Interview with B. P. Dovhalyuk
April 1, 2001
(with the participation of his wife and V. I. Sirenko)
V. V. Ovsiyenko: April 1, 2001. City of Dniprodzerzhynsk (Kamyanske). We are conducting a conversation in the home of Borys Petrovych Dovhalyuk. Vasyl Ovsiyenko is recording. Also participating are his wife, Yevhenia Oleksiivna, and Mr. Volodymyr Sirenko.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I was born in the village of Kharkivtsi, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, on July 13, 1931. Kharkivtsi is located between Ostropil, Stara Syniava, and Starokostiantyniv. At that time, it was Ostropil Raion, Kamianets-Podilskyi Oblast; now it is Stara Syniava Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast. Life in the village was poor. There were four of us children, and my father didn’t have much of a fatherly sense—he was off fooling around somewhere... He was a mechanizer. We lived with just our mother, always without bread, hungry, and barefoot. Our grandmother Yuhenka, my father’s mother, helped us. Later, my father straightened up a bit. In 1941, we moved to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, to the village of Druzhba, Shchorsk Raion (now Krynychky Raion). We arrived in May, and on June 22, the war began. My father was a mechanizer, so he gathered his entire mechanized column and set off for evacuation. But as the column was heading toward the Dnipro River, to the bridge in Dnipropetrovsk, they met similar columns coming toward them, saying: “Turn back, don’t go. They can’t keep up with transporting industrial equipment, and they won’t let you through, just like us.” But they didn’t believe these people and kept going. They reached the bridge and were, of course, turned back—the Germans had already captured our entire oblast. They returned to the village, dismantled all the equipment, buried it, and then worked in the village among the ordinary collective farm workers.
In 1943, when the Red Army arrived, my father was not conscripted—a horse had stepped on his foot, it was crushed, the wound was huge, and he remained in the village; he was given a one-year deferment. He trained young people to work with the machinery, teaching them to repair and drive tractors and combines. It was only in September 1944, after the grain harvest was collected, that he was taken into the army. For about a month, he was in Dniprodzerzhynsk for military training. My mother and I would visit him, bringing some food from the village. I remember when a special-designation train with severely wounded soldiers arrived at the Verkhivtseve station. They couldn't get out of the wagons but only looked out the windows, asking for something to eat. They cursed Zhukov, who threw them at German fortifications without proper artillery preparation. It was frightening for me to listen to them; I thought they weren’t our severely wounded soldiers but some kind of bandits. Later, when I grew up and read a little about Zhukov, I understood: those soldiers were telling the truth.
I finished six grades and started the seventh, but then came 1946. This needs to be mentioned separately because certain events require attention. When we arrived in the village of Druzhba in 1941, we were poor, but in this village, people lived better than in Khmelnytskyi Oblast. It was the first time I saw white bread. People had grain and baked large, round loaves of white flour bread. Then, in 1942, around June, several large wagons drove through our village. Germans and policemen with submachine guns entered the houses and confiscated grain from those who had a lot. But the night before, many sacks of flour and grain had been brought into our garden. I asked my mother, “What is this?” And she said, “Be quiet, you see nothing.” And so this convoy passed. They didn't enter our yard. I later learned that the Germans, those damned fascists, didn’t enter the homes of the poor, which is why people from the village brought their grain to us to hide.
And then came 1946. I was 15 by then, and we were working at the Lyubomyrivka sovkhoz (state farm) in Krynychky Raion. When we were on the kolkhoz (collective farm), I went to work, but at the sovkhoz, they wouldn't hire me. I had just weeded my own garden and harvested the corn and potatoes—it was a bad harvest. We had two sacks of corn on the cob, and my mother said, “Somehow we’ll manage: we have a cow, milk, we’ll make kasha, we’ll get by.” I came home from school for a break—my mother was crying. “What’s wrong?” “The militsiya came and took all the corn, not a single grain is left.” This event was somehow forgotten, but later, when people started talking about the Holodomors, it resurfaced in my mind, and I saw it as clearly as if it were happening now. While the damned fascists didn’t even enter the yards of the poor, in 1946, the militsiya left a family of six people without a single grain of corn. They took everything. And we, of course, starved.
And another thing. When my father returned with that machinery in 1941, he worked on the kolkhoz, but we had nothing; our family was poor. We hadn’t brought anything with us from Khmelnytskyi Oblast. So the damned fascists issued 300 grams of flour per family member per day. Three hundred times six is one kilogram and eight hundred grams of flour a day. You can bake bread with that. And if you also have chickens and a cow, you won’t die of hunger. But in 1946, people were swelling from hunger and dying.
