tanyuk probably remembers, because it was his Club of Creative Youth that organized it.
The impression was extraordinary. The atmosphere was simply electrified. When the authorities—of course, representatives of the authorities were there—when they felt that this could end who knows how, that these people would carry with them from the October Palace… The hall was silently electrified, and such words: “Slaves, footstools, the filth of Moscow, Warsaw’s rubbish—your masters…” and so on, these words sounded explosive—and the reaction was explosive. Then quickly, by someone’s order, they brought in amateur performers from some schools, and announced not the end of the evening, but an intermission, an entr’acte. The second part of the program began, and there it was “Matilda,” “matryoshkas,” dances and songs in different languages—it started.
But they didn’t take one thing into account: that even in this situation, one could keep the mood to oneself. People, in order to keep it, began to stand up and leave en masse. They just stood up and demonstratively walked out of the hall. I don’t know who remained until the end. It was a demonstration. Then, of course, the Club of Creative Youth signed its own death warrant. That was its last evening.
There was also supposed to be a trip to Odesa for a Shevchenko evening. Vasyl Symonenko came there. This was in May or June 1963; I saw Vasyl then. That was the only day I saw him. More precisely, two days. First, he came to our house; we were supposed to travel together, but the trip was already canceled; they didn’t provide the buses that the Komsomol Central Committee had promised. The trip didn’t happen. But Vasyl Symonenko, along with Alla Horska and Liuda Semykina, did go to Odesa, while we, that is, I, my brother, his wife Leonida, Halyna Vozna, Yurko Badzio, Anatoliy Zubok, I don’t recall who else from Kyiv—we intended to then go from Odesa to the Carpathians on a trip. Since that trip didn’t happen, we took a train and went straight to Lviv. And to our group, we added some people from Lviv—Bohdan Horyn, Ivan Hrechko, Roman Krypiakevych—I don’t recall everyone who was there now, because I’m in a hurry to fit into your time limit.
But that trip was, for me, practically a turning point. This was still 1963; I jumped back a bit. Why? Because it was that journey that opened up Ukraine to me. It was a trip with tape recorders, with very interesting meetings. Since we had people from Lviv with us, whom the Galicians knew, like Krypiakevych, Hrechko, Mariyka Periv, a teacher from Halych who now lives near Kyiv—they were known, they were trusted, and thanks to them, we were trusted. We heard many interesting stories there. Those conversations by the bonfires, the journey itself—it was something exceptional in my life. After that, I wanted to go to Kyiv.
Well, in Kyiv, as I already said, the whole circle was already formed; I just joined it. The “Zhaivoronok” (Lark) choir—Alla Horska got me involved in it. This was exactly my element. I love such groups where you can get together and sing. And the “Zhaivoronok” choir was not limited to official, formal rehearsals and official performances for the public from a stage. Probably the most important and valuable thing about the “larks” was that after rehearsals (and rehearsals mostly took place in the House of Scientists, though there were other options), especially after the Sunday daytime rehearsals, we would traditionally walk down Khreshchatyk to the slopes of the Dnipro, and all the while, obviously, we sang. We sang on the way, we sang on the slopes of the Dnipro. People would come up, listen, and walk away—it didn’t oblige anyone to do anything. We sang our established repertoire, we sang whatever we wanted—it was very good. For young people, these were unforgettable meetings. I think there’s something like that today as well.
What did I do in Kyiv after moving? I don’t remember all the jobs. At first, I know, I worked in Boyarka at an agricultural technical college in the publishing group. We published educational materials. I worked there as an editor. Later I worked at the “Radyanska Shkola” (Soviet School) publishing house, also as a literary editor. In fact, that’s where I learned to be an editor, because I wasn’t one—I wasn’t born one and hadn’t been one until then.
Later, in 1965, when the arrests began and my brother Ivan was among the arrested—that’s when they started firing me from jobs because of my last name. So I had over thirty entries in my workbook. I don’t know how many exactly, and I can’t recall all the jobs now, nor the dates when and where I worked. I won’t even strain myself to remember. I can mention a few where I worked longer, for instance, at the “Tekhnika” (Technology) publishing house. Two magazines were published there: “Woodworking Industry” and “Food Industry,” if I’m not mistaken. Or was it “Light” and “Food”… I’ve forgotten, I don’t remember exactly. In any case, both of these magazines were published in Ukrainian, but not a single article in Ukrainian came in during the year and a half or two years I worked there. Everything was in Russian, and I assume the readers were also Russian-speaking. But for some reason, those magazines were published in Ukrainian. Probably to have a certain number of Ukrainian-language magazines. And they had a small circulation, which was good for statistics. So I worked there in 1965-1966.
The longest I worked was at the library of a refrigeration plant. It was a trade union library not far from the Vernadsky Library. I worked there for four years, right up until I was arrested. But that’s a later story.
What did I do in Kyiv, besides work? Obviously, given such “family” opportunities, I read a lot of *samvydav* (underground literature). I read, sometimes edited, and retyped things. Not just sometimes, but often, I had to retype a lot of *samvydav* of various kinds and scales, from Symonenko’s poems to larger works. For example, I edited Mykhailo Osadchy’s “The Cataract.” It was later used in my indictment, with my edits. I edited Sversyuk’s works—“Ivan Kotlyarevsky Laughs,” “On Mother’s Day,” “The Cathedral in Scaffolding.” Obviously, I looked up to Yevhen Sversyuk, and it felt awkward to be an editor for a critic of such stature, but he was always grateful for any corrections. And later it was pleasant for us: he was a witness at my trial, and I was a witness at his. This was generally a “ray of light in a dark kingdom”—my witnesses. I had two witnesses at my trial: Yevhen Sversyuk and Ivan Svitlychny. Could one dream of better witnesses? Although, of course, they were considered witnesses for the prosecution, as there were no others then.
So, before we get to that trial and those testimonies—what were we doing in *samvydav* back then? We distributed it as best we could. It’s even hard to remember now how it happened then. There was no organization, not even a clearly defined circle… Although there was a circle, of course. But there were many circles; they intersected somewhere, and somewhere they didn’t. For example, I meet now… Well, whom? I won’t strain my memory now, but I meet, say, Oleksandr Verkhman, with whom, it turns out, once, in the sixties, in Pechersk, at an elderly woman’s apartment, we photographed a work by Ivan Dziuba. I had already forgotten about it, but he reminds me, and then I remember: yes, we photographed it there, then it was distributed, passed on…
And with Vasyl Lisovyi, I had a real detective story. Of course, our circle did this legally or pretended we were doing it legally. It’s hard to even call it conspiracy, but it was by no means an underground movement. We knew it wasn’t permissible to just give it to someone on the street. We felt it—not so much knew it as felt it. But to play detective—that didn’t happen. Only once was there a story, connected with Lisovyi, when I had to pass a typewriter to him. I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. Obviously, we were told—both him and me—what each would look like, what each would be holding. Later, after this operation (we completed it successfully), when I met Lisovyi on the street and wanted to greet him with such joy, he walked past me impassively. (Laughs). He was a true conspirator, and I thought to myself: well, so what?
A lot was retyped, a lot was read, larger and smaller things circulated. For example, I read Surovtsova’s memoirs back then, in the sixties. The very first major *samvydav* work was Yevgenia Ginzburg’s memoirs “Journey into the Whirlwind,” and then there was Solzhenitsyn, and then all sorts of things.
