SENYK, IRYNA MYKHAILIVNA

Listen to the audio files

With her corrections from May 8, 2002.

V. V. Ovsiienko: On January 29, 2000, in Boryslav, at 52 Ternavka Street, apartment no. 5, at the home of Ms. Iryna Senyk, Vasyl Ovsiienko is recording a conversation with her.

I. M. Senyk: I, Iryna Senyk, was born on June 8, 1926, in the city of Lviv, into the family of a Sich Rifleman. My father was Mykhailo Senyk, my mother was Maria Senyk, née Maria Überle. I was the third child. My older sister Leonida died in exile after serving a 10-year sentence for her affiliation with the OUN. My youngest brother, Roman, is still alive. When my sister and I were imprisoned in 1945, my family was also taken away. To this day, I don’t know what happened to my father. My mother, after serving her sentence in a camp in the Arkhangelsk Oblast, in Yertsevo, was exiled to the Kemerovo Oblast. She died there in 1981. I was already in exile in Ush-Tobe at the time, and they didn’t even want to let me go... I said: "You can try me again, but I'm going to my mother's funeral." She had been there since 1955, after serving her sentence in the Yertsevo camps. At that time, all the Lvivites were brought to one place, to Anzhero-Sudzhensk in the Kemerovo Oblast. Such was Stalin's order, that if someone from a family was convicted, they should all be dumped in one place. So we all ended up in the same place. I was brought to that Anzhero-Sudzhensk last of all, in 1955.

In 1968, after serving 10 years of imprisonment and 13 years of exile, I was allowed to go wherever I wanted, except to Lviv. Lviv was a forbidden city for me. Having good friends in Ivano-Frankivsk, I chose Ivano-Frankivsk. I got a job there in the surgical department of the regional tuberculosis dispensary. Knowing that so many of my sisters and brothers in arms were still in prison, I immediately decided that I must stand up for them, specifically, to take part in human rights work.

V. V. Ovsiienko: But, Ms. Iryna, you skipped over a huge part of your biography... Please, tell us everything in more detail.

I. M. Senyk: Alright. Our family was nationally conscious and intellectual. Despite the Polish occupation of Galicia, we knew that we had to live by everything Ukrainian. The stories of my father, a former Sich Rifleman, had a great influence on us. Every evening, whenever he came home from work, he had time to talk with the children. In addition, he was an artist; every evening he would draw something for a child on request. We had a large family album; we could request something, and he would draw it for us. I regret that when I came to that house many years later, they threw me out... I had hoped to get at least one of my father's paintings as a memento, but I failed...

Since both my mother and father worked, we were in kindergarten. Back then it was called a “zakhronka” [daycare], and it was at the King Danylo Ridna Shkola [Native School]. I started school very early, at the age of 5, because I already knew how to read and write and didn't want to sit at home, since I had an older sister. Well, they didn’t usually accept such young children into school, but they accepted me anyway.

After the King Danylo School (I wasn’t very well-behaved—I was a bit of a tomboy!), my mother said: "You'll go to a girls' school." They sent me to the Taras Shevchenko School on Mokhnatysky Street. From there, I entered the private gymnasium of the Ridna Shkola of Illia and Ivanna Kokorudz. They were the founders of that gymnasium. The Poles were very much against giving girls an education—they didn’t want Ukrainian schools at all. But our prominent figures managed to... Specifically, Illia and Ivanna Kokorudz gave all the money they had earned over their long lives to establish that girls' gymnasium. It was one of the best in Galicia.

I would like to talk not so much about myself here, but about those professors who gave us a fundamental knowledge, and I am very grateful to them for that. I recall people like Vynar, the director, Professor Kostruba, Professor Korduba, Professor Oleksandr Barvinsky—a historian. They knew how to instill in us a love for our native land and give us the essential things one needs on life's path. When I entered the gymnasium, I already suspected that my sister was in the Organization. But, you know, nothing was said about it; everything was secret. I always asked her: "Where do you go? Take me there too." I had a feeling...

The Underground

One day in the gymnasium, an older friend from the lyceum approached me and said: “Would you like to join the OUN Youth?” I said: “Yes, right away.” And that's how it happened.

My guide in the youth organization was a very distinguished woman. Unfortunately, very little is said about her today... It was Natalia Vynnykiv, who was shot in Babyn Yar during the German occupation. This woman also gave us our ideological training. It lasted for three whole years and also gave me a great deal.

V. V. Ovsiienko: So when did you join the Youth Network?

I. M. Senyk: In late 1938 or early 1939, still under Polish rule. Thanks to Natalia Vynnykiv, I became more conscious. You've probably heard about the very high-profile "Trial of the 59" in Lviv? (1) (Note 1. The trial took place on January 17-19, 1941. Those accused of “treason against the motherland” were students and pupils, mostly members of the OUN, who were engaged in an underground struggle against the Bolsheviks. 17 people were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, and 42 to death, including 11 girls. Later, the death sentences for 10 girls and 11 boys were commuted to imprisonment.) She was, in fact, sentenced to be shot, and then her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She was taken to Berdychiv. The Germans bombed that prison, and only eight people escaped from under its ruins. On June 30, 1941, a very memorable day for me, they arrived in Lviv. Natalia was among them. They all went with the first expeditionary groups into Ukraine and disappeared there... Well, not all of them; some remained and are now abroad. That includes Halia Komar, Dozio (Teodor) Krupa, and Darka Koverko. Most did not return, as some were killed by the Germans, and others by the Bolsheviks.

In 1944, I enrolled in the Ivan Franko University, in the Department of English Philology. In 1945, such terrible arrests began that I knew my turn would come soon. And so it happened. On December 11, 1945, they came for me.

V. V. Ovsiienko: Under what circumstances?

I. M. Senyk: Very simple. They came and said: “We are checking passports.” And our passports happened to be at the police station, being re-registered or something. They said that on purpose. “We’re going to verify them.” Well, I understood this and told my little brother: "Romko, I won't be coming back." They drove me around Lviv for a good while, as if to make me feel sorry, and then took me to Pelchynska Street, now Vitovskoho—to the SMERSH counter-intelligence. And then it began: interrogations, beatings, and then the prison on Lonskoho Street (now Bandery Street).

V. V. Ovsiienko: And what were you accused of?

I. M. Senyk: Affiliation with the OUN.

V. V. Ovsiienko: But weren't specific actions required?

I. M. Senyk: Well, that I was a courier for the OUN, for Shukhevych, that I distributed anti-Soviet literature, promoted it, and wanted to overthrow (laughs) Soviet power.

V. V. Ovsiienko: And what, you didn't want to overthrow it?

I. M. Senyk: Of course we did—we all strove for that, because it couldn't be otherwise. We were raised in that spirit, on the works of Dontsov, Mikhnovsky, and Lypa. And I will not change until the end of my days. V. V. Ovsiienko: So what exactly did you do?

I. M. Senyk: But I didn't tell them. They couldn't beat it out of me.

V. V. Ovsiienko: And do you think it's possible to tell it now?

I. M. Senyk: I worked in the regional propaganda department. It was located in what was called Zelenyi Hai. That's the Bibrka region, more precisely, the village of Deviatnyky—that's where the center was. At that time, the center was run by the regional leader Petro Duzhyi, a well-known figure. I worked for Petro Duzhyi. There I had the opportunity to meet Osyp Pozychaniuk (Yevshan)... He's a well-known man. Our whole center would only gather for Easter; otherwise, we were scattered throughout the villages. I joined that center while the Germans were still here. I remember two of Pozychaniuk's ditties:

Сталін хрест нап'яв,

Взяв кадильницю,

Ходи-ходи до УПА

По кропильницю.

Ех, кропильниця,

Ех, ти ладная,

Кулеметная,

Семизарядная.

V. V. Ovsiienko: A good ditty!

I. M. Senyk: That’s Pozychaniuk. Or another one:

Цвіла-цвіла калинонька,

Та ще й дужче стала.

Ой, чого ж ти, дівчинонько,

Прясти перестала?

– Пішов, пішов мій миленький

В повстанські загони.

– Не журись, моє серденько,

Він наш край боронить.

Those are the ditties... Truth be told, they only suspected I was a courier because I traveled a lot. They were probably watching me. Maybe—I don't want to say for sure, but maybe—someone broke and said something about you, because it was only in 1972, before my second arrest, that they told me during an interrogation in Lviv: "Did you know that 17 people testified against you?" I said: "I'm not interested in that; I don't want to know."

Arrest

So, on December 11, 1945, I was arrested, and by March 1946, I was sentenced. A troika, in the cell, because they couldn't bring me to court in public—I was so beaten up they didn't want to show me even to their own people. I got 10 years in the camps, 5 years deprivation of rights, and perpetual exile. After that, I was sent by transport to what were possibly the harshest camps at the time—the 7th Zaozernyi special camp, Taishetlag.

V. V. Ovsiienko: Do you remember any of your investigators, or judges?

I. M. Senyk: Yes, I remember. Fiodorov. Two or three years ago, I went to the Security Service on Myru Street in Lviv, to Colonel Loboda—because I wanted to find out about my father. And in the case file, it's written: that Fiodorov fled to Saratov. He is in Saratov. And he replied: "I don't remember if I was hers." How interesting! He was a terrible executioner. There was also a man named Solop, who later worked in the personnel department of the Polytechnic Institute. I remember those two very well. I don't remember others from those times.

The investigation, you see, didn't last very long: December, January, February, March—4 months. They had a lot of work... And the trial was on March 2 (or 22nd???), 1946. They took me to the transit prison on Peltevna (2) (Note 2. That was the name of the street in Lviv—Peltevna, from the river Peltev, in Ukrainian Poltva. – I.S.). I was on the transport for over a month. We traveled—God knows where... Through Belarus, then we ended up in Novosibirsk, where they took us off. They threw stones at us, shouting: "Fascists!" But the guards didn't let them, because they were afraid they wouldn't deliver the slave labor to where it was needed. They loaded us back into the wagons—and off to Taishet, and from Taishet, they dispersed us one by one so we wouldn't be together. At that time, the camps were still mixed with common criminals.