I went to a vocational school in the city of Dniprodzerzhynsk. I lived in a dormitory and ate in the cafeteria three times a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For breakfast and lunch, they gave 300g of bread, and for dinner, 200g. I didn’t eat the bread; I saved it and brought it home. So every 5-6 days, I would bring bread and somehow save my family from starvation. I myself was very thin and couldn’t see well during lectures. I thought my eyes were sick. It later turned out that it was from systematic malnutrition. Such was the Holodomor of 1946–1947.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: What was the specialty of your school?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: It was a metallurgical school in Dniprodzerzhynsk that trained electricians, metalworkers, rolling mill operators, blast furnace workers, steelworkers, and foundrymen. It was large—over 1,000 students.
V. I. Sirenko: Borya, was that School Number One? Where Nazarbayev studied, right?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, Number One. What did I encounter in Dniprodzerzhynsk? It has stayed with me my whole life. I didn't open my mouth for a year because I didn't know Russian...
V. I. Sirenko: Me neither.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: ...and if I said something not in Russian, they would laugh at me.
V. I. Sirenko: And they laughed their heads off at us.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, they laughed their heads off. I didn't open my mouth for a year.
V. I. Sirenko: Excuse me, there were Belarusians—they laughed at the Belarusians even more.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: That’s how it was. It was seared into me, deep inside my soul: how could it be that I am at home, I had learned Ukrainian, written letters, I knew Ukrainian well—and suddenly I am forbidden to use my native language!
So I finished vocational school. Our entire group of electricians was sent to work at the PKhZ—the Prydniprovskyi Chemical Plant. The plant handled the first stage of uranium enrichment, and this enriched uranium was sent to Russia for deeper enrichment for use in the military industry. We produced a semi-finished product. (Initially, uranium was extracted from blast furnace slag, so the plant was called the “slag” plant, and among ordinary people, the “hose” plant. None of us knew then what this plant produced—everything was kept secret. Therefore, the first workers didn’t know the safety rules and passed away at the age of 40–45). How did I get hired at this plant? I was afraid they wouldn't take me. Why? In the spring of 1947, my poor and starving family returned to Khmelnytskyi Oblast (I remained in Dniprodzerzhynsk, at the vocational school. So from the age of 15, I was already living independently, without my parents). My father was working as a mechanizer. One day, on his way home, he picked some ears of grain to feed his three hungry children and wife. For those ears of grain, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. This was in 1947. And in the spring of 1948, representatives from PKhZ visited our school and offered all the students in the group to write applications and fill out questionnaires. When I filled out the questionnaire, I wrote nothing about my father. Because I was afraid: if they checked, they wouldn't hire me.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: You still haven't mentioned your parents' names...
B. P. Dovhalyuk: My father, Petro Kyrylovych Dovhalyuk, was born in 1904. He lived to be 78. And my mother, Maria Fedorivna Horobets, was born in 1905. She lost her health greatly during the “panschyna” [corvée labor] and died in her fifty-fifth year. She suffered and overworked a great deal. She died there, in Kharkivtsi.
So my father is in prison. I am filling out a questionnaire to go work at this top-secret plant. I later visited Kharkivtsi, and my aunts told me that people had come from Dniprodzerzhynsk, asking who I was. But in the village, they didn't say that my father was currently in prison. So I remained at the plant, working as an electrician. I immediately enrolled in evening school. I had finished six grades, but now I went into the eighth grade. At first, I worked as a loader, as the plant was still under construction. I was the leader of a group of five loaders, all 17-year-old boys. We received cargo (equipment for the plant) from wagons and transported it to the plant's warehouses by truck. I had to work very hard because I needed to pass the seventh-grade exams as an external student and catch up with the eighth grade. But I endured it all. After my family moved to Kharkivtsi, I began to eat normally. I gained strength, started exercising, and felt inspired and confident in my abilities. I began to think about my future. So, without hesitation, I went to study at the evening secondary school, from which I graduated in 1951 with good and excellent grades. And not only did I graduate from evening school—on Saturdays and Sundays, I also attended a flying club, where I studied flight theory and the material parts of the “PO-2” aircraft. In the spring and summer of 1951, in my free time from work, I went to the airfield and learned to fly (this was before work, from 5 to 7 in the morning, or on weekends). I flew 42 hours in our flying club and received the rank of pilot. I was even invited to a military academy. I went to that military academy. Of course, it wasn't my plan to go to a military academy; I had planned to go to a military aviation engineering institute. That’s what they invited us to do when they came from the flying club: some could go to the academy, others to the institute. I went to the flying club for the sake of the institute. I finished my flights, mastered the program, and then they told me they would no longer be accepting people into the institute! So on the second-to-last day, I submitted my documents to the evening metallurgical institute in Dniprodzerzhynsk. I passed the exams and was admitted to the institute. For my studies at the flying club, I was given a two-week vacation. I went to Kharkivtsi to rest. But jet planes were flying over me, and I felt such sadness, such frustration, such a desire to fly...