There were very interesting evenings—this was outside of *samvydav*, although it sometimes intertwined. For example, “kapusnyks” (satirical reviews) were organized for some occasion. In 1964, they organized a “kapusnyk” for the seventieth anniversary of Alla Horska and Ivan Svitlychny. They were both 35. Alla Horska was born on September 18, 1929, and Ivan Svitlychny was born on September 20, 1929. So they always celebrated together, and they celebrated in the middle—on the 19th, not the 18th or the 20th. And that year, when it was 70 for the two of them, they decided to have a big celebration. They even held a lottery there to raise funds for a tape recorder for Yevhen Kontsevych, who was paralyzed, in Zhytomyr. There was a whole program, quite clearly prepared, with speeches, artistic performances, and all sorts of decorations. And, of course, all this was managed by the Central Jubilee Committee, or TsYUK for short. It was headed by Chornovil, the chairman of the TsYUK, and the committee members were Syvokin, Riabokliach, Bilokin, and Vozna. Their portraits, painted by Viktor Zaretsky, were hanging, the table was covered with a red tablecloth, there was a rostrum, and everywhere, of course, were portraits of the chairman of the Central Jubilee Committee. There were greetings from the Pioneers, from pensioners, from everyone. Some things there, however, were adjusted… For instance, they came up with couplets for greetings from the Pioneers—that was supposed to be the late Volodymyr Krekoten and Ivan Drach. Krekoten was portly, and Drach was skinny, a thin little rooster. They wanted to dress them in shorts, tie on neckerchiefs, and have them read the greetings, but then they said that was going too far, because they could get in trouble with us. There was also an anthem, which consisted of one word: “Glory!” Vadym Smohytel had prepared a choir. And then they sang couplets like these:
“Na stoli stoyit’ horilka, khlib, salaty i pashtet. Tse prydbav dlya nas Tsentral’nyi Yuvileinyi Komitet.” [On the table stand vodka, bread, salads, and pâté. The Central Jubilee Committee bought this for us.]
“Ye v nas vel’my mudri dity – dva Ivany i Sverstiuk: krytykuyut’ vse na sviti, obmynayut’ til’ky TsYUK.” [We have very wise children—two Ivans and Sverstyuk: they criticize everything in the world, but they avoid only the TsYUK.]
And so on. There was a lot of all that; they were very cheerful “kapusnyks” that were memorable.At that same seventieth anniversary celebration, Svitlychny spoke on behalf of the group of jubilarians. Of course, he thanked the Central Jubilee Committee for teaching them how to live, what to live for, and where to live. And besides that, on behalf of the jubilarians, he pledged to live the next five years in two and a half years.
And the next year (this was already 1965), Alla Horska and I went with a brigade of monumental artists—Alla Horska took me as an assistant—to create mosaics in Donetsk. They were designing mosaics on a school there. Four walls on one side, four on the other—eight walls of 12 square meters each had to be done in one summer. I went there with her. And just at that time, the arrests took place in Kyiv. We were in Donetsk when my brother was arrested, many of my comrades, and they were shaking up everyone in Kyiv. They arrested those who sang with me in “Zhaivoronok”—Ivan Rusyn, Sashko Martynenko; they arrested Yevhenia Kuznetsova, whom I didn’t know very well, but I knew her. There were searches at very, very many people’s homes.
I arrived when I felt that something unpleasant was happening here. I came to find out what was going on. Everyone looked at me with frightened eyes. I had just gotten married before that, so the late Oksana Meshko, my mother-in-law, practically sent me away: “Get out of here, or there will be trouble!” I went back, because, after all, Alla and I had agreed that I would come back immediately. I returned, and we finished the mosaics there. There, in Donetsk, I was summoned for the first interrogation of my life, in my brother’s case.
I intuitively felt that the KGB could not be trusted. I knew very little about them then, despite all the *samvydav* I had read, despite all the stories I had heard from older prisoners, like Borys Antonenko-Davydovych or Nadiya Surovtsova, or Viktor Leontiyovych Petrovsky, who had also served 19 years and with whom we communicated very closely. More intuitively, I felt that they couldn’t be trusted. And I didn’t sign that first protocol of my life. There was a very unpleasant and loud scandal, which was even accompanied by a phrase like, “They didn’t shoot enough of you in your time!” This was said by the head of the KGB in Donetsk. There was all sorts of stuff like that.
But they didn’t arrest or detain me, although I was constantly expecting it. We returned to Kyiv in late autumn. I had injured my hand in Donetsk; it was in bad shape, meaning the whole hand was turning blue and black, and passersby would stop me and offer some help. It was my right hand, and I was glad about that, because I wouldn’t be signing any protocols. But that didn’t save me: they called me in for interrogations, they interrogated me. Although soon after, eight months after his arrest, my brother was released without a trial—for lack of evidence. They released him, obviously, primarily to compromise him—because who gets released just like that? Clearly, he sold out.
But he behaved just as he had before: he didn’t justify himself to anyone and didn’t change his behavior. Ultimately, those who knew him and saw him before and after saw a change perhaps only in his eyes: his eyes were usually either tired or more tense than before. But in nothing else did he change. And in his behavior, he also did not change, only became a little more cautious. As for his activities, I would say that he even intensified them after his arrest. Only he behaved more cautiously, thought everything through more deeply, was aware of what was what, and did everything more conspiratorially. They were obviously watching him. A very high-ranking supervisor was officially assigned to him, who looked after him. He was never able to officially get a job again, although he tried many times. But he worked at home, as usual. He would get up at six and work a very clearly regulated workday. My brother was very disciplined. I, unfortunately, did not take after him in this. He wrote a lot, translated a lot. He started translating then, and he did most of it in prison.
And at the end of the sixties, there were searches, there were all sorts of cases. For example, in 1969, there was a case, No. 24, if I’m not mistaken, the “*samvydav* case.” There was a raid of searches in Kyiv—many searches in one day. After that, no one was arrested, as I recall, but very many were interrogated. We, of course, were also caught in that raid. At the center of the raid was Avtorkhanov’s work “Technology of Power.” It had arrived in Kyiv as a photocopy, and, as they said later, that photocopy was “marked.” That is, the KGB themselves had released it into *samvydav* to trace how it circulated.
It so happened that one part of that book was with me, and the other part at that time was with my brother. They confiscated it from me, they confiscated it from him, but after that, they confiscated many other things. From me, for example, they confiscated Danylo Shumuk’s memoirs. I was editing them at the time. It was six notebooks, written in his hand, and there was something written in my hand. Oddly enough, if I’m not mistaken, they returned them to me then, they didn’t take them. There were such strange paradoxes.
Jumping ahead, I’ll say that I had, for instance, a notebook with Vasyl Stus’s “Palimpsests”—the first version of “Palimpsests,” which he sent from exile to Kyiv. That was later, I’m skipping ahead, but there was a similar situation with confiscation. When I had already left for America, that notebook remained with my husband; he took it from Umanska Street and was transporting it to Borshchahivka, where he lived. On the way, he was detained, and they took everything he had, including that notebook. And, strangely enough, that notebook was returned from the KGB after some time. But I’ve skipped ahead.
So, the 1960s. The end of the 60s. I was still working in the library. At the beginning of 1970, my son was born. Even before that, Nina Strokata and I had traveled to Mordovia. There were many different events that I would like to mention because perhaps it would be worthwhile, or interesting to someone, but “one cannot embrace the unembraceable.” But one cannot overlook an event that was defining for our lives. At the end of 1970, Yevhen Sversyuk and I went to Vasylkiv to look for Alla Horska, who was supposed to have returned from her father-in-law’s house and did not return on time. And there, she was found murdered. I won’t talk about it now, but it was a very great shock for many in our circle. (Alla Horska died on November 28 in Vasylkiv near Kyiv, in the house at 8 Yunykh Komunariv Street; she was buried on December 7 at the Berkovetske cemetery in Kyiv, sector 39, row 8, grave 35. – Ed.)