I was in many different camp sections. The first was Selkhoz, the 14th. After that, I ended up in the hospital because the pain was terrible; I couldn't walk. I ended up in the katorga [hard labor] hospital, where I met very interesting people. If you find Vadym Bohorodsky in Kyiv... He's no longer alive, but his wife should be. He wrote good poems, though for some reason in Russian. They would wash the floors there. The women's block was the 12th. And when the lights were out, they would sit on the floor, and very interesting literary evenings would begin. That Vadym was a very interesting person. Someone told me he has already died.

They performed the first operation on me there, but they didn't give me an invalid status... They said it was osteomyelitis—but it was actually the consequences of the beatings. So I didn't get the status, because in that Taishet there was a head of the SANO department... We called him “Uncle Blu”—a Jew named Blushtein. He knew we were Ukrainians. He would come into the ward and already point his finger: "Oh! To the transport! To the transport! To the transport!"

From the 4th hospital, I ended up in the 27th zone. From there they organized a transport across the Angara River, to the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the BAM. It was called Razyezd-Obvalnyi—that was already near the Lena River itself. There, while I was working in a stone quarry, a stone fell and broke my right arm. They took me to the women's hospital in Novo-Chunka. By then we were already separated from the common criminals. There was no medical equipment there at all. They took me to the hospital in Chunka. I stayed there for a bit, because they performed another operation on me, for peritonitis. Pus that couldn't escape burst into my abdominal cavity. It's a miracle of miracles that I'm alive at all... It must be God's power. Yes.

Then from the 4th hospital to the 0-3 zone. That was a railroad tie factory and logging. And from there—to mica, to the 0-27—a mica factory, splitting mica. And from there, I ended up back in the 0-3 zone, and from the 0-3, when they started liquidating these colonies in 1954, they sent me back to that hospital in Chunka, from there again to Toporok, where the central hospital was, and from there they released me. That was in 1955. And they said that I was “not subject to medical release”...

Exile. Anzhero-Sudzhensk

Then they sent me by transport—to Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, and from Kemerovo to Anzhero-Sudzhensk. They gave me 40 kopecks and told me to take a bus to Sudzhenka, because my family was already there, in a barrack on Rabinovicha Street. And so my life in exile began.

There were very many Ukrainians there. Even my gymnasium professor, Kostruba, was there. There was a well-known doctor, one of the best in Lviv, Nadraha (you can ask Zorian Popadiuk about it, because the Nadrahas also worked in Sambir). Our exile family was a good one. We gathered for all the holidays. I became very, very close to them during this time.

At first, I couldn't find a job. And then I started feeling very unwell. I went for a check-up, thinking: My God, I haven't had a full check-up in so many years—I'll go, let them do an X-ray and everything else. But they didn't do the X-ray. I went to the registry of the tuberculosis department (thinking maybe I have tuberculosis, because of the fever, my head was spinning). And they started shouting at me: how is it that I'm not working? I say: "Well, give me a job, and then I'll work." The head doctor: "What is this? What do you mean, ‘give me a job’?" I say: "It's very simple. Please don't shout at me; I've been jobless for a year, I can't find anything, and it's always this, that, 'come back tomorrow,' 'the day after tomorrow'... I served 10 years, and now they've sent me here to exile." She felt awkward, so she said: "Well, come back the day after tomorrow." I say: "I won't come back, because I've had my fill of those 'day after tomorrows.'" But she sent one of our women who worked there for me (she is no longer alive, she later returned to Khodoriv, that Ms. Iryna Marka). She says: "The head doctor is calling for you." Only then did they give me a job. In that tuberculosis dispensary, I first worked as a registrar, then as a medical statistician, and then they saw what I was capable of, so I performed the duties of a doctor-statistician. I brought their record-keeping to such a level that they even came from the regional center, from Kemerovo, to establish a "school of advanced experience."

But I felt quite unwell. One day a traumatologist came to us for a consultation. And when I went to him on business (I needed something for a report), he said: "Why are you walking a bit funny?" And I say: "I don't know." "Do you feel well?" "No, I don't feel well. Even," I say, "when I read a book, my head drops." "Well, then go for an X-ray, get a radiograph of your spine." I say: "My spine doesn't hurt." "Go, go." It turned out I had hemangiomas on the 9th and 10th thoracic vertebrae. He said: "Nobody can help you anywhere, it's very complicated. There is only one place—in Leningrad, at the research institute. With your status here, you can't travel anywhere.” Because we were under the commandant's office, we had to report four times a month. “Don't even think about it... But I," he says, "will write, maybe they can advise on how to help you at least a little." When he sent that letter and the radiograph, a telegram came for me: "If you agree to an operation, we will hold a place for you for a month." I went to the commandant's office. They said nothing, de-registered me from there, and I went.

I arrived in Leningrad. The commandant went to register me—and returned in a terrible fright. The academician who was admitting me, Petro Georgievich Kornev, says: "What is it?" "They wrote: 'get out of Leningrad in 24 hours'." I say: "Well, I don't want to..." "What's the matter?" "You know, I was imprisoned for ten years, now I'm in exile. It's probably best if I go back so as not to cause you any trouble here." "No," he says. And he went with me to the general of the militsiya. The militsiya general said: "I cannot rescind this order, but I will register her temporarily every three months. Does that satisfy you?" Well, not me, but this surgeon. He said that it did. They performed the operation—it was terribly, terribly difficult.

I was bedridden in Leningrad for a year and a half and then returned to that Anzherka. They gave me a first-degree disability for 5 years and told me to come to them for check-ups, but I—the doctor didn't want to, I begged him myself: "Don't give me first-degree disability: you'll deprive me of the opportunity to work, and I have no work experience. Give me the second." He says: "Do you know what you're asking for?" I say: "I know. I know. It's my responsibility, you won't be held responsible." Well, and he wrote it down. I also asked him to let me work at least part-time. "Well," he says, "as you can manage it there." I arrived in Anzherka and continued working there.

In Ivano-Frankivsk

In 1968, an order came from Kemerovo that I could leave, just not to Lviv or the Lviv Oblast. Oh, I was so happy, I packed my suitcase right away, and—off to Ivano-Frankivsk. Well, and there a new life began. I found out who the people there were, met interesting people. I also had difficulty getting a job at the regional tuberculosis dispensary.

Valentyn Moroz returned from prison. Our group had already been collecting signatures in defense of Moroz and Karavanskyi, who were imprisoned. But the procedure was that you had to write your name and address. And that’s how it started; they began to watch me. But they were watching me anyway, I knew that. Well, and when Moroz returned, when that business with the Kosmach iconostasis happened (3) (Note 3. Director Sergei Parajanov, preparing the film "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," saw a masterpiece—the iconostasis in the Dovbush church. With the permission of the first secretary of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional committee, Dobryk, he took it. Valentyn Moroz wrote about this in his article "The Resistance Movement." – I.S.), we returned from Kosmach to Ivano-Frankivsk, and about a week later—a bang on the door: a search party bursts in.

V. V. Ovsiienko: Allow me to clarify: Valentyn Moroz returned around September 1969—he had a 4-year sentence. Until 1965, he taught history at the history department of the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute, correct?

I. M. Senyk: Yes, yes, he returned in 1969. I had already met his wife, Raia, earlier, and as soon as he returned, I went to congratulate him.

V. V. Ovsiienko: And what was your circle of people?

I. M. Senyk: First of all, it was Ms. Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk, the wife of Mykola Lemyk (4) (Note 4. OUN militant Mykola Lemyk (1914–1941), participated in the assassination of Mailov, head of the Bolshevik consulate in Lviv in 1933. It was a protest against the famine organized by the Bolsheviks in Ukraine. In 1941, he was an organizer of OUN expeditionary groups to Ukraine. Hanged by the Germans.), Oksana Popovych, there was a man—he is no longer alive—Roman Chekaliuk, Liuba Volianiuk... Well, I won't name more, there was a large circle... Father Petro Kupchynsky—please write this down: he always helped everyone... During the search, they confiscated some of my things.

Second Arrest

They didn't arrest me right away when the arrests began on January 12, 1972. They started taking me to Lviv for interrogations. My investigator was Boiechko.

V. V. Ovsiienko: Oh, he's a well-known investigator...

I. M. Senyk: Yes, Boiechko. He handled Viacheslav Chornovil's case. They linked us together because Viacheslav had come to Frankivsk with Atena Pashko. And we traveled, for example, to Kolomyia to find out about a Ms. Maksymiak—I don't remember her name... who was in a psychiatric hospital... Then we went to the village of Rusiv, to Kyrylo, the son of Vasyl Stefanyk. In short, we had already established close contacts with Chornovil. When he found out I write poems, he said: "Give them to me." They confiscated those poems from him. One collection was "Longing for the Lost," and the other was "Imprisoned Youth." They confiscated them. And it's very interesting: when they brought me to that Boiechko, he immediately said: "Do you remember anything here?" I told him: "You know, one never forgets such things, so don't ask me that." A whole pile of samvydav was on the floor: “Well now, find something of yours in there.” It was done on purpose. I sat down on the floor, went through it, pulled out my things, and handed them to him. "I didn't expect that." And I said: "And what do you think? It's mine—should I deny it? What are you talking about?" Then he hinted at something else: "Well, look over there." I said: "There's nothing to look at. I have very painful memories here: I was tried here." "Don't lie." I said: "You know what? I can simply say nothing at all." He pressed a button, they brought my case file, and then he apologized. He was quite, you know, reasonable: "Forgive me, you were tried here in a cell." "Shall I tell you why?" "Oh no, no need." "So you've already guessed why I was tried in a prison cell?"

And so it began: such-and-such, such-and-such, they confiscated Ivan Dziuba's work "Internationalism or Russification?", they took the book by Emanuel Rais "The New Literary Wave in Ukraine," and so on, and so forth. I say: "So what? So they confiscated it—why shouldn't I be interested in this?" They interrogated me... And at that time, Yaroslav Dobosh arrived. The one from Belgium. I was interested: why, how, and where? While the interrogations are going on in the Lviv prison, they house me in the "Lviv" hotel. Dobosh's room is next door—they thought I would go to him.