I received a telegram from my friend Volodymyr Oblovatnyi: “Come, they’re taking you to the Yeysk Naval Military Academy.” The city of Yeysk is on the Sea of Azov, in the Kuban region. So I arrive... I had been training in sports by myself; I didn't have a coach. I had read somewhere that only a courageous, athletic person can achieve something in life. So I arrive at this Yeysk academy and see jet planes flying above us. In the evening—we’re living in a sort of camp—pilots who are about to become lieutenants come to us. They talk about their lives, how they drink in groups, get into fights, hang out with girls—nothing else. And I think: “Where am I going? Should I go to this academy or not?” Then I think: “I’ll wait.” I passed the medical examination, passed the entrance exams, and next was the credentials committee. And my father is still in prison. When I graduated from the flying club, I was the best pilot, an athlete. When the recruiter came from the Yeysk academy, they told him at the flying club that the best pilot was Borys Dovhalyuk, so he should take me without a medical exam. In Dniprodzerzhynsk, out of 56 people, the medical commission selected only 12, but I was accepted without any commission at all. And I go to this academy without any documents; I only have my flight log, not even a certificate from my workplace. But you need documents about your grandfathers, your parents, where you work—about everything. So I stand before the credentials committee, thinking. The tables are arranged in a “U” shape. Majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, and the captain who brought me to the academy are sitting at the tables. I am standing in the middle of the tables. Some documents have already appeared, which were filled out on the academy grounds—questionnaires, autobiographies, applications, and so on. One member of the credentials committee asks me a question, while the others study my documents. He asks about this and that, and then: “And where was your father during the occupation?” I explain what my father did. “Are you sure you’re not lying?” I tolerated it from one, tolerated it from the second, and then the one who was questioning me started reading the documents, and a third one asked—and this happened several times. Then I got very angry and said: “Accept my grandmother into the academy. You don’t need me.” And I walked out of that credentials committee. The commander of our unit, who already knew and liked me, said: “I thought you would be the group leader in the academy. You’re such an organizer, an athlete, disciplined, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke, the candidates for cadets respect you. I’ll go to the lieutenant general, the director of the academy, right now. I’ll tell him, and he’ll take you. There are some fools sitting in that credentials committee.” I said: “No, I don’t want to. I’m going home.”
Thus, I began my studies at the Dniprodzerzhynsk Evening Metallurgical Institute while working as an electrician at PKhZ. I graduated from the institute in 1957 and started working in an engineering position. I earned a qualification as a metallurgical engineer, but there was no work for me in my field at the PKhZ plant, so I worked in the design department, and then in the material and technical supply department. When a group of specialists arrived from Kyiv in 1960 and opened a research support laboratory of the Kyiv Institute of Automation in the city, I transferred there. This laboratory was later transferred as a department to the Dnipropetrovsk Research Institute of Automation of Ferrous Metallurgy (NDIAChormet), where I worked until 1981, for almost 21 years.
During this time, I defended my Ph.D. dissertation. The topic of my dissertation was on the automation of blast furnace production, and it was titled: “Establishing the Interrelation Between Blast Furnace Process Parameters for the Purpose of its Automation.” I defended my dissertation in 1966. My dissertation was about the use of computer technology in blast furnace production—it was one of the first such works in both Ukraine and the Soviet Union. Around this time, we went to a party, a birthday party, and they fed me so much that I got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital for two weeks in quarantine. In this quarantine, there was no television, only a loudspeaker. At that time, Podgorny (M. V. Podgorny was then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. —V.O.) was in Finland, and I listened carefully to every word. They said that Finland was so developed in science, culture, and economy. Podgorny congratulated them, and they almost carried him on their shoulders, as they were friends with the Soviet Union. I was struck by the fact that a country like Finland was living so well. And a thought occurred to me: it is the social structure that makes a state prosperous. Finland did not follow the path of socialism, yet it lives better than we who are following the path of socialism. This means it is not building the same kind of socialism. That was the shift that occurred in my thinking.