In December 1971, I was living with my young son on Kirovohradskyi Lane, next to the Baikove Cemetery. I would visit Ivan, just as he would visit me. One day, he walked me to the trolleybus and on the way told me that Nina Strokatova had been arrested in Odesa. This was December 1971 (Arrested on December 6. – Ed.).
Just before the New Year of 1972, carolers were still going around. A caroling troupe came to our place on Kirovohradskyi Lane as well. That year, Mykola Plakhotniuk gathered and brought, I believe, students from the Polytechnic Institute. Afterward, they had nowhere to spend the night, so they all came to my place and left their paraphernalia. That is, the “goat” left his sheepskin coat, and all the rest. Unfortunately, it all remained there, because two weeks later the arrests in Kyiv took place, which were even more large-scale than in 1965.
In the meantime, on January 5, my son turned two years old. My brother Ivan and his wife Lolia, Vasyl Stus and his wife (incidentally, he brought a little book with a poem he had written specially for Yarema), and Yevhen Sverstiuk with Lilia all came to congratulate us on this occasion, on Yarema’s second birthday. There were many people, we could barely fit in the house. This was, in fact, our last gathering together—on January 5. The next day, January 6, Mykola Plakhotniuk dropped by, because I think he wasn’t in Kyiv on the 5th. He came and said that he was going to see Zenia Franko to get her signature on a document creating the Committee for the Defense of Nina Strokatova. I didn’t want to add my signature because I didn’t consider it to be significant. But we agreed that if Zenia refused, he would put my name down instead.
Mykola and I never saw each other again, although we were even joking around then—he stayed the night at our place, and we talked late into the night. That was also our last conversation. We always became silly jesters whenever we met. We joked then that it would be something if we ended up in the same cell. And then it so happened that we were in the same cell, just at different times. We were even in love with each other. And also, unfortunately, at different times. (Laughs). But that's another story.
I wasn’t arrested on January 12, but they did come with a search warrant. They came early, at seven in the morning, as I was getting ready for work and still had to take my son to the nursery. My brother’s mother-in-law, his wife's mother, who has since passed away, was living with me. She had nowhere to live and came to stay with me. When there was a knock at the door, she went and asked who it was. They said it was a telegram. She opened the door, but they didn’t come with a telegram; it was the KGB agents, and they began a search. Nina Obertas and I had just arranged to go to the movies that evening; she had the tickets. But according to the rules, everyone who came to my place at that time was detained. I think Nina was detained then, as was Hrytsko Miniailo, and someone else too. I don't remember everyone now, but many people got caught in that net at the time, and some of them entirely by chance.
The search lasted late into the night. The next day, I went to my brother's to tell him what had happened. I think it was a Wednesday, because I had a seminar day at the library—once a month on Wednesdays was a seminar day. I stopped by my brother’s, but no one was home. I didn’t yet know that his place had also been searched and that he had been arrested. I called Olena Yukhymivna Yanovska, who was married to Shumuk, and she told me that Danylo had also been arrested. I think it was from her that I learned about Ivan, too. Or maybe she didn’t know yet. I don’t remember exactly from whom and in what order I found out, but it very quickly became known that many people had been arrested. And, in the end, they immediately started summoning me for interrogations, initially as a witness in various cases—in the cases of those whose works they had confiscated from me, primarily Shumuk’s. Then they began to interrogate me as an accused person, but I was still at liberty. I had signed a pledge not to leave the city.
On April 18, 1972, they staged a mock arrest for me. That is, they announced that I was under arrest. Officially, in the investigator's office, they announced that I was already arrested, that there was an order. In my presence, they called my sister-in-law, Lolia, and told her to pick up Yarema from the nursery because I had been arrested. That’s what they said. And then the head of the investigation department came in (Wasn’t it Parkhomenko? – V.O.) and began to conduct his re-educational talks with me. They had me write out powers of attorney. I had a child, I had a house—not yet paid off, but my own, in the process of being registered. They simply didn't let me register it; it would have been my own by then, but they actively hindered it. They were preparing for arrests, apparently, and didn’t want me to have a house. I wrote out those powers of attorney. I was in a state of stress, I broke down. I cried, there were tears, there was snot, and I was so angry with myself, I was simply disgusted, but I couldn't do anything about it.
When the head of the investigation department saw my tears streaming down, he thought it would be easy to break me. But in fact, it’s the opposite—in such a situation, I get terribly angry at myself and at the fact that someone sees me like that. Obviously, I snapped back as best I could through the tears. And when he started his bargaining, saying things like, “Think about it, we can give you a chance, we’re not monsters”—the way they know how to talk—I told him through my tears: “Stop the bargaining and take me to the cell, if you’ve arrested me.” For the time being, they were still playing with me, but I no longer believed them. Even when they told me they were releasing me and that I could think it over until tomorrow, I didn’t believe it. I knew that if not this step, then the next step, if not this threshold, then the next threshold would be the last before captivity. And the investigator—my own investigator, who later conducted the entire investigation, Oleksandr Mykolaiovych Siryk—he walked me out and even waited downstairs, once again using Zinovia Tarasivna Franko as an example of how one should behave sensibly, that he wasn't to blame, that if he had conducted the search, this wouldn't have happened, but as it was, they had taken so much and now they had to deal with it somehow, they couldn’t just let me go. I had composed myself a little by then and told him, though I didn’t really want to speak: “Oleksandr Mykolaiovych, forgive me, but right now I can't look at you as anything other than a common sadist.” And he, too, stopped the conversation then.
I could only think about when they would arrest me: on the trolleybus, or after the trolleybus, would they let me see my son, or not? But they did let me see my son and sleep at home for a whole month—from April 18 to May 18, I still slept at home and went to their interrogations just as before, three times a week, but now with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and pajamas. However, on the day they arrested me, I was without these attributes—they still managed to deceive me. But by then, I was no longer stressed, there were no more tears. My “stool pigeon,” my cellmate, could not believe that it was my first time in prison. Because from the very first day in the cell, I started doing exercises and did them every day for a whole year, behaving as prudently as I could, not giving free rein to my emotions. Of course, all sorts of things happened—the investigation was long.
The investigation lasted until April 1973. The trial, which began at the end of March, went on for six days. On April 2, the verdict was announced. The trial was formally closed to the public. Ivan's, I believe, was formally open, but they didn’t let our mother or anyone else in either. Later, they did let our mother in for the reading of my verdict. They gave me four years in a strict-regime camp.