V. V. Ovsiienko: What do you mean? Wasn't he... But he was under arrest from January 4, 1972, to June 2?

I. M. Senyk: Not at all! He was right there in that room. But I didn't go to him. And as I'm returning from those interrogations—Lviv, my city, I know it perfectly—someone is following me. Well, just wait, I'll give you something! I stopped in front of the Aeroflot ticket office. And he had nothing to do, so he went into a gateway and ran. I stood under the gateway and waited. He comes out. I say: "Don't follow me. Tell Boiechko not to send fools like you, because you don't know Lviv. If I lead you somewhere, you won't get out." And that was it: Boiechko didn't send anyone after me again. But they wanted to know where I would go in Lviv, to whom. And I didn't want to endanger anyone, so that they would be interrogated—not necessarily imprisoned. That's how it was. Then they told me I could go...

Oh, not yet—I was still at an interrogation, and it was precisely May 18, 1972. "Why are you dressed in such a nationalist way?" I say: "I always dress like this, I am Ukrainian." In an embroidered linen dress, in postoly [leather moccasins], wool socks—it was all Hutsul style. "Well you know, today is the day of Iryna the Great Martyr." "What?" he says. I: "You know, so that you don't have to look for me—I'm going to Kaniv to say goodbye to Taras." "Go ahead." "Just don't send anyone after me."

I arrived in Kyiv then and stayed with Oksana Yakivna Meshko, because she and I were old friends, ever since Tayshet.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So you were in Tayshet with her? Why didn’t you tell me about that?

I.M. Senyk: Well, you see, it’s just come to mind—I’ll say a few words about it later. Anyway, I told Boyechko, “I’m going to Kaniv.” I got on a riverboat there in Kyiv, in Podil, took a clump of earth from Taras’s grave, and felt at peace. “Now,” I thought, “they can take me.”

Well, what can I say about Oksana Yakivna? We met in a stone quarry. During the break hour, for our so-called lunch—that gruel with gnats—we would sit and talk about various topics. She told me about a woman who is quite famous today, a Ms. Nina Virchenko. Surely you know her?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Of course. A doctor of mathematics, an academician.

I.M. Senyk: She thought Nina would become her daughter-in-law. By the time my arm was broken, I already knew about Nina. When they brought me to the fourth hospital, the girls came out to meet me. And Nina came too—she was in that hospital. That’s where we met. Here is a poem dedicated to her:

За Ангарою, за далекою,

Коли кінчали зміну,

Зморена літньою спекою,

Почула я про Ніну.

Я не вкривалася палаткою

Від слів рясної зливи,

Та ти осталося загадкою,

Як всі східні мотиви.

Може, тепер, в маєвий вечір,

Щоб не давила втома,

Скажеш про себе кілька речень,

Моя давно знайома?

I had known of her for a long time. That’s how we met, and to this day we have corresponded continuously. She is a very wonderful, extraordinary woman. I should add that when I worked in Frankivsk, I was often entrusted with bringing our patients to a clinic in Kyiv, even by plane, and I would stay with Oksana Yakivna. And I would visit Nina... And Antin Khyzhniak, that writer, is he still alive, or not?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Somehow I just don’t know...

I.M. Senyk: The first time I was in Kyiv—and my correspondence with Sviatoslav Karavansky was never interrupted... He had already compiled his *Dictionary of Rhymes*... He asked me to find his friend, Antin Khyzhniak, and ask if he would help publish this dictionary, even if not under Karavansky’s name. When I went to that botanical... where Yevhen Sverstiuk worked—what was that?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Ah, that was the *Botanical Journal*.

I.M. Senyk: Somewhere there, at that publishing house, they told me where this Khyzhniak was. He lived on Khreshchatyk. I went there, and he threw me out. He said, “I don’t know any Karavansky and don’t want to know any.” That’s how Mr. Khyzhniak answered me. So you see? I used to be in Kyiv very often.

An Interview with Iryna Mykhailivna Senyk

Text edited in May 2002 with corrections by Ms. I. Senyk from May 8, 2002.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: On January 29, 2000, in Boryslav, at 52 Ternavka Street, apartment no. 5, at the home of Ms. Iryna Senyk, Vasyl Ovsiyenko is recording a conversation with her.

I.M. Senyk: I, Iryna Senyk, was born on June 8, 1926, in the city of Lviv, into the family of a Sich Rifleman. My father was Mykhailo Senyk, and my mother was Mariya Senyk, maiden name Mariya Iberle. I was the third child. My older sister, Leonida, died in exile after serving a 10-year sentence for belonging to the OUN. My youngest brother, Roman, is still alive. When my sister and I were arrested in 1945, the family was also taken. To this day, I do not know what happened to my father. My mother, after serving her sentence in a camp in Arkhangelsk Oblast, in Yertsevo, was exiled to Kemerovo Oblast. She died there in 1981. I was already in exile in Ush-Tobe then, and they didn’t even want to let me go... I said, “You can try me again, but I am going to my mother’s funeral.” She had been there since 1955, after serving her sentence in the Yertsevo camps. At that time, all the people from Lviv were brought to one place, Anzhero-Sudzhensk in Kemerovo Oblast. Such was Stalin’s order, that if someone from a family was convicted, all of them were to be dumped in one place. That’s how we all ended up in the same place. I was brought to Anzhero-Sudzhensk the latest, in 1955.

In 1968, after I had served 10 years of imprisonment and 13 years of exile, they allowed me to go wherever I wanted, just not to Lviv. Lviv was a forbidden city for me. Since I had good friends in Ivano-Frankivsk, I chose Ivano-Frankivsk. I got a job there in the surgical department of the regional anti-tuberculosis dispensary. Knowing that so many of my sisters and brothers in arms were still in prison, I immediately decided that I had to stand up for them—that is, take part in human rights work.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: But, Ms. Iryna, you’ve skipped a huge chunk of your biography... Please tell us everything in more detail.

...............................

But let’s return to my case... After coming back from Kaniv to Frankivsk (it was May 1972), I saw that I was being watched. They weren’t summoning me to Lviv anymore, but they were preparing a case. When did they come for me the second time?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: November 17, 1972.

I.M. Senyk: Yes. Well, another search. They came with a search warrant, and that was it... I already knew I was going. They started placing seals on the wardrobes, and I said, “Wait.” I took my rucksack, grabbed some clothes. “What’s that?” “That shouldn’t concern you,” I said. “I take what I want.” From that moment on, I stopped wearing a hat... I took off my hat, took a Hutsul *hunka*, a traditional wool coat, dressed warmly, and left. That was it, the doors of the Ivano-Frankivsk prison closed behind me again. Interrogations. Andrusiv, a very dim-witted investigator. He understood absolutely nothing about literature, so the prosecutor, Horodko, would come to the interrogations. He is still in Ivano-Frankivsk to this day. So he would come because he understood more about it.

The investigation didn’t last long, because my health wasn’t good. They sentenced me as early as January 26th. The accusation was that I wrote anti-Soviet poems, and the prosecutor yelled at the trial, “You could have at least written one in Russian!” I said, “But I did.” “Well, where is it?” “It’s in my head, and you didn't conduct a search there.” “Well then, recite it.” “But,” I said, “you’ll be displeased afterward if I recite it.” It’s the poem “What's the Matter, Comrade?”—you probably know that one?

Что, товарищ, мечетесь от счастья?

Взгляните-ка быстрее

На подвиги советской власти,

Что всем свободу сеет.

Вам бы в Сибирь, чтобы кругом

Увидеть отчий дом

Миллионов заключенных,

На голод обреченных,

Где гнут годами спину

Под хохот властелина.

Тошно, товарищ? Это точно.

Вы убедитесь не заочно

О том, что здесь скрывают,

Ибо вся Сибирь большая

С каждым месяцем и годом

Пополняется народом,

Власть советов украшая.

А слов потоки талые

Прорвались в наши страны,

В восторге вы не видели,

Что тряпки ярко-алые

Бросали нам на раны.

Вам было весело, когда

По нашим селам, городам

Промчалася свобода.

Аплодисментов град

Счастливого народа

Вам заглушил

Цветущего Эдема стон,

Где убивает брата брат.

И вам приятно, товарищ,

Чтобы томились все

В трущобе волчьей,

Чтоб мать от сына отрывали

И заживо бросали в гроб

Победоносные солдаты

И ждали от вождя зарплаты

За сей постыдный труд?

Нет, товарищ, нет.

Не восхваляй ты эту жизнь,

Не зная всей мистерии:

Ей только вы поверили.

Бренчи себе на струнах лиры

Неверную мелодию.

Не хочет слушать тот, в Сибири,

О счастии пародию.

Покраснело. Взошла заря Кремля,

Позолотить иллюзии

В демократии странах.

Народ, вставай, борись,

Не верь тирану с Грузии!

“Add a year!” Because initially it was 10: 6 of imprisonment and 4 of exile. “Add it!” So I got 11—one more year of exile.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So he provoked you into reciting that poem and then added a year of exile for it? That’s just vile.

I.M. Senyk: Well, there you see? They wrote that my desk book was Emanuel Rais’s *The New Literary Wave in Ukraine*. I said, “What are you jabbering about? My desk book has always been Taras Shevchenko’s *Kobzar*.” Just like that. When the prosecutor would come, I’d say, “Go to my apartment and you’ll see—if you haven’t rearranged anything there—that on the little table next to my bed is a *Kobzar*. And you will bring it to me. Since you’ve already done so much evil, at least do this one good thing and bring me Shevchenko.” And what do you think—they brought it! Here it is, this *Kobzar*, published in 1972. For me, it is a sacred object. I later embroidered this bookmark for it. A little card fell out somewhere—see what I wrote for myself: “Kobzar, sanctified by the Ivano-Frankivsk prison and the camp in Mordovia. January 1972.” I had it with me all the time.

My prosecutor in Ivano-Frankivsk was Horodko. He still lives there to this day. The street was called Matrosov, 9/20. See? No one punished him. He enjoys all the comforts of life.