My wife was studying by correspondence at the Kharkiv Construction Institute. She said to me: “Please, write my Marxism-Leninism homework for me.” Back when I was working as an electrician at the plant, I was an authority among the youth. I was involved in sports. Just imagine: a fire ladder to the roof, our building is about 30–40 meters high. The upper end of the ladder is fixed horizontally on the roof. It extends like parallel bars onto the roof. And I could easily do a handstand on those bars. Easily. I could hold on better with my hands than with my feet. I was confident in myself, even doing handstands on the technological pipes in the workshop. When the medical commission was admitting me to the academy, we went into a separate room for each doctor. But one doctor gathered all the other doctors in a large room—they were looking at me: where did such a titan come from, applying to a military academy.
V. I. Sirenko: That was from the hunger of 1947.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: No, it was because I trained in sports on my own, ran long distances, did wrestling, acrobatics, gymnastics, and swimming (I could do forty pull-ups on the bar). At the plant, I organized a bicycle tour from Dniprodzerzhynsk to Moscow, Minsk, and Kyiv. Then to Vinnytsia, Mohyliv-Podilskyi, through Moldavia to Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Crimea, and back to Dniprodzerzhynsk—4,200 kilometers. We were greeted at the city stadium with ovations. We organized it, and I was one of the leaders of this tour. At the plant, I was like a pioneer. First, we had an acrobatics group, then a cycling group, and sections for classical and freestyle wrestling. I had good relationships with everyone at the plant, I was respected, and the plant management held me up as an example to others.
So they tell me: “Join the Party.” One metalworker—he respected me—Vasilkivsky was his last name, a good, hardworking, decent man, says: “Borys, you are such a respected person among us. Who, if not you, should be in the Party?” And I told him in Russian: “What the hell do I need your party for?” This was in 1952, and I didn't join the Party. I still think now what a decent man that Vasilkivsky was, because he never told anyone about our conversation and, of course, never pressured me again, but we remained on good terms. He was about my father's age.
Then the “Khrushchev Thaw” began. One of my older friends, Pavlyuk Volodymyr Fedorovych, a mechanic in the workshop, approached me and said: “Borys, you are a top worker here, a respected person, let’s join the Party.” And he convinced me. I wrote an application: “believing that the Party is the honor and conscience...” I joined the Party. This was around 1955.
And so I listened to the stenographic record of the 20th Congress—they read it to us daily at meetings during the summer.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: The 20th Congress was at the beginning of 1956, in February, right?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I don't remember. But I remember clearly—they sent the stenographic record of the congress, and we read it. They kept us after work and read for a month, even longer, about everything that happened there.
When I became a communist, I was appointed editor of the workshop's wall newspaper. I started publishing it with caricatures. I always spoke out with criticism of existing shortcomings, and it turned out that it was criticism of the management. I remember a workshop collective meeting where the workshop head, Volodymyr Sydorenko, was speaking. He criticized the workers for overusing energy and raw materials: “You overuse steam, you overuse chemicals, you overuse electricity...” I took the floor to speak and said: “Esteemed workshop head, you spoke the truth about saving all types of energy and raw materials, but you said nothing about saving the most precious energy—human energy.” After my speech, the workers became bolder and started demanding better working conditions. And it was terrible there: people stood by centrifuges and poured a hot solution into them, and the basket spun at high speed, splashing the solution on people, leaving them all wet. And the solution was radioactive, only the workers didn't know! People came from Moscow, from the Kurchatov Institute, and put sealed photographic films in the pockets of the workers’ special clothing for them to carry during their shift. When they took them for analysis at the end of the shift, it turned out they were all exposed, meaning they were penetrated by radioactive radiation. And these operators were practically bathing in this solution, and their bodies were also penetrated by this radiation. This solution was also hot; the saltpeter crystals remained on the centrifuge filter, and the solution went on to where the uranium was extracted from it. The solution cost 22,000 rubles per liter. When the saltpeter crystals fill the centrifuge basket, it is stopped, the operator leans over the basket, and with a small shovel, unloads this hot saltpeter onto a conveyor belt located below in the basement. And it’s a death trap down there too, high temperature, humidity, radioactivity. The operators work, but not a single fan is working. I wrote about this in my newspaper: this isn't working, that isn't working, that isn't working... The operators demand that the workshop management improve working conditions, and the management takes out their anger on me. After my speech at the meeting, my bonus for the entire year was taken away—my salary was reduced by 45%.