In June, they took me to Mordovia, a place to which I had previously written many letters in the sixties, after 1965, when so many of my friends were arrested. My friends included, for example, Bohdan Horyn, Ivan Rusyn, and Panas Zalyvakha—these were people very close to me. I sent them everything I possibly could: we knitted mittens, we knitted socks, and if it was allowed, we sent books. It was still possible back then, because, for instance, when Symonenko's collection “Silence and Thunder” came out... No, not “Silence and Thunder,” but I think it was “Selected Works” (in a pinkish dust jacket). It was summer, everyone had gone away, so I bought a whole box of them at the “Poeziya” bookstore. I found some money somewhere and bought a whole box of those books, so I supplied our circle in Kyiv, and then I sent them to many people in Mordovia. For example, the day before yesterday I was at Mykola Plakhotniuk’s place and I saw a small book lying on his table—“Figurative Word,” or something like that. I opened it—I didn’t remember this edition, it interested me—and there, in my handwriting, was written: “To Ivan Oleksiyovych...” and signed: “Nadiya Svitlychna and Mykola Plakhotniuk.” I ask what it is, where it’s from. And he says: “You (we address each other formally as ‘Vy,’ because we are godparents to the same child) sent it—who is Ivan Oleksiyovych?” I say: “Kandyba, probably?” “Well, you must have sent it to Kandyba, and when it came back, you gave it to me...”
So, Mordovia. Of the Ukrainian women, I think I was the last to arrive in Mordovia before Orysia Senyk, because she was arrested even later, in November (November 17, 1973. – Ed.). When I arrived, I think I was the twenty-third woman there. It was a camp for political prisoners (the village of Barashevo, Tengushevsky District, facility ZhKh-385/3-3. – Ed.); of the older Ukrainian women, Darka Husyak and Mariyka Palchak (now deceased) were there. Katrusia Zarytska had just been released. From our “intake,” there were Stefa Shabatura, Iryna Kalynets, and Nina Strokatova. I think that was all. And then Orysia Senyk and Oksana Popovych arrived—even later. (b. February 2, 1926, imprisoned January 12, 1945 – July 1956; October 2, 1974 – October 2, 1987).
For me, that camp was, of course, a great discovery. I arrived after prison—and in prison, I had gained five kilograms. I wore a little red bow and told my investigator that they should release me, if only for agitation and propaganda purposes, to show that Soviet prisons are the best prisons in the world. With my little red bow, it meant I wasn't anti-Soviet. I was even born on November 7. My documents say the 8th, but I always thought it was the 7th. That’s what my mother said, “on the October holidays.” I didn't have my papers, so it's only now that I know it was the eighth. So, I gained 5 kilograms there. But for some reason, they didn’t bite—they didn’t release me.
When I arrived at the camp—against the backdrop of those tanned female convicts, I looked pale blue, because I hadn't seen the sun for over a year. But they were already waiting for me there; they had even saved some honey and made all sorts of provisions. I was the last one they were waiting for. So they gave me such a grand welcome! Darka Husyak was the “koptienarmus” [storeroom manager]; she controlled all the food and would give out one or two “pillows” (a type of candy) per day, whatever the ration was; we all trusted her. Later, when they brought me a lemon during a visit, and I came with the package that was now mine, Darka asked: “How do you wish to dispose of it? Here, everyone is free to do as they wish.” Although we ate together, a package was a personal matter: you can, she said, eat it yourself, you can share it, whatever you want. I said: “I would like to share the lemon with everyone.” There were 26 women at the time. But how do you divide one lemon into twenty-six parts so that no one is wronged? She said: “Well, I’ll try.” And she cut that lemon into 26 perfectly even slivers. Darka knew how to do everything. When she was about to be released, Nina Strokatova started saying to her: “Pani Darka, you’re being released—why would you take a Soviet passport? You weren’t a Soviet citizen, were you? You were arrested in Galicia, the Soviet authorities were just descending on your heads. You didn’t have a Soviet passport—why do you need one now?” And she said: “I had two—I made the stamps myself from potatoes, I produced those passports. So I had two.”
In the zone, of course, life was more vibrant. I saw embroidered curtains on the windows. Orysia Senyk made curtains from sackcloth and hung them on the windows in the barracks. All the Ukrainian women wore embroidered collars—it was a miracle, these were our national attributes. And there were no “tags”—we didn’t wear the tags with our surnames. We didn’t want to—so we didn’t. Back then, you could still stand up for yourself a little. Later, they tightened the screws, so there were tags. There was mail, there were visits, there was some amateur art. Iryna Kalynets wrote poems, wrote fairy tales, and I would edit them or even add something. Or we would have translation contests: we’d take something in Russian, some little song, and translate it—to see who did it better. And then we’d argue about whose was better. It was very interesting. Stefa Shabatura designed patterns and made bookmarks, but they were thematic, interesting bookmarks. Orysia Senyk was a master embroiderer—an unsurpassed needlewoman! I had never seen anyone like her before. I have seen them since, but before that, I had never met such a talented embroiderer as she was. She also designed patterns. Our bunks, these beds, were paired with hers, and more than once at night I watched her wake up and try to sketch or write something down by touch. She had dreamed of a pattern—and she was trying to note it down so as not to lose it by morning. Because there was nothing—she composed them out of thin air. Stefa Shabatura also drew bookplates. She drew many bookplates, but they were later confiscated.
There were all sorts of “wars,” all sorts of protest actions, all sorts of hunger strikes. As for hunger strikes, I first went on one in prison. It was my first five-day hunger strike ever—I didn’t know what it was, didn’t know if I could endure it. Later, in the camp, I participated in various short-term hunger strikes. But when we found out that Vasyl Stus had been taken to the hospital with a hemorrhage (summer 1975 – Ed.) and that he needed help—somehow we managed to find out about it quickly—several of us women declared a hunger strike, including Nijolė Sadūnaitė, who had just been brought to the camp. A Lithuanian, who knew nothing about us, had heard nothing about the Ukrainian movement at all. She was more connected with the national-religious movement in Lithuania. And she said: “I will go on a hunger strike with you.” But how to justify it? And she came up with an idea: she had heard that Stus had stood up for her fellow countryman. When he died, Stus proposed to honor his memory with a minute of silence, and therefore she considers it her...
V.O.: What was his last name?
N.S.: I’ve forgotten the name.
V.O.: Klemanskis.
N.S.: Yes, Klemanskis. And Stus was punished for it later. So Nijolė wrote: “I consider it my honor to now stand up for him.” We offered our blood for a transfusion for him and declared a hunger strike. We didn’t say how long we would be on strike, because we knew that they would ignore it anyway, and even more so if a term was set. They’d just say, go ahead and starve yourselves, and that would be it. But among ourselves, we agreed that we would strike for, I think, five days. Because they could scatter us to different places. And so it happened: the four of us were taken to the psychiatric ward. On the hospital grounds, they completely cleared out a barracks of that psychiatric ward, so that no one was there. The patients were moved somewhere, and they boarded up our windows. But we had agreed among ourselves that we would end the hunger strike after five days—wherever any of us might be, so that we would stop on the same day. But they didn’t take Stefa Shabatura with us; she was left in the barracks.
Then there were various other reasons. They denied Nina Strokatova a visit, then at the end of 1974, on Human Rights Day (December 10. – Ed.), we declared a strike. For some reason, we didn’t use the word “strike”—I don’t know, did we not think of it? We just called it a “refusal to work,” or a “refusal of forced labor,” but in any case, we named it delicately—“refusal to work,” but in reality, it was a strike. And, obviously, they began to punish us.
1975 was the International Year of the Woman. It seems they had prepared an amnesty for women with young children. Iryna Kalynets and I qualified under those amnesty articles—she had a young child, and so did I. We were supposed to be amnestied. But just before 1975, we had started a serious protest. We later found out that in other camps, they were also fighting for the status of a political prisoner in various ways: with hunger strikes and all sorts of means. We thought we had initiated that struggle, but in the early stages, we neither called it a struggle for the status of a political prisoner nor did we call the strike a strike. Although, in essence, based on the points of our demands, it was a struggle for the status of a political prisoner.