There was a special correspondent named Ulchenko. Even before my trial, an article by this Ulchenko, “The Renegade in Black Glasses,” was published in *Prykarpatska Pravda*. When I was signing the article of the Code of Criminal Procedure about the end of the investigation, I demanded that representatives of the regional branch of the Writers’ Union be present at my trial. “What do you need them for?” I said, “I’ll tell you at the trial.”

And they actually came. But they all just sat there, like this... Even now in Kyiv there’s a big shot like Karpenko (5) (Note 5. Vitaliy Karpenko, Ph.D. in Philosophy, former editor of the newspaper *Vechirniy Kyiv*, People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the first convocation. – V.O.), whom I looked after like a child because he had surgery at our hospital. If only they had said a word! In my defense, or anything. I said to them then, “Do you know why I invited you? Because my poems were sent for analysis to the Ivano-Frankivsk Institute of Oil and Gas. My poems must have reeked of oil and gas.” You know, I have a sharp tongue, I’m not afraid of anything. I crossed the threshold of fear back in 1945—that’s it, nothing will ever scare me again. And so, they sat there with their heads down. And no one said a thing. It was strange to me.

One person, a nurse, found the courage to open the cell’s peephole (6) (Note 6. The peephole in the cell door. – I.S.) and said, “My God, the things they wrote about you in the newspaper...” The guard, the *vertukhai*, started yelling, “What are you talking about in there?” She said, “I’m giving the woman her medicine.” She was the first one to tell me about that article. And later, in Mordovia, Vasyl Stus passed that article to me. It was thrown from the men’s bathhouse into our women’s zone by Vasyl... God, let me remember—he was also from the Ivano-Frankivsk region...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Dolishniy?

I.M. Senyk: Yes, the late Vasyl Dolishniy. He was imprisoned there, yes. When I saw that article... What they said about me was one thing. But about the late Mrs. Olha Duchyminska—that she was the lover of Father Denys Lukashevych! A lover! And his nephew “swung an ax at the sacred head of Yaroslav Halan.” I then wrote to the prosecutor, “Father Denys Lukashevych is in Mordovia, serving his 25-year sentence, and Duchyminska is free—why are you writing such things about a woman?” She was wandering around somewhere in Frankivsk, but no one would take her in anywhere. She wanted to protest it—but it didn’t work out for her, for Mrs. Olha. Mrs. Olha and I were also imprisoned together in Tayshet. (7) (Note 7. Father Denys Lukashevych’s son, the student Ilariy, and another student, Stakhur, were executed on charges of murdering Yaroslav Halan. His younger son, 17-year-old Myron, was also executed. The father served his full 25 years, with a break, and was released from camp no. 19 around 1975. – V.O.).

I was supposed to get a prison sentence, but, probably due to my health (they even wrote to Leningrad), they gave me the strict-regime camp. Because at that time there was no special place for female recidivists. So they commuted it to a strict-regime camp in Mordovia and 5 years of exile.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You say they commuted it—so the court itself recorded it that way?

I.M. Senyk: Yes, yes. Because I was supposed to serve a prison term somewhere, I was supposed to get what everyone else got—7 years in prison, three years of especially strict-regime camp, and 5 years of exile. But the “humane” Soviet court, you see, treated me so nicely.

Well, that’s it. The road to Lviv, from Lviv—to Kharkiv, to Kholodna Hora, then Ruzayevka, Yavas... Not Yavas—Potma. And Barashevo. So, there I was. I arrived in Mordovia in April 1973—just before Easter. At that time, there were some famous women there: Iryna Kalynets, Stefaniya Shabatura, Nina Karavanska, Dariya Husyak, Mariyka Palchak. These last two were participants in our liberation struggles. The day before I was due to arrive in Barashevo, Kateryna Zarytska was released. Mariyka Palchak had only served 15 years, but Dariya Husyak and Kateryna Zarytska served 19 years each in the Volodymyr Prison and another 6 years in the strict-regime camps in Barashevo.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: A land of wonders!

I.M. Senyk: Good Lord! And you know, Dariya Husyak is still so proactive today. She heads the All-Ukrainian League of Ukrainian Women, does a great, great deal. She lives in Lviv now. These are such steadfast women...

Well, should I tell you about the camp?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Absolutely.

I.M. Senyk: Ah, I haven’t yet told you what it was like during the investigation. They take everything away from me in prison... So when the investigator told me, “We already know everything, we just don’t know where you got that work by Ivan Dziuba? Just tell us.” “Even if I tell you, you won’t believe me anyway, because you don’t believe anything. Even when you’re told the truth, you don’t believe it.” “Then write it down.” “With what? There’s no pencil, no paper—what are you doing? Why are you mocking me?” “So, will you write it?” I say, “If you give me the means—I’ll write it.” “Will you write it?” “A Galician’s honor, I’ll write it.” At least, I think, I’ll have paper, I’ll have a pencil... “Will you write it by tomorrow?” “I will.” “Call the prison and tell them that when they search my cell in the morning and evening, they shouldn’t take it away from me.”

I wrote it. But he wasn’t very pleased with what I wrote. It hasn’t been published anywhere yet, it’s a very interesting confession:

На розі Арбату ресторан "Прага".

Але у мене до іншого спрага:

Біжу в книгарню букіністичну -

Може, дістану щось фантастичне.

Арбат вирує в години пізні,

Крутяться типи і типчики різні.

Як тут спитати, сама не знаю,

Чи Мережковського хтось із них має?

Є Мережковського, «Цезар»,  «Христос»,

Але від цін пробирає мороз.

Аж раптом дядько: "Панночко люба,

Дайте десятку і беріть Дзюбу,

А на додаток, прелюба панно,

Даю безплатно "Реквієм Анни".

...Арбат вирує в години пізні,

Крутяться типи і типчики різні,

А я спішуся чимдуж до хати,

Щоби до ранку Дзюбу читати.

He was left holding the bag: “What is this you’ve written?” And I say, “Well, did you and I agree yesterday on what I was supposed to write? No, the topic was free, and so I wrote on a free topic.” And I say, “And now I demand that the cell be warm, in accordance with the Code, not 8 degrees Celsius as it is, where you freeze, but what it should be; and that I be given a book, because they only give you one book a month to read.” “You’re not telling the truth—they give you books.” I say, “Wait, wait, are you telling me I’m lying?” He pressed a button—the librarian came. “Do you give books to that cell?” And that Moskal says, “But you forbade it!” I say, “You see? Why did you need that? And now I have this paper and pencil, and, thank God, I am writing a declaration of a hunger strike. Until you give me back my scraps of cloth and threads, don’t call me.”

And you know how long I was on a hunger strike? Eight days—on the ninth day they came. They came, took me to the medical unit, the warden himself: “Is that enough for you? One needle, one thimble, and these rags of yours?” I say, “Yes, that will be enough for me.” And the very first thing I embroidered was this doily, which I won’t give to anyone... This is a work done in one night with only black threads... It got a little easier after that. There was a lot of free time there...

I told the investigator, “Oh, I still have some paper. So you don’t say I’m not returning it, I’ll write you a little message each time. That it’s cold in the cell and they don’t give me those books—that’s a ‘lie.’ But there’s this little radio broadcaster that sends you commercials at about four in the morning, so you don’t sleep.” So I wrote—they even laughed at that and said that what keeps a granny warm is not a sheepskin coat, but a cheerful granny’s spirit.

Щодня по радіо хвалять нові товари,

А серед них жіночі пенюари.

Далебі, до тих чорних нар

Мені би підійшов рожевий пенюар.

Я б в ньому порхала, як пташка,

І не кричав би вартовий:

"Нанашко, гей, нанашко!"

Напевно б, гріли батареї,

Бо в пенюарах замерзають феї,

А пан книгар, побачивши мене,

Розтаяв би, як крига, і сказав:

"Ось вам, люба, книга".

А так, лежу собі у сірім байбараці

І мають всі мене... у плечах.

I still got in trouble for that word: “Aren’t you ashamed? Such an intelligent woman, and such a word!” I said, “You have a very poor knowledge of the Ukrainian language. Take Hrinchenko’s 4-volume dictionary, and you will see that it is a literary word.”

Mordovia

That’s how I used to talk with them... And that’s why I already had the chance to bring those scraps of cloth, those threads with me to Mordovia. Well, and there we had the problem of wearing patches with our surnames. I said, “Girls, we’re not wearing the patches.” “How so?” “Don’t worry. No one will be punished for that.” One, two, two embroidered collars for each of us... Those collars exist, I gave them to a museum in Kyiv—I was at a meeting of the Helsinki Group in 1996—to Ms. Klavdiya Chumak. You can see them there. At the Shevchenko Museum. I even promised that Klavdiya Chumak I would make something else, but since my husband Vasyl died, I haven’t had much time or inclination. I will make something for this T. Shevchenko Museum. My embroidery work from exile, which I sent, is there. That Klavdiya, when she saw me at the Helsinki Group meeting, said, “So that’s why you couldn’t write back—because you were in prison again.” I say, “That’s right!”

So I embroidered them, and we attached those collars to our prison robes—and everyone already knew that we were the Ukrainian women.

You know, we had a good life. There was a philosophy circle led by Mrs. Nina Strokata-Karavanska. We had a literary circle. In a word, our time there was not wasted. I made an agreement with Stefaniya Shabatura—she would draw, and I would embroider. Then I passed it out to the free world—and that’s how the book *The Invincible Spirit* came out. Have you seen it? You should ask Mr. Osyp Zinkevych, maybe he will give you a copy. It won’t hurt him to give you one. He must have it. It contains poetry and art by women political prisoners. There is a very good review of it by Mr. Yaniv from Germany, brought to me by the granddaughter of my former professor, Khrystia Nazarkevych. It’s called “A New Book of Genesis.” It needs to be photocopied. Mr. Yaniv is no longer with us, I sent him my thanks—he was a professor at the Free Ukrainian University in Munich.

I said I would not work, because I had a second-degree disability status. They argued at first, said they would put me in the punishment cell. Well, we sat in the punishment cell more than once. You know how it is... Somehow the days passed, then some started to leave for exile, two were released. A very fine woman was imprisoned with us, a Lithuanian named Nijolė Sadūnaitė. I don’t know where she is today. I know she became a nun. She was released to exile earlier, so she later wrote to me in Ush-Tobe and helped me. In fact, she helped all of us.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: She wrote letters and cards to everyone... She truly is a great woman of spirit.

I.M. Senyk: Yes. And she would send a parcel from time to time—that Nijolė was an extraordinary person.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You said, “You know how it is.” I know, but this tape recorder doesn’t...

I.M. Senyk: Ah, the tape recorder doesn’t know? Well, protest actions, hunger strikes—she always joined us in them. And when we went on a hunger strike for Vasyl Stus, she joined in too. Do you know how they punished us? It was terrible. Paruyr Hayrikyan passed us a message (we had a very good connection with the men who were imprisoned across the fence) that they had handcuffed Vasyl and were taking him to the punishment cell in Yavas, even though he was innocent: “Girls, if you can, start a hunger strike, write a protest.” So we did. Usually, we held hunger strikes in the barracks. But this time they came: “Aha, you want to go on a hunger strike? Get ready.” We got ready. They took us to the neighboring service zone, cleared all the mentally ill people out of that barrack, and locked us in there, boarding up the windows. And Nijolė went with us. They said, “Go on, starve.” Every day they brought a bucket of milk—so we could see it. But that was nothing. Nijolė helped us wash there. A sort of wash according to Professor Bekitser’s method—two fingers in the water, and that’s it. Well, and when Vasyl was brought to the hospital, we didn’t believe it. Stefaniya Shabatura said, “One of us has to go and see if he is there. If he isn’t, we continue the hunger strike.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: That tragedy, the internal hemorrhage, happened to him on August 2, 1975.

I.M. Senyk: Yes, yes, the hemorrhage. I don’t know if it’s true—this is what Paruyr supposedly said, that Vasyl was standing in line somewhere for a cup of milk—that extra ration. And they had brought in a common criminal, and that criminal stabbed him... Something like that. But I can’t say for sure if that’s how it was or not.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: He was attacked with a knife.

I.M. Senyk: There was such an incident. So instead of punishing the criminal, they put Vasyl in the punishment cell.

So we girls wrote all sorts of protests to prosecutors and observed Political Prisoner’s Day on December 10th.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And, probably, January 12th—Ukrainian Political Prisoner’s Day, and October 30th—Soviet Political Prisoner’s Day, and September 5th—the Day of the Red Terror...

I.M. Senyk: Yes. We always observed all those days with a hunger strike.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And there was an action—a total search of all the Mordovian camps. They confiscated Vasyl’s poems. From you women, they also confiscated poems, embroideries, drawings... Then a wave of protests swept through all the camps. How did it happen with you?

I.M. Senyk: You know, I don’t remember well now—a search came, they took everything. I think Nadiyka Svitlychna had already been released, if I’m not mistaken. Why? Because they took absolutely all my correspondence, but they didn’t know one thing—that we had our own special encrypted code. That was when—let me tell you...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: We can calculate it. Nadiya was arrested on May 18, 1972—consequently, she was released in May 1976.

I.M. Senyk: Yes, yes, it was 1976. Later, she wrote to us that they had arrested Oleksa Tykhyy...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Oleksa Tykhyy was arrested in 1977, on February 5th.

I.M. Senyk: The censor didn’t understand that we had our own agreement. There was one poem, we knew the code from that poem, and Nadiyka would inform us of all the news.

Stefaniya Shabatura and Nina Strokata-Karavanska spent the most time in the punishment cells. Nina fell ill, they wanted to take her somewhere in Rostov for treatment because she had breast cancer. Then she was released and went to Tarusa. There—what’s the name of the human rights activist who gave the Karavanskys his apartment?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: In Tarusa? Probably Alexander Ginzburg?

I.M. Senyk: Maybe Ginzburg—I’m not sure. So she also wrote to all of us, so that friendship was not broken...

But we weren’t always sad there in Mordovia. Every Saturday, they would “re-educate” us with jingoistic patriotic films. But one time they showed a foreign film, *That Sweet Word ‘Freedom’*. The prisoners in it are in a two-room cell, they have a telephone, a television, they can walk from cell to cell to visit their neighbors—and they want to re-educate us with this! But we went to those films anyway. To get in (they would lock us in afterward), you had to have a “ticket.” And what was that? We would buy, if someone had earned money, a kilogram of pillow-shaped candies. We would each get one candy, but admission to the cinema was two candies. We would come, lie down on the bunks. The film wasn't that important to us, we just wanted to lie down. Because you weren't allowed to lie on the bunks during the day. And then we’d shout (there was a certain Uncle Vasya): “Uncle Vasya, such a beautiful film, play it one more time!” Just so we could lie down longer.

And then Ms. Iryna Kalynets wanted coffee. And Nadiyka Svitlychna: “Oh, we would love some coffee!” “Eh,” I think, “you dears want too much. But I’ll make you something.” I went to the workshop, took a piece of the material they used for sewing gloves, embroidered a border around it, a cup with steam rising from it, and a Cossack here: “If there’s no okovyta (vodka), ask your guests to have coffee!” And on it—20 ways to make coffee. We go to the cinema, I give it to Kalynets: “Here you go,” I say, “choose the coffee you want and pass it on.” Well, they were indignant afterward... Nadiyka asked for it as a gift—so I gave it to her. Later, when I was in New York, she told me that she had shown it somewhere, and someone had appropriated it.

We invented all sorts of things. When the Lithuanian Nijolė Sadūnaitė arrived. Well, there was nothing. That gruel—it was inedible, rotten cabbage. We would drain the water, and a religious woman helped me pick out the bristles. And we made cracklings. That Nijolė always said with her charming accent, “Oh, what lovely *shkvar-ay-chky*! I didn’t ex-PAY-ct it.”

And in the summer, there was a canapé—a slice of bread, toasted on a piece of iron—we had a small iron. And two nasturtiums (the flowers). The girls would yell that I was giving them too little, and I’d say, “You want such a canapé every day, what will happen then?”—meaning we’d run out of flowers. It was an extraordinary meal—the canapés. Oh, the things we didn’t invent just to... For example, we had (they later dug them up) two rhubarb stalks. Oatmeal porridge—a mushy gruel. I came up with an idea: one rhubarb leaf for each person, a ladle of that oatmeal, wrap it up—and you have a cabbage roll. As they said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So you were the “gruel-distributor” there, is that right?

I.M. Senyk: Yes. They brought the gruel from the neighboring zone, and I handed it out.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Zones that didn't have their own kitchen suffered especially, because they were brought only the dregs.

I.M. Senyk: Yes. But we invented things for ourselves. For example, for Christmas, I thought, what can I come up with for them? I thought of something to make it a bit more cheerful for them: I embroidered a little candle for each of them—such tiny little candles. A different one for each. Someone would find a little stick outside—and they had a Christmas tree with a little candle. For St. Nicholas Day—a small switch, or something else... And one time Dariya Husyak received some cress, as if to plant so it could be eaten instead of salad. In the spring, you could eat nettles, dandelions... So we ate all sorts of things. So I asked Dariya for some before Easter. “What are you going to do?” “I won’t say beforehand what I’m going to do.” I took a pitcher, wrapped it in cotton wool, moistened it, sowed those seeds, and on Easter—there was a whole green garden! I made a garden bed out of it. “Eeee, you made that?! But for eating?” I say, “Well, now you can pinch from it and eat. And here, we’ll have beauty.” I came up with something like that for them every time. It was necessary. How else could it be?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Did you see Raisa Rudenko there?

I.M. Senyk: No. You know, those “True Orthodox Christians” refused the camp store, refused everything, and refused the prison clothes. So I embroidered crosses on cloth for them. Because their own crosses had been taken away. What did they call that government? I’m afraid I’ll be inaccurate... A very shameful government...

Second Exile. Ush-Tobe

In November 1978, I was sent into transit. Oh, that was a terrible transit journey! They transported me for a very long time. With stopovers... The first stopover after Moscow was in Kuybyshev. Then I was at a transit prison in Petropavlovsk, in Tselinograd, in Alma-Ata, and only then was I brought to Taldy-Kurgan, and from Taldy-Kurgan—to Ush-Tobe. They are driving me in that paddy wagon with a handler, I am so exhausted, tormented, and he keeps saying to me, “You won’t be alone there. You won’t be alone there...” And I’m thinking to myself... and I say, “Stop chattering!” I was still sitting in a pretrial detention cell in Ush-Tobe, and then my handler took me to the hotel. They cleared a room: “You will live here.” Alright. If I will, I will, that’s fine. And he even assigned a woman to me, saying, “Everything this woman needs, you will give her. You will bring her a coat so she doesn’t appear on the street in prison clothes—is that clear?” Well, fine, she brought it to me. “You’re not alone here, there are others just like you.” I say, “What are you talking about?” “Well, what do you think, in room 7—there is...” I think, I’ll go through the back (there was a back entrance), I’ll knock. I went to wash up, I knocked.

At first, they were terribly flustered, but I said, “Don’t be afraid. Open up, I’m the same as you.” It turned out to be a woman who had come for a visit with her husband, who was in exile. He was the Georgian human rights activist Viktor Rtskhiladze. Dodo, as he was called at home. He was overjoyed, and we lived quite amicably.

At first, knowing that I could embroider, they sent me to a factory. I worked there for a month—and they gave me 7 rubles. Ugh! I take those 7 rubles, go to that handler of mine: “Take this, you probably don’t have enough. And I’m not going back to that job.”

And Viktor worked as a janitor at the hotel. He was about to be released, so he says, “Iryna, I’ll get you my job. I’ll talk to the director.” And indeed, they hired me as a janitor at that hotel.