By then, they had already scattered us among punishment cells, PKT [cell-type disciplinary blocks], and there were many adventures. My sentence, compared to others, was short—4 years. Darka Husyak was serving out a 25-year sentence with me, and people were serving 15 years; Iryna Kalynets and Orysia Senyk, I believe, had 6 years of imprisonment and 5 of exile. (Iryna Kalynets, b. December 6, 1940, imprisoned January 12, 1972, under Art. 62, pt. 1 for 6 years imprisonment and 3 years exile; Iryna Senyk, b. June 8, 1926, imprisoned December 11, 1945 – July 1956; November 17, 1972 – November 17, 1978, 6 years imprisonment and 5 years exile. – Ed.). Compared to everyone else, only Nina Strokatova and I had such a sentence—4 years each. And before my release... By the way, that was also interesting, but I don't know if we and the machinery have the patience to listen to it all, but my release was interesting.
About a month and a half before the end of my term, I was told to get ready for transport. I thought it was normal: they were taking me somewhere for re-education before my release, obviously to Kyiv. I was convinced of it. Perhaps they also take people like me to Saransk for re-education. And suddenly in Moscow, after the Moscow transit prison, they put me on a plane. It was a peculiar procedure: I was taken onto the plane first, before any boarding had begun. They sat me in a back seat, and next to me were four... No, I wasn't in handcuffs—never was, by the way, I never tried to see how it feels to be in handcuffs. The first time they demanded I keep my hands behind my back was when they were taking me to court, and I was very surprised, because they usually don't demand that of women, as they do of men, that their hands must be behind their backs. Or maybe not everywhere? In any case, I was somehow lucky. I was lucky with my bosses at work, because no boss ever shouted at me, as I don't know how I would have behaved. It never happened that someone shouted at me, as sometimes happened to others.
In the same way, I was not fortunate enough to be in handcuffs. I wanted to be in a solitary confinement cell for a little while. I know people are afraid of it, they don't want it. But I wanted to—and I wasn't lucky with that either, I wasn't in solitary. I was in the psychiatric ward.
V.O.: And in the punishment cell?
N.S.: I was in the punishment cell.
V.O.: But you were alone there, weren't you?
N.S.: Ah, that's true, probably, but not in the prison. I was in the psychiatric ward. During the investigation, they sent me for an evaluation to the psychiatric ward here, at the Pavlovska Hospital in Kyiv. I was there for about two weeks. If I'm not mistaken, from around December 11 to maybe December 29 or 30, 1972. They brought me back to prison from the psychiatric ward just before the New Year. I was there for an evaluation. That was also an interesting adventure.
V.O.: Natalka Maksymivna Vynarska was in charge of the forensic psychiatric evaluation department there, right?
N.S.: No, was it Vynarska? It seems to me it was a little different. I’ve forgotten her last name—she's in Israel now, but here she was the head of the evaluation department. It's hard to say... She wasn't a bad woman. I haven't familiarized myself with my case file now, and when the investigation ended, I also barely looked at the file; they showed me very little, the time was limited. They didn't give me a copy of the verdict, which is illegal, of course. I barely saw it either—they just showed it to me in the prison warden's office, then took it away. So I didn't even read it.
But the psychiatric ward was interesting. Here's just one episode—when they brought me there. Before that, when they announced they were sending me for an evaluation, I asked the investigator on what grounds, why they were sending me for an evaluation. He says: “Because you are behaving insincerely.” I ask, in what way is my insincere behavior manifested? “You refuse to testify.” “But I am sincerely refusing to testify, am I not? I am justifying why I refuse to testify.” But that was supposedly the grounds.
They brought me to the psychiatric ward in the evening. And this psychiatrist, the head of the department (Natalka Maksymivna, I think. Unfortunately, I don't recall her last name), was waiting for me and familiarized me with the institution where I had ended up. I asked her how long I had to be there. She says: “That will depend on you, on your behavior, but on average it's from two weeks to two months.” I ask what it would take for it to be closer to two weeks, not two months, and that it would be desirable to get it done in two weeks. She says that will depend on me. “And why do you want it to be quicker? And why two weeks specifically?” I say: “In two weeks it's New Year's, and I'm superstitious—I don't want to celebrate the New Year in a psychiatric ward. I'd rather be in prison.” I knew I was revealing my hand, I knew I was even giving them an advantage. I was truly like a madwoman, I was very afraid of the psychiatric ward, pathologically afraid. But I decided to be candid where I could afford to be.
She really did manage it in two weeks. Then I also asked her if she knew Stus—because I knew Stus had already been there. I was still at liberty when the rumor reached me that he was in the psychiatric ward. “I know him,” she says. And even before that, I had asked her if there was a library. “There was,” she says, “but they smoked it all up. But I can bring you books from home. We don't often get this type of person, so I'll bring them for you from home.”
V.O.: She brought them to me, too.
N.S.: You were with her too? I didn't know! And she brought you Dostoevsky as well?
V.O.: Yes.
N.S.: She told me she brought them to Stus, too.
V.O.: But I was there after you.
N.S.: After me? She didn't mention it? You didn't know I was there?
V.O.: We mentioned some people, but she didn't want to name names.
N.S.: So you didn't know I was there.
V.O.: But I knew Vasyl Lisovyi was there—that's for sure.
N.S.: And I didn't know that.
V.O.: We were there after you.
N.S.: Yes, but did you know I was there?
V.O.: No.
N.S.: Because I knew about Stus. And I knew about Gluzman. That is, I knew that the psychiatrist Gluzman had already been convicted. I knew this because during the whole time I was in prison, I once managed to catch a “knyva” [a prison note] during a walk in the yard. And it happened to be a tiny note from Slava Gluzman, whom I hadn't even heard of before. And he wrote very succinctly: Semen Gluzman, Art. 62, pt. 1, the sentence, and, I think, the cell number. I don't remember exactly, but literally two tiny lines with that basic information. So I also asked her about Gluzman—he was her colleague, after all. And she said she didn't know him.
Returning to the camp, one could say that the camp was even more cheerful than the psychiatric ward. The psychiatric ward, too, was a kind of respite compared to prison. In the camp, of course, all sorts of delegations from the outside would come to visit us—to educate, to re-educate, there were even some who traveled from our camp to the Urals or came to us from a Ural camp.
I don't remember everything now, but I have eight of Ivan's letters that he sent me from his camp to mine. We corresponded, but not often, because correspondence was limited, the limit was two letters a month. Obviously, those letters had to be written to family—the family waited for them most of all. In many respects, it was harder for those on the outside than for those behind bars. So we had to write to them. Of course, prisoners corresponded with each other through them, but we wanted direct correspondence, and we agreed to exchange letters directly once every four months—I don't remember exactly how, but in any case. I even once sent him an embroidered Cossack—I embroidered a fine Cossack as a fragment of a bookmark designed by Stefa Shabatura, and sent it to him. I wrote a quatrain there: “Роки й роки... У всі віки гуркочуть крильми вітряки. Та не втрачай к життю охоти – воюють з ними Дон Кіхоти.” [Years and years... Through all ages the windmills' wings roar. But don't lose your zest for life—Don Quixotes fight against them.] And he received it—I didn't think they would allow the embroidery through. He got it.