They really didn’t want the exiles to live separately, because we had to be watched. A portion of the money you earned (35 rubles out of 70) had to be paid for the room, where you lived and had no amenities—no hot water, nothing... And then such an incident happened... You know how strange things can be in life. Two little girls went to the director: “Mama, Grandma is crying a lot, her tenants left.” I approached her, saying, “Talk to your mother, ask her to take me in.” The director made a face, she was probably scared. But when the little girls heard, they said, “Mama, let’s take this woman, oh, Mama, let’s take her!” “Well,” she says, “go on, I’ll let you go, make the arrangements yourself.” I went—and the woman speaks not in Russian, but in Ukrainian, Ulyana Marchenko! I said, “Well, what do you say, will you take me in, or not?” “If you give me 12 rubles, I’ll take you.” I say, “I will! Of course, don’t you worry. I’m not a thief, not a bandit, I’m a political.” It was a separate little house—an adobe one. But it was fine, a little kitchen and a room. I spent those 5 years there, with Ulyana Fedorivna.

And the world is not without good people. People started to visit me there. The first to arrive was... You see, I forget surnames, that’s the first sign of sclerosis. Why are you smiling?

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I forget things too, are you the only one?

I.M. Senyk: For some reason, the Moscow Helsinki Group took me under their wing. Then she came—here I don’t remember again, that woman is in Holland now. Finally, Lena Sannikova came, who was later sent into exile herself. The last one who came to me—wait, let me remember... Ah, he came from Leningrad, he’s in Germany now—Lyonya Vasilyev... No, not Vasilyev—Vasilyev wrote to me from Moscow, he worked at the university, but I was told he was not a good person—I don’t know. People wrote to me, I wrote back to them, because I was in exile, among strangers.

Without a doubt, it was hard in exile in Kazakhstan. Salt marshes, it’s the southern part. Bitter water that you can’t get used to, terrible heat, 40 degrees Celsius in the shade. But it’s okay, you find good people.

Once postal communication with other countries was established, I started receiving letters. First of all, I began to receive letters from Mrs. Anna-Halja Horbatsch from Germany. And Mr. Oleksa suggested I do something. He wrote, “Taras Shevchenko was there, but he did very little. So collect Kazakhisms in the everyday speech of Ukrainian settlers, those who have been there since 1933, who were deported there.” I started collecting. Whenever I heard a word and didn’t know its meaning, I would immediately write it down. And a Mr. Skrypnyk would visit from somewhere up the Karatal (there’s a river there—the Karatal). But he didn’t want to talk much about himself. He had been exiled there a long time ago. So I asked him, “I heard such a strange word—‘kazy.’ Mr. Skrypnyk, please explain to me what it means.” “What? Why do you need to know about ‘kazy’?” “Well, Mr. Skrypnyk, I need to.” He slammed the door of that hotel and flew off. He didn’t answer at all—I was surprised.

He comes back half an hour later—“Give me 3 rubles.” “For what?” “For the kazy.” I say, “I don’t need any kazy, I don’t know what it is, kazy.” It turns out to be a Kazakh sausage. Made from a colt’s intestine, a young rib is inserted there, and here is the meat, which is called *zhaya*—I became enlightened later. Everything is sweet. He didn’t explain, the Kazakhs explained to me. He threw down 3 rubles and said, “Boil it for 4 hours.” There. Such heat, and I’m supposed to boil something for 4 hours! I took that sausage and gave it to someone. And the rib dissolves and binds the sausage. That is the best Kazakh delicacy.

I worked at the hotel, tidying up a bit. Kazakhs would come to that hotel. Until one very interesting man arrived, he was supposed to organize a bank in that aul. And he heard something about me and said, “Don’t be offended: my mother sent some baursaki for you.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And what is that?

I.M. Senyk: Ah, those are, you know, like our *pampushky*, little tiny balls fried in sheep’s tallow. “Try them. Try them, this is from my mother.”

Someone there brought me a book to read... what is he called, that author, I’ll remember in a moment. *Az i Ya*—Have you read it? Such a famous name... He was supposed to be imprisoned... His name was Olzhas Suleimenov. The Kazakhs brought me many things. They knew who I was, and they would say, “What do you think, that we are like this? They walk on our blood, these hated so-and-sos, they trample it!..”

They told me a very interesting thing. That Afghanistan began in Kazakhstan. They said, “We can’t give you that book, because if they see it...” They had some book. Back under Tsar Peter the Great, there was an order that Russians should go to Kazakhstan and, by any means fair or foul, get close to the Kazakhs. And once they get close—look how old this idea is!—from Kazakhstan it is very close to Afghanistan, and from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf is just one step. “And we—will be the masters of the whole world.” There you have it, please... So, the Kazakhs treated me very well.

In exile in Kazakhstan, I received letters from many people, and that is a very great support. One time I received a letter from a well-known person who lived in Kyiv—from Borys Antonenko-Davydovych. He wrote, “Iryna, I was in those same parts and I know—Taldy-Kurgan was then called the village of Havrylivka, because it was full of Ukrainians.” He served his exile there. Not only he wrote this, but many others. And Oksana Yakivna Meshko wrote to me all the time. I have already given almost all of my correspondence to the Drohobych Museum—it will be preserved there. Because here I am today, gone tomorrow, and someone will come, throw it out, burn it, and that will be the end of it. And there are very interesting letters there. They have processed them so beautifully. There are very solid employees there, two of them, with whom I became acquainted—Mr. Pohranychnyy and Ms. Halya Yamnych. Let it be there.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Ms. Iryna, what was your relationship with the Ukrainian Helsinki Group?

I.M. Senyk: Only that we carried out protest actions.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: But surely they coordinated with you about your membership in the Group?

I.M. Senyk: Nina Karavanska coordinated it...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And in what way?

I.M. Senyk: Very simply. By telephone—I was already in Kazakhstan by then. This was at the very beginning of 1979. I was brought to exile in 1978, and sometime in February of 1979, I immediately agreed. I said, “You can sign all protests in my name—I give my consent to everything.” Just like that. Nina Strokata-Karavanska was a very great devotee to the cause, it must be said.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The Karavanskys left in November 1979, I can’t recall the exact date... You see, I don’t remember everything either.

Leave from Exile

I.M. Senyk: I don’t remember which year it was, possibly 1981, when they allowed me to leave exile for 10 days to go to Ivano-Frankivsk to check on my property, which (I had a certificate from the KGB) no one had the right to touch. I agreed to fly, but due to my hypertensive disease, I fell ill in Moscow and was admitted to the Sklifosovsky clinic. Through Nina Petrivna Lisovska, a human rights activist, the Muscovites found out about this, because another human rights activist was supposed to meet me (not Malva Landa—I also corresponded with her), so she said that I was in the hospital. They came to me at the Sklifosovsky clinic with a docent, Nedostup, and said who I was. They treated me very well there. And they immediately called Kyiv. And they were just on their way to Tarusa—Vasyl Stus and Svitlana Kyrychenko, the wife of Yuriy Badzyo. They came to me at the hospital right away. Well, by then I had told the docent, “Discharge me, I’m well enough now.” Although he didn’t want to, we went to Nina Petrivna Lisovska’s and talked all night there. Svitlana said she wrote about it in some newspaper. It might be that she has it somewhere...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Svitlana Kyrychenko wrote a long essay about Vasyl Stus, *Celestial Bird*. It was published in the newspaper *Molod Ukrainy* and, I think, also in the journal *Dnipro*. I have the journal version, but I haven’t read it all, so I can’t say if that meeting is mentioned there.

I.M. Senyk: It is. Svitlana reminded me about it when I came for my literary evening at the Kobzar Room in the Ukrainian House in Kyiv. She spoke there, already so ill, she came with a cane. She asked if I had those memoirs. I said, “No, I have nothing about it.” She promised to send it, but she didn’t.

Release

I.M. Senyk: I served out those 5 years there, in Ush-Tobe, from bell to bell. When my term was supposed to end, they didn’t want to let me go from Ush-Tobe. I said I would not stay here. It saddens me, but Mr. Kuzma Dasiv asked to be allowed to stay in exile. They showed me his document, so I said, “I’m not interested in any documents—I will leave on the first day my term ends. I know that for that difficult journey, for the month of transit under guard, my exile is reduced by three days for every one day of transit. Therefore, I was supposed to be released on August 17, 1983.” People came from Alma-Ata, made all sorts of promises, but I said there would be no discussion. “Where will you go?” I said, “That’s not your business, I’ll go wherever I want.”

A KGB man came from Alma-Ata, so insidiously... I was sweeping somewhere, or something, when the administration tells me, “Eeee... Iryna Mykhailivna, the KGB man is here, he’s angry and said you should come over there.” I went. He had nothing to find fault with: “What kind of towel is this?” I say, “Come, I’ll show you better ones. And they even gave you the best towel.” And I speak Ukrainian everywhere. I don’t speak Russian, I don’t want to. Because my “crime” was that I wrote medical histories in Ukrainian. Since then, I don’t want to speak Russian. Well, he calmed down: “Ah, what kind of an accent is that? Oh, you’re *that* one?..” I say, “Yep, *that* one.” Well, he left. The next time he came again. He complained that he needed something brought to him, water or something. I went. “Look, you know, we could help you—you’re a medic.” I say, “Listen, leave me alone, I’m finishing my term and leaving, but my handler doesn’t know where I’m going.” He didn’t answer, but about three days later, around six in the morning, a small *pazik* or *gazik* van pulls up—I don’t know what they’re called. Someone knocked and said, “You are being released on August 17 at 24:00. I did not tell you this.” And disappeared.

I go to my handler and say, “Please prepare my documents.” Because all I had was an identification card, an *Udostovereniye lichnosti*. No one would accept me with that. “What’s this? How did you find out?” I say, “You know, I know how to count. I’m not so stupid that I can’t calculate when I’m getting released. Prepare my documents, a passport, and everything.” They issued me a passport.

But during that time, thanks to the late Kateryna Zarytska and the late Zenko Krasivskyy, I met my husband. He was already a widower then. They told him, “Vasyl, go there and get her.” He came—and they threw him out, because they said, “You can only visit an exile for 2 days.” He went back bitterly. Then we corresponded—I have those letters. I wrote to him, “Mr. Vasyl, don’t trouble your head with unnecessary things, find someone for yourself.” He wrote back, “No, I will wait.”

In Boryslav

And so I ended up in Boryslav, at that 101st kilometer, because Lviv was not an option for me.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And who was he, Mr. Vasyl, what was his surname?

I.M. Senyk: Vasyl Daiko, from such an interesting family. He passed away on December 4, 1998. He was very ill—three forms of cancer. He was born in 1915. He was also a political prisoner, had 15 years in the camps, was in Norilsk. A participant in the insurgency. At first, he was the local leader (*stanychnyi*) in his village of Lany—that’s in the Bibrka Raion, and then he was a supra-district leader for five villages. He was a supply officer, procuring food for the insurgents. He was a very interesting man, from an intelligent and bright family. It was clearly a wealthy family. Because his father, on his deathbed, ordered his mother to give all the children an education, except for one who would remain on the farm. One was a doctor, while Vasyl and his brother Ivan, who perished in the UPA, received a technical education in Lviv—there were so-called industrial gymnasiums. He was an electrician. But first and foremost, he was a great worker for Prosvita, secondly, he was a famous goalkeeper for the football team “Tryzub,” and also, the conductor of the Bibrka choir. And then one of his brothers, Osyp, managed to escape to the West, he was in France. He helped Vasyl—this was still under Polish rule—to open a private shop in Bibrka. Vasyl was in the Ukrainian Merchants’ Guild, and, of course, in the OUN. The Bolsheviks came and pinned on him that during the German occupation, while working as a village council secretary, he sent people to their deaths in Germany. For his membership in the OUN, he got those 15 years in Norilsk.

And how did he meet Zenko Krasivskyy? Why, he used to carry his wife, Olenka Antoniv, in his arms, because she was from Bibrka. It was through Zenko and Olenka that he met Kateryna Zarytska. They had a strong connection; in fact, both Kateryna and Zenko used to visit us.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: So, you’ve been in Boryslav since 1983. How did the local KGB treat you?

I.M. Senyk: Terribly! They didn’t want to register my residence here. They told me, “Get out of here, out of Boryslav. You’re from Lviv.” I said, “Oh, no, I know the laws, I am at the 101st kilometer. So that you don’t try me for violating the passport regime, I’m leaving my passport with you. When you decide to register me, you can call, and I’ll come.” “Go to the chief!” Fine, I went. Some Ukrainian man says, “I have nothing against it. You know, there’s a law, I can register you temporarily for a year.” “Fine,” I say, “register me temporarily for a year.” We went downstairs, and the head of the passport office threw the papers out: “You will not be registered. What, for his apartment?”—meaning Vasyl Daiko’s. I said, “You know what, stop talking nonsense!” Apparently, someone else wanted this apartment...

They filed a request at the registry office that we not be married. But there are good people. One woman said, “If it doesn’t matter to you, come in the evening without anyone, without witnesses, and I will register your marriage.” And that woman did just that, exposing herself to all sorts of trouble. Well, and after some time—a call from the militia: “We would like you to come to the militia.” I say, “I have no reason to go to the militia. I have my own handlers—the KGB.” And someone says, “You ask her how much additional she had.” “Additional!” (8) (Note 8. Exile was considered an additional measure of punishment. – I.S.). I say, “You know what? Let the one who’s asking over there pick up the receiver himself and talk to me.” They hung up. The next day—a call: “Iryna Mykhailivna,” in perfect Ukrainian, “I, Filipov, an officer of the Boryslav KGB, would like to get to know you.” I say, “I’ve been here for half a year already—fie, I’m offended that you haven’t gotten to know me yet, what kind of way is that to behave?” “Well, so what, maybe you’ll come now?” “Eh, no,” I say, “I won’t come now.” “Why?” “You know, I’m a Galician, and Galicians know how to respect others’ customs. Today the Jewish Sabbath begins, on a Friday—one doesn’t go anywhere, on Saturday either, and I, being a Christian, won’t come to you on Sunday, and on Monday—I’m superstitious and don’t go to such institutions.” “So when?” I say, “Well...” “How about Tuesday?” “Well, you can call, we’ll see.”

He calls on Tuesday. Since they had tormented me, I decided to torment them a bit too. He calls: “Can you come?” “Uh, I can’t come just yet.” “Why not?” “I’m making varenyky for my husband.” I hear he’s annoyed: “How long will you be making them?” I say, “Well, an hour.” “Will you come in an hour?” “I’ll come.” I arrived—there were these doors that swing back and forth, they let me in. Someone came out—there was a whole bunch of them: “Have a seat,” in the entryway. “Eh,” I say, “now you have a seat, I’ve already served 34 years, I can stand for a bit.” That Filipov came out, invited me into his office: “Please sit.” I say to him like this: “Before we begin our conversation, I want to insist on something, because I will not answer you. You will only speak with me about me and about no one else. You intercept all my correspondence, I know that. There are eight of you here, so make your copies, but give me the letters so that people don’t think I don’t want to answer them. And third—don’t keep me here long. That’s all.”

Oh, and I also said, “And don’t send any of those informants of yours to me, because I’ll throw them out.” One of them came and said, “I’m from the militia, I’ve come here to check up.” He settled himself in the kitchen, and there was a *Dictionary of Foreign Words* lying there, just so it was at hand. “What’s that?” I say, “Listen, you’re not from the militia, because our district officer was here recently. That’s not you. If you’re from the KGB, then just say so, but if you’re from the militia, I’m not going to talk to you.” So he left. I said, “Don’t send people like that to me, because I won’t talk to them. That’s it. And turn on your little tape recorder—you love doing that.”

He started spouting all sorts of nonsense. He begins with Oksana Meshko: “When was the last time Oksana Yakivna visited you?” “If she had been here, you would have been at my place long ago.” You see, they latched onto Oksana Yakivna. “When Nadiyka Svitlychna was released, how did she end up in America?” I say, “And how should I know? I was sitting on a prison bunk at the time, and Nadiyka left for somewhere. I don’t know that. Send someone abroad, and find out from Nadiyka.” He twisted and turned like that, talked and talked—he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere. It was already after lunch, so I say, “You know, I don’t have the strength to talk with you here anymore... Don’t you want to go home? Because I want to leave, let me out of here.” He goes to a cabinet, opens it: “I would like to give you a book.” “You—to me?!” “Ukrainian Painting of the 17th Century.” “You won’t surprise me with a book.” “Well, I know you embroider,” and he hands me one. The author is Kolotylo or something like that. I say, “Please don’t give it to me—you should be ashamed, I don’t take anything from the KGB. Feh! Open the door and let me out.”

He summoned me a couple more times... Oh. We went to Nahuievychi. At that time, Slavko Chornovil happened to arrive, and we all met there. They sent some people from television, so we dispersed, and then they followed us back to Boryslav. Filipov calls: “I would like to talk with you, to share my impressions of the celebration in Nahuievychi.” I say, “You have your own people—share with them, don’t share with me, and leave me alone. That’s it.”

Then he was transferred to be the director of the company Fotokwelle, in the Lviv region—can you imagine? That Filipov. But he spoke excellent Ukrainian. To be fair, he was polite—I can’t deny that.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And when did they finally leave you alone?

I.M. Senyk: It was around the beginning of 1990, 1991. When the Helsinki Union was formed, Slavko Chornovil told Bohdan Brytan and Volodymyr Kopys to come to me—they came to get acquainted, to create a Helsinki Union branch in Boryslav. That’s when things started to normalize a bit.

Creativity and Public Activity

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I would like you to tell us about the publication of your collections of poems and literary works. And in general, when did you start writing, was anything published in the old days, or is it only now that a few things are coming out?

I.M. Senyk: Nothing was published in the old days. I started writing at the age of 9. When I was in gymnasium, we had a very interesting professor of German, Mykola Matiyiv-Melnyk—himself a Sich Rifleman and a poet. (I am now asking Professor Shalata from Drohobych to publish at least a small collection in his memory. I will help—I’ll write memoirs, I know his poems by heart). And so the girls... I tried very hard to hide those poems—but someone saw the notebook that was in my briefcase and gave it to Professor Melnyk. He called me in and said, “Well, why are you hiding this? Do you have anything else?” I said, “Yes.” It was a paraphrase of Olga Kobylyanska’s poem “On Sunday Morning, She Dug for Herbs.” I turned it into verse myself. And then there was “Dovbush.” I am captivated by the Carpathians, I had already been to the Carpathians when I was ten. And after I had walked around Yaremche, around Dovbush’s sacred places—I returned to Lviv and wrote that “Dovbush.”

But in 1939 the war began, my works were lost at the professor’s, and he had wanted to publish them. And then most of what I wrote (well, most of it was in my head) was confiscated during a search, everything disappeared, and it’s not in Lviv. And in the camp, everything was written in my head, mostly. Because you know, you learn your lesson. If there was a scrap of paper, you’d write something down. I’ve already compiled it. When I met Slavko Chornovil, I gave him these poems to review. He made two collections from them: *Imprisoned Youth* and *Longing for the Lost*. Those were confiscated. They have now been returned to me from Ivano-Frankivsk.

And the first book, which was published in 1978 (I was still behind bars), was a collaborative one. Because I wanted it that way—it is the poetry and art of women political prisoners, *The Invincible Spirit*. Someone shouted to me in Barashevo—I don’t know if it was Vasyl Stus or someone else, I don’t remember now, that a wonderful book had been published. They found out somewhere that it was a wonderful book. Well, fine, it was published—so it was published, I never even saw it. Then the second book came out, *A Roll of Cloth*—thanks to Nadiyka Svitlychna and Natalia Danylenko, in 1990. Then here, “Drohobytske Vidrodzhennia” published *Imprisoned Youth* in 1996. Oh, no, *The White Aster of Love* was published in 1992, and then came *Imprisoned Youth*. And last year *We Have One Ukraine* was published. There’s also *Grandma Iryna's Little Book for a Good Child*. And thanks to Nadiyka Svitlychna, 12 plates of my patterns were published in New York. I started drawing those patterns when they finally granted me the right to a needle, thread, and pencil in the Ivano-Frankivsk prison. I brought this to Mordovia. They said they would take it away, but I declared, “They’ll have to cut off my head first—I have permission, you have no right to forbid me.” So then I started drawing these patterns. I drew for everyone—Stefaniya Shabatura has some, and Nadiyka Svitlychna had many, because I both embroidered for them and drew for them. So Nadiyka, in memory of me, published 12 plates of these patterns. I don’t have that book now, I gave it to our museum for an exhibition. I gave them *The Invincible Spirit* and these patterns, because they have the other books.