So, let's move on to the release. A month and a half beforehand, they took me, as I said, for transport and in Moscow put me on a plane, where I only just learned from the stewardess that we were flying not to Kyiv, but to Luhansk. And I went into such shock, simply into a panic, because in the Luhansk region, in the village where I was born, my son, who was almost six years old at the time, was with my mother, now deceased. The thought immediately shot through my mind: if they're taking me to Luhansk, it means something has happened to him! I rationally understood that if something had happened, they would never have told me. But that's reason, and emotions are something else. To make a long story short, I fell into an almost hysterical state. The whole way, I was just fighting with myself to behave more or less decently, at least not to attract the attention of the whole plane. Because as it was, when they started letting people onto the plane—where I was alone, not counting the convoy—there was a very great temptation to say something, to say who I was. A very great temptation—for the first time, you see people from the outside! And of course, you want to declare yourself with a single phrase, because they won't let you say more, but with a single phrase. But I restrained myself, because I imagined that they would immediately shut my mouth, that's understandable, and very convincingly explain to the people that they were transporting a madwoman. It looked very much like it—in that black headscarf, in that quilted jacket, in those “shto-ty, shto-ty” boots (a slang term for prison boots), with hunted eyes, that look—absolutely the look of a madwoman. So I didn't do it, but later, as I said, I was just fighting to get out of that situation more or less decently.
For a week, they didn't tell me why they had brought me to Luhansk, but threw me into the general prison, because there is no other one there. And only after a week did the conversations begin with a Major Otstavnoy (that was his last name—Otstavnoy, “Retired”). He was a pleasant man, conversed with me on various topics, and I couldn't figure out what he wanted from me. The impression was that they wanted nothing from me at all. But I knew that they did want something.
During the time I was there, they took me on excursions twice—from the prison on an excursion to Krasnodon, to the “Young Guard” museum. I'm walking through the museum, afraid of slipping, because they make all visitors wear these slippers, and my head is spinning, because it's the first time you see open space after a cramped cell. Suddenly, space, people—it all has an effect, it's overwhelming, and you feel very unsure of yourself. I knew that in the museum there was the last major mosaic work by Alla Horska. I knew I would see it, but I didn't know how I would be able to compose myself in front of that work, which, by the way, I had never seen before. Alla, when she was working there, even came to my village to visit me. She brought me a dress, in which I was later arrested, I sat through the investigation in it, and I was in it again, because for release they give you your own clothes... I was just afraid of how I would hold up. But I held up, and only when they offered to let me make an entry in the guest book, I refused. I thought, that's enough for me, I've had enough of everything for today, take me to my cell.
And some time later, they took me on another excursion—to Lysychansk, where I will be going again in three days (The conversation took place before N.S.'s trip to the Luhansk region. – Ed.). In Lysychansk, I already felt more at ease. We drove for a long time by car, because the distance from Luhansk to Lysychansk is quite far—I don't know how many kilometers, maybe a hundred, maybe even more. I understand that everyone, including the driver, were KGB agents, not just Major Otstavnoy. We arrived—and went straight to the district KGB department. And the head of the district KGB (I always forget if his name is Lebedenko or Lobodenko) shook my hand, as is proper, “Nadiya Oleksiivna,” all so gallantly. They took me to the Sosiura museum. In short, these are all trifles. I went on these two excursions and returned to my cell.
They released me on May 18, 1976, exactly four years later. Since they released me there, in Luhansk, I immediately went to my mother's, where my son also was. Later, I understood what the purpose of that re-education was and what the goal of Major Otstavnoy's “educational process” was. The goal was to leave me in the Luhansk region. They offered me Lysychansk, they offered me something else, I don't remember anymore. They offered an apartment, a residence permit, everything at once. At the time I thought it was just a casual offer, but later I realized that this was the goal. My sentence did not include exile, but they really did not want to let me back into Kyiv. They had no legal right not to let me in. And I went to Kyiv anyway. I stayed with my mother for a while and then went to Kyiv. They were forced to write me a travel permit to Kyiv.
In Kyiv, of course, they wouldn't grant me a residence permit, and accordingly, they wouldn't give me a job. In Kyiv, I couldn't even get medical treatment for my child, because I wasn't registered, and my son wasn't registered either, because they had unregistered him just like me, even though he was recorded in the house register, but somehow they managed it.
Vakhtang Kipiani: I would like to know what your contact with your son was like during your imprisonment.
N.S.: I saw him three times during my imprisonment. They brought him for visits three times.
V.O.: And who else came to visit?
N.S.: My mother always came with Yarema and Lolia, my brother's wife, who accompanied my mother and at the same time traveled to see Ivan—so she would go to one visit and then the other.
V.O.: And they let her in to see you?
N.S.: Not always. In the last year, they didn't let her in; she waited outside the gate while my mother and I had our visit. The first time they let her in, and then I don't remember if they let her in the second time. I had three visits in those four years. And the first time I saw Yarema was after a year and a half. I knew he wouldn't recognize me, of course. I was prepared for this theoretically. But theory and practice are two different things.
But it was okay, the second time he recognized me—at least, it seemed to me that he recognized me. And the third time, too. And by the time I was released, he was already waiting for me; he came all the way to the road to meet me with lilacs that my mother had cut for him. For the first two months, he wouldn't leave my side, just held onto my skirt all the time, literally inseparable. When we arrived in Kyiv, it was interesting—I'm digressing again, but it was interesting—how he constantly asked me, whenever he saw bars somewhere, “Mama, is that a prison?” And here, there are bars everywhere on the first floor of both residential buildings and shops. I'd say, “No, that's a shop.” “And is that a prison?” “No, people live here.” And it went on like that for a long time. Until he finally said one day: “Only bad people are in prison.” And then I told him... Before that, he didn't know I had been in prison. My mother told me he didn't know, so I didn't want to make my mother a liar in his eyes. I couldn't undermine his faith in his grandmother. When he asked me in the camp during a visit if Uncle Ivan was in prison... No, he asked me if I was in prison, and I said—because someone, one of the “good people,” had evidently already told him, so he knew, but his grandmother said no, so he didn't know who to believe. I said: “No, son, this isn't a prison—this is a camp and a hospital.” And you could see people walking around in lab coats. I told him: “You see, it's a hospital here? This camp is built on the territory of a hospital.” And then he says: “And is Uncle Ivan in prison?” I then told him too: “No, your Uncle Ivan is also in a camp, but he's far away in the Urals.” I switched to geography, said that he also wants to come, and as soon as he can, he will, but right now he's in a camp. I thought the word “camp” wouldn't be scary for him, because he had heard about different camps—pioneer camps and others. And now in Kyiv, when he started asking me about prison and said that only bad people live in prison, I tell him: “No, you're mistaken, Yaremko, not only bad people are in prison. Uncle Ivan was in prison, and Lenin was in prison, and I was in prison.” He swallowed the part about Uncle Ivan, swallowed the part about me, but latched onto Lenin: “What? Lenin wasn't in prison!” For him, “Grandpa Lenin” was someone who couldn't have been in prison. Then I told him: “You know, son, when you grow up, you'll study Lenin's biography and you'll find out that he was in prison.” And then I began to tell him more about Ivan and about myself.