On prison bunks, I drew about one and a half thousand patterns. But to publish them—that is impossible today. I have already prepared them in a way that they could be published, because what was done in the camp—you can imagine... And how did I draw? I asked everyone who wrote to me to write on graph paper, but to leave the graph paper side blank for me, so that I could draw the patterns. I will show you one masterpiece now. When Iryna Kalynets was in exile in Transbaikalia, she wrote me such a letter that they told me, “If more letters like this arrive, we will forbid you from receiving them.” I said, “No, you won’t forbid me.” I’ll show it to you now...

They sent me graph paper so I could draw. All sorts of scraps of graph paper they sent me—like this, and like this... And this is what Nadiyka Svitlychna wrote to me... Everyone who knew I wanted to draw sent it to me—that’s how a whole folder of those patterns accumulated.

Now here at home in Boryslav I have made it more presentable, maybe someone will be found to publish it. It’s very expensive, because it’s in color. But all the patterns are redrawn. Maybe someday it will be useful to someone, I think to myself.

And this is what Nadiyka attached for me, this embroiderer. See what year? *Literaturna Ukraina*, no. 95, November 28, 1975.

And this is the expert analysis of my poems. On every page it says “Object,” “Expertise,” “Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise.” That’s what it looked like. But that’s not all of it. They tore out what they wanted. Not all the pages are there. They didn’t give me everything back. I asked where the rest was, how to restore it. And he says, “I don’t know, why are you asking me?” I say, “Well, where are the old ones?” “The old ones are in Kyiv.”

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Ms. Iryna, after you returned from exile, did you engage in any public activism?

I.M. Senyk: First and foremost, I joined the Society of the Ukrainian Language. That’s a must. The Helsinki Union—that’s two. And then, when the Union of Ukrainian Women was revived, I got involved in that public work. To this day, I am the head of the Boryslav branch of the Union of Ukrainian Women.

In addition to that work, our people don’t always understand what I am capable of. For example, a woman approached me. I don’t know why she came to me, but I can’t refuse when people ask. With such a request: “Write something for me so that my husband returns to me.” “Madam, please tell me, which husband?” While studying at the polytechnic institute, she met an Arab, married him, and has two children with him. Then that Arab ended up in the Arab Emirates, and I am supposed to find him for her. Do you understand? Well, I wrote to the Arab Emirates, but nothing came back. But then our deputy, Oleksandr Lavrynovych, arrived. I officially appealed to him, on paper with a seal, asking him to give me the address for the Arab Emirates. He answered me very nicely. You know, I like for things to be in order, I can show you the letter, the reply that came from the Verkhovna Rada—the Executive Committee. Well, the lady should also understand—if that Arab doesn’t want to contact her, what am I supposed to do, bring the Arab back to her, or what?

“Dear Ms. Iryna! To fulfill your request regarding the search for Ms. Bahut’s husband, I tried to contact the diplomatic mission of the UAE in Ukraine. However, there is neither an embassy nor a consulate of this country in Ukraine, nor are there embassies of foreign states whose competence would include resolving matters related to the United Arab Emirates. Therefore, unfortunately, there are no official levers to resolve this issue.”

And then he also added: “I additionally inform you of the address of the Embassy of Ukraine in the United Arab Emirates.” Since it’s there now, I will give this to her, let her write herself...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, yes. If you’re a human rights defender, you have to attend to all wounds... People used to come to me too: help me get some roofing slates...

I.M. Senyk: That’s not all, people come to me instead of the city council. An orphan—no father and no mother. True, her father left her when she was 8 months old. Her mother, a teacher, died last year, leaving an elderly grandmother. The orphan is finishing medical school, they want to send her to work in a village. Who will that grandmother stay with, who needs care? Well, so I wrote. Look at the replies: “Esteemed Madam! Your letter, along with the letter to Skliarenko, in which the problem you raised is presented more broadly, was discussed at a meeting of the heads of structural units of the central city hospital. We appealed to the conscience and patriotic feelings of the heads of departments, we are raising the issue of constant rotation and professional development of staff. Within the limits of existing legislation, we will gradually try to resolve the matter of rejuvenating the staff of the Boryslav hospital. We hope for constructive changes in the work of the Verkhovna Rada, which should approve a new law on pension provision that would facilitate a painless change of personnel both in budget-supported institutions and in the private business sector. We ask you, through the Union of Ukrainian Women, to influence the consideration of this issue by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.” Well, well, well, good people...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: You are supposed to influence it! Obviously, we don’t need to record these letters on the tape recorder...

I.M. Senyk: I understand, yes. See how many of them there are. In addition to this, I am also in the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. Work with youth: they come, they need something done, something to help with, some literature to find—I try to do this. I go to schools, gymnasiums, institutes, and not just here, but in the entire region: Sambir, Truskavets, Drohobych, Stryi, Ivano-Frankivsk, I was even somewhere in Mshana, in Rozdil...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I can confirm that right now. I was traveling here from Stebnyk and mistakenly got off in Truskavets instead of Boryslav. I don’t know the area—and I started asking someone for your Ternavka Street. “There’s no such street! Who are you looking for?” “Iryna Senyk.” “But she’s not in Truskavets, she’s in Boryslav,” they say. And they even told me how to get to you: “Go take that route taxi, it goes to where Iryna Senyk lives.”

I.M. Senyk: Well, people know me, because I am everywhere I can be. Just recently in Truskavets, at the diocesan museum, there was an exhibition of icons by the famous Lviv artist Roman Vasylyk, and I was invited too. At all the holidays that there are, I have to speak. I am on the board of trustees of our gymnasium, I am involved with the orphanage...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: I can hear that your phone is ringing constantly.

I.M. Senyk: Just yesterday a woman came: her father died, four children, her mother is an alcoholic—they put her in Mykolaiv, in that hospital. Four orphan children. Well, what to do with them? Help. So I wrote a request to have one boy taken to a boarding school.

And I also have to try, I don’t know at what level: the city council cannot appeal to the Verkhovna Rada, to the government, to have our sanatorium school, which serves the whole of Ukraine, taken over by the state for its maintenance, but instead they have dumped it on the city budget. The city cannot support everyone in such a crisis... This, I say, is public work.

Here are speeches for various holidays. For example, I can read you the titles: “Harvest Festival,” “The Poet-Tribune Malaniuk,” “Mother’s Day,” “To Be a Citizen,” “In Memory of Yaroslav Stetsko,” “A Knight Without Fear and Reproach” (about Olzhych), “In Memory of Olena Teliha,” “Motifs in the Lyrics of Lesya Ukrainka,” “Maksym Rylsky,” “Women in the OUN,” “Your Sons, Ukraine. Osyp Pozychaniuk” (because they know I knew him, so I have to describe it all for them), “A Word about the Sixtiers,” “In Memory of Yaroslav Stetsko,” “In Memory of Kateryna Zarytska,” “In Memory of General-Khorunzhyi Taras Chuprynka,” “Kengir,” “Introductory Word on the 52nd Anniversary of June 30th,” “The So-Called Victory Day”—and look here, how many. Many of these articles about political prisoners are published in the newspaper *Naftovyk Boryslava*.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And have you not tried to compile a book of memoirs from this? You have a lot of material. It is important to bear witness, especially about those who are no longer among the living. And about everyone you knew.

I.M. Senyk: I’ll think about it. Back when they were awarding me that heroine title... I don’t like to boast, but it must be said. In 1998, in America, in the city of Rochester, there was a convention. They sent word from there that I was recognized as one of the 100 Heroines of the World. So I went for that award ceremony.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: The Americans recognized you, but have you had any awards from the Ukrainian authorities yet?

I.M. Senyk: No, I have. In Lviv, five of us were recognized as heroines of Ukraine, they wrote a petition to Mr.... that one, our guarantor of the Constitution. But he did not respond. Because we are Banderites...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: He has other heroes.

I.M. Senyk: Yes. I have many various certificates: I am an honorary citizen of the city of Boryslav. Well, I don’t want to show all that, because it’s a mountain of various honors. An honorary citizen of the Organization of Ukrainian Women in Great Britain, an honorary member of the Union of Ukrainian Women...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: Well, let what you had to suffer and fight for be repaid, at least to some moral extent. Thank God we have lived to see such times. And how many people perished without even a glimmer of hope... So we are the lucky ones.

I.M. Senyk: I think so too.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And you even climbed Mount Makivka?

I.M. Senyk: Well, of course!

V.V. Ovsiyenko: When was that?

I.M. Senyk: Just last year.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: And is it a high climb?

I.M. Senyk: High. Well, how could I not go! But you know what happened there? I was coming down a slope, and my foot twisted, it was a fracture. But there was an ambulance there, they gave me a strong injection so it wouldn’t hurt, and I kept going.

V.V. Ovsiyenko: What? You kept going with a fracture?

I.M. Senyk: Very simply. Yes. And Mr. Baziv from Lviv saw me there. They helped me. I had already climbed to the top and listened to everything there—how could I not be on Makivka? How could that be? And only then did I return to Boryslav and went to the surgical department the next day, and they put on a cast...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: My God, you climbed a mountain with a fracture? You are telling incredible stories.

I.M. Senyk: Well, I’m telling you. That’s how it was—here, I walk with a cane, it’s quite difficult for me to walk. But it’s nothing, whatever doesn’t kill you...

V.V. Ovsiyenko: This was Iryna Senyk, in Boryslav, on January 29, 2000. The recording was made by Vasyl Ovsiyenko.

[ E n d  o f  R e c o r d i n g]

Photo by V. Ovsiyenko:

Senyk Film 7945, frame 32. January 29, 2000, Boryslav. Iryna SENYK.