They put me under administrative supervision about a year later. I married for the second time (To Pavlo Stokotelnyi. – Ed.). I was going to Rudenko's trial... Before that, there were various summonses in the case of Myroslav Marynovych and Mykola Matusevych, in Rudenko's case; I traveled to Donetsk for an interrogation. And then I went to Druzhkivka for the trial of Rudenko and Tykhyi as a witness for Rudenko (July 23 – August 1, 1977. – Ed.). After that, they placed me under administrative supervision. I was under supervision like this: from nine in the evening until six in the morning, I was not allowed to leave the house, along with all the other requirements. So I didn't travel anywhere from Kyiv during that time, with the exception of Kamianets-Podilskyi. In 1977, I went to my mother-in-law's, to my husband's family in Kamianets-Podilskyi—for the first time with a travel permit for ten days. And Borys Antonenko-Davydovych went with us; we simply invited him. His birthday happened to fall then—August 5, and my second husband and I had even met at his place. And in general, we were close. It turned out that my husband and his family had also become close with him. We even invited him, wanted him to be our wedding godfather, but it didn't work out—he happened to be out of Kyiv. And we once ran into a search at his place too, after we were married, so we had to stay there with him.
In any case, we took him with us, even illegally went to Khotyn, to the fortress, in Kamianets-Podilskyi, so I have some bad, but still some, photos with Borys Dmytrovych. It was the city of his youth—he had been there in the Ukrainian People's Army during the liberation struggles of 1918-19. He had been there and had acquaintances. In his old age, he was very talkative, so he would talk from morning to night, telling stories, reminiscing, reciting Malaniuk from memory, whole poems. That is, he found himself back in his youth, it was very interesting.
But here in Kyiv, the provocations continued. In 1978, in May, my second son was born. And I had nowhere to take him. In the one room where the two of us lived with my husband and older son, there wasn't even space to put a baby carriage—except on the table. I'm truly superstitious, I didn't want to put the baby on the table. So I went to my sister-in-law's—she also had a one-room apartment, but she was alone. I settled there with the children, and my husband stayed at his sister's, where we had lived before. He would come from work every day, we would bathe the baby, he would have dinner and go back there to sleep, and the next evening he would come again. It was a very inconvenient situation, but there was no other way.
The worst part was that they latched onto the “violation of the administrative supervision regime,” although practically there was no violation, because within the boundaries of a populated area, you can live anywhere. Kyiv is a large populated area, and I was living within Kyiv, and whether it's in Borshchahivka or Chokolivka—it doesn't matter. But they insisted it was a violation of the regime and tried me twice more. The first time, they took me with little Ivas—he was two weeks old. They took us to court in a Black Maria. The article under which I was tried stipulates a fine for the first two violations, and imprisonment for the third. They fined me twice, and the third time they should have imprisoned me. But since the fall of 1976, I had begun petitioning to emigrate abroad.
After I had a visit with Ivan... I was lucky to see him in the Urals. I think we managed to deceive the KGB, leave Kyiv, and get first to Vsekhsviatska, and then to Kuchyno. They had moved him there for the duration of the visit, and they didn't know that Lolia wasn't traveling alone; we managed it. They kept us waiting and waiting there, and then finally gave us the visit.
After I returned, I knocked on closed doors everywhere for a while more, then got a job as a janitor at a kindergarten. A large territory, there was a lot of work. The guys would come and help me. I couldn't manage it on my own, because raking up those leaves every day... A very large territory, it wasn't easy. But I still had a job there, and my son was there too, in that kindergarten. I didn't have a residence permit then.
Later, when I was registered in Borshchahivka, I left that job and tried to find work somewhere else again. At some commission, they offered me a job as a teacher in a kindergarten. But I wanted to be a proofreader; there was an opening somewhere. They said I couldn't be a proofreader because it was ideological work. But they offered me a job as a kindergarten teacher. I said: “But that's even more ideological work—it's raising children.” “They are small, they don't understand ideology.” In any case, I didn't work anywhere after the kindergarten, after that janitor job.
In September 1978—around this time of year, a little earlier or a little later—I received permission to leave for America. I had asked to go to Germany, Canada, or America; they let me go to America. I often thought there, in America, about why they let me go, because they weren't letting anyone out then. And people would ask me from time to time how I managed to leave, because no Ukrainians were being let out. Obviously, I didn't know then and still don't know their intentions to this day. I knew it wasn't for free, I knew they wanted to get some benefit from it. “They”—you understand who I mean. What benefit could they get from me? I still think to this day that they were probably counting on me not being able to take it there and asking to come back.
I arrived alone, with two small children. My older son was eight, my younger was four and a half months old when I was leaving. I have no family there whatsoever. I listed Sofiyka Hevryk, who had sent me the invitation, and I left on that invitation. I wrote that she was my first cousin and made up a story, part of which was based on my own assumptions. I wrote just that: “I assume...” I can assume anything—it was a whole story based on true information, and then I “assumed.” I assumed that she was my first cousin. And they let me go. It's clear they wanted to get something out of it.
Later I remembered that in the summer, the KGB agent Mykola Ivanovych Stetsenko had a conversation with Olena Yukhymivna Yanovska and told her: “We'll let her go, but she'll beg to come back herself. She'll crawl on her knees, and we won't take her back.” Olena Yukhymivna told me this, but told me in strict confidence, because she had promised them not to tell. I'm saying this boldly now because she is dead, I am not slandering her. She really did say all this, and it really all happened. But she asked me not to tell anyone about it. In such cases, I try to forget it myself. And I really did forget that conversation for a while.
Two months passed, and they gave me permission, but I no longer remembered what Olena Yukhymivna had told me. I didn't believe it then—who knows what they might have said! But later, after some time, I remembered this conversation in America. When I thought about it, I remembered that they had told her that. And I started to calculate for myself what they could want from me—it could only be that I would ask to come back.
But I met so many good people there. And migrants from Ukraine like me were still a rarity there. Well, who had arrived before me? Leonid Plyushch to France, General Petro Grigorenko to America. There was also a Jew from Chernivtsi, Stern, a doctor, and to a large extent a scoundrel, I think. He was given a very grand welcome there; it was the Ukrainians who helped him the most. And there was no one else at that time. So people helped me a lot.
I ended up in an extraordinary family—the Hevryk family; I lived with them for the first six months, or maybe even longer. They have three boys around the age of my older son—a little older, a little younger. They went to school together. And I was getting accustomed to American life, because at every step there was something new, something strange, something unusual, incomprehensible. Even turning on the gas stove—it turns out you don't need matches, and I wasn't used to that. Even later, after a few years, I get on a bus and suddenly I hear a hiss, and the bus lowers. I think it's broken. It turns out, a person with a disability needs to be brought onto the bus, the person in a wheelchair has to get on, so they lower the platform for them to get on the bus. There was a lot like that, which I wasn't used to and didn't know about. And the Hevryks helped me very, very much, just like family. I still consider them my family, and I consider Philadelphia my American homeland.
And besides that, there were truly many good people who helped. And the first, dearest person who met me at Kennedy Airport (there were many people there, they had organized a press conference, many people to meet me), but the dearest to me was a man I had never seen in person before in my life—it was General Grigorenko. I only knew him from stories. And he had never seen me. We were even supposed to meet once in Kyiv, but we didn't. He knew about me, I knew about him, but he truly was like a close relative to me. From then on, he remained the dearest person to me there. I miss him very much to this day. He was, of course, older, of course, more experienced than me, wiser. I always went to him for support, for advice. And besides that, he organized the External Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
As soon as I arrived in 1978, I ended up at the WCFU congress. That is, the conference of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians. That congress was called the “congress of the Congress.” We were guests of honor there, we spoke. Leonid Plyushch was there too. It was then that we agreed to establish the External Representation of the Helsinki Group. Lonia Plyushch at that time already had written authorization to be the Group's representative.
V.O.: From Rudenko.
N.S.: I don't even know—it was drawn in such interesting letters, I don't know who wrote it...
V.O.: Rudenko wrote that letter.
N.S.: I didn't even know who wrote it, but I have a copy of that authorization. And then Grigorenko organized the representation. I effectively became his right-hand woman, although he didn't have very many such hands. We later decided to publish the “Herald of Repression in Ukraine” (I basically produced it), we held conferences, wrote various appeals and petitions. Someone was always being arrested, information came in with terrible difficulty, it was very hard to get information about anyone. For instance, about you, Pan Vasyl, we knew nothing for years, until finally the “Final Statement” arrived, then something else. We knew nothing. We wanted to report something about someone—but how do you report it? Just the general information that you know—that no longer interests anyone, you need to report something new. For the “Herald of Repression,” we would peck out such tiny bits of information, but I tried to include them. Then it would turn out they were mistaken, that it wasn't like that, and in the next issue, we would have to indicate that it was an error. But still, many people thought it was necessary and used it.
V.O.: But you didn't mention this. It seems you didn't go directly to the US, you were in Rome first, weren't you?
N.S.: I left with a passport that said I was going “for permanent residence” to America. But to enter America, you have to go through an interview somewhere, all sorts of medical checks. Most people leaving the Soviet Union on Israeli visas—they went through Vienna. There were camps there, or not camps—in any case, they went through all these checks in Vienna. And those who were going directly to America had to go through those checks in Rome. That's why I was in Rome, not Vienna, because I was going directly to America, not through Israel. I was traveling on an American visa. I was in Rome for about three weeks, while all this paperwork was being processed. For some, it even took longer. When I was leaving, I didn't know about this. In general, when I was leaving, I thought it was another joke—that the KGB would pull me off...
So, for the first year, I worked at Harvard University—they simply granted me a fellowship for one year, 16 thousand. At that time, it was a lot of money, but today it's little money, a salary we couldn't live on (unclear, inaudible). But back then, it was a considerable amount.
I didn't have to live there—I traveled there often for seminars or other things. I had a fairly flexible schedule, so I could travel to Ukrainian communities. I was often invited, I spoke, told stories, did things. At Harvard, for example, I would sleep right in the institute, wash with cold water because there was no hot water, but that suited me, it was convenient and advantageous for me. There, for example, I deciphered Yuriy Badzio's letter. Badzio's open letter to the Central Committee and the Verkhovna Rada arrived. It wasn't written like Stus's notes from “From the Camp Notebook,” but still, you had to strain to decipher it. That's when my eyesight deteriorated—I remember very clearly that it was then that my eyesight worsened. That's when I started needing glasses. That was the first year.
And then I worked at “Prolog”—the “Prolog” publishing house, whose organ was the journal “Suchasnist” [The Contemporary]. “Prolog” was the first publishing house whose publications reached us in the 60s. Their publications started a revolution here: Myroslav Prokop's “Ukraine and Moscow's Ukrainian Policy,” Ivan Koshelivets's “Contemporary Literature in the UkrSSR,” and many other “Prolog” publications came here through various channels. The “Smoloskyp” publishing house was founded later, and they began to compete with each other. Competing directly, indirectly, honestly, dishonestly—all sorts of things happened. I don't remember how long I worked at “Prolog.” At “Prolog,” we managed to publish a collection by Mykola Rudenko. While I was there, and I was compiling it, we managed to publish Mykola Horbal's “Details of an Hourglass.” And what I strove for most of all—was Vasyl Stus's “Palimpsests,” although by that time I was no longer working there.
Later, I went to Radio Liberty, where they had been inviting me from the very beginning, but I refused because I was afraid of causing trouble for my brother and my relatives in general. Radio Liberty was held in very low esteem by the Soviet authorities; it was still associated with the CIA, although it had long since broken away from the CIA. I was afraid there would be trouble. But when Ivan had a stroke in exile, then I had practically nothing left to fear—what worse could they do to him? I then agreed and went to work at Radio Liberty.
V.O.: In what year?
N.S.: You know, I've forgotten what year it was, because I had been working freelance before that. I should know this, it's my work history.
V.O.: I heard you already in 1978.
N.S.: I left at the end of 1978. I started working there full-time around 1982-83. I don't remember. I worked freelance for a while. They asked me to do a series of programs about my case. I took advantage of the opportunity to talk about the people who were connected with me in the case. So I did such a series of programs about different people, with my case as the narrative thread. That was the assignment I had when I was still working freelance. Once a week I would go there to record. And then I became a full-time employee (I forgot—it must have been 1982). I worked there until 1994, when they closed the Radio Liberty bureau in New York. I loved that job, I already had my own regular radio journal for women, “Nadiia's Journal” [Journal of Hope]. I learned by touch, just as I later did with the computer, so too with radio—all by touch. But obviously, good people helped me. I already felt quite confident there. But they closed it, and I had to be without a profession again.
By the way, I don't have any diploma. I lived there without a diploma; upon leaving, they didn't give me a copy of my university diploma, although they were supposed to. I have no documents at all: I don't have a birth certificate, because in response to my request through the consulate, the answer came from here that I wasn't even born. I didn't apply for rehabilitation—my sister-in-law did. I didn't want to, I didn't care about it. But she obtained it, brought me a certificate stating that I was rehabilitated. She obtained it in 1994, but the certificate is dated 1992. But it's also a strange certificate. Haven't I shown you a copy? I can send it to you—they are such interesting documents, you have to see them. For example, the birth certificate begins like this: “As reported by the competent authorities...”—well, where would you see something like that today? And in the rehabilitation certificate, it's written that I, so-and-so, my last name, first name, and patronymic are correct—there I was already born, there I already exist... It states when I was arrested, when I was convicted, for what term—everything is correct. It's a filled-out form, with correct information, right up to the point of release. But about the release, it is written (typewritten): “No information available.” And then: how many years, months, days I spent in imprisonment—dashes everywhere. Did not serve any time in imprisonment. Exile—dashes. In compulsory treatment—dashes. I was nowhere. But I am rehabilitated.
Now I work freelance at the Ukrainian Museum in New York. I go there twice a week. I publish the journal of the Association of Orthodox Sisterhoods, which is called “Vira” [Faith]. And I have all sorts of other side hustles. I work with archives. Pan Vasyl is pointing to this book of memoirs about my brother Ivan. It was published thanks to Ivan's widow—because she was the one who squeezed the memoirs out of everyone, she organized it. We compiled it together. I offered to typeset the book, that is, to type it on the computer, to design everything. You asked if I did the layout myself. Everything here—the typesetting, the layout, and the technical editing—I did all of that in America. (The Kind-Eyed One. Memoirs of Ivan Svitlychny. Compiled by Leonida and Nadiya Svitlychna. K.: Chas. – 1998. – 574 pp.).
V. Kipiani: I also ask, maybe you'll have time to say for me that today is September 23, 1998, Volodymyrska Hill, next to me is Vasyl Ovsienko... Okay? If it works, because it shows there's no tape left. You see, I turned it off, and now it won't turn on. I'll try turning it off again...
V. Ovsienko: It will tighten up a bit more, so to speak...
On this note, the conversation with Nadiya Svitlychna on September 23, 1998, on Volodymyrska Hill, with the participation of Vakhtang Kipiani, ended. Vasyl Ovsienko recorded on audiocassette, and Vakhtang Kipiani on videocassette.
Photograph by V. Ovsienko:
SvitlN Photo film 1150, frame 21. February 23, 2003. Nadiya SVITLYCHNA.