I remember an incident. A new party organizer, Kvitko, came to our workshop—an illiterate, very dull man. For some reason, nobody wanted to be the party organizer then, so they said let Kvitko do it. He was a ventilation fitter. So he’s our party organizer. He puts his hands in his pockets and watches everyone, but doesn’t bother with the ventilation. I glued three sheets of Whatman paper together—it came out like a “Krokodil” or “Perets” [satirical magazine]. We had an artist on the editorial board of our newspaper. He beautifully illustrated all the shortcomings in the workshop according to my script—where things were leaking, what wasn't working, and the party organizer walking around the workshop with his hands in his pockets.
I come to work the next day—my newspaper is gone, the party organizer tore it down. They summon me to the plant's party committee. No, to the “political department”—a plant like that had a “political department” back then, whose head was appointed by the ministry, from Moscow. But I was lucky; the head of the political department was a good, intelligent man who said: “Son, what's going on with you?” I told him what happened. And he said: “Well, you did the right thing, but you know that the Party is our guiding force. You should have shown the newspaper to the party organizer first, and then put it up.” “He would have never agreed to put it up!” “Well, alright.” They smoothed it over.
Later, I'm working at NDIAChormet. I enrolled in correspondence postgraduate studies, preparing my dissertation. I had already defended my dissertation. I couldn't defend my dissertation in Dnipropetrovsk because in my work, I had slightly criticized a Jewish professor, Gotlib, saying that his methodology was unsuitable for this and that reason, and it should be done this way and that. And he passed my dissertation to his son-in-law, Himelfarb, also Jewish. There were more Ukrainians and Russians on the department faculty; they knew me. So this Himelfarb says at the department meeting: “So, are we going to cut Dovhalyuk down or let him defend?” The department says: “What are you talking about? Let's be decent people, let him defend, he has a good work.” But they cut me down, they didn't let me defend. I go to Moscow, to the famous professor Anatoliy Mykolayovych Pokhvisnev, at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. I go to him, show him my work, and he says: “Well, your work is good, it’s worth three Ph.D. dissertations that are defended at DMetI (Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute). We accept your dissertation for defense.” I successfully defended it there and sent my wife a telegram: “18-0 in our favor!” The postman asked: “Is he a hockey player or something?” That’s how I described the vote in Moscow.
So now I'm a Candidate of Sciences, head of a laboratory with 25 employees, working on problems of blast furnace automation, already starting my doctoral dissertation, everything is going well for me. The people in my laboratory are very good; I selected honest, creative, decent people, specialists, and they had to be humane and friendly. And then she (my wife), under threat of the “axe,” says to me: “Do my Marxism-Leninism homework for me.” So I have the complete collection of Lenin's works, 55 volumes. I found this, I found that, and I come across the work “On the Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomization,'” where it is clearly stated that in every national republic, the national language should be used. When I read this work, I remembered my vocational school, how they mocked me. I thought: so that’s what it’s all about—the problem is that they aren’t following Lenin! If everything were done according to Lenin, everything would be normal. I brought this volume to work at the institute, passed it on to the metallurgical plant, they read it, they were amazed...
V. V. Ovsiyenko: You revealed Lenin to them!
B. P. Dovhalyuk: So, after reading Lenin and listening to Podgorny in Finland, I wrote a letter:
“To the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR.
The great holiday of the Ukrainian people—the 50th anniversary of Soviet power—is approaching. In this connection, we would very much like to know what changes have occurred in Ukraine's cultural life. Namely:
1. How many schools were there in Ukraine before 1917, and how many are there now?
2. How many schools in Ukraine now have Ukrainian as the language of instruction?
3. How many higher educational institutions were there in Ukraine before 1917 with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and how many are there now, and in which cities?
4. It is known that the Ukrainian language was forbidden in state institutions and enterprises. In which state institutions and enterprises are conversation and official correspondence now conducted in the Ukrainian language?
5. During the years of Soviet power, kindergartens and nurseries have appeared. Are there many kindergartens and nurseries in cities where children are raised in the Ukrainian language?
Employees of the Dniprodzerzhynsk department of the Institute of Automation of Ferrous Metallurgy, Dovhalyuk B.P., Klymenko O.V., Kotliar O., Kramarenko A.V., Zhytskyi, Zabroda.”
The letter was sent on December 15, 1967. Receipt No. 461/2 (I gave the receipt to a member of the Party commission of the regional committee of the CPU, Prostotin—he strongly demanded it).
I wrote such a letter and signed it. One person approaches me, then another—I'll sign it too, I'll sign it too, I'll sign it too. Six people signed. I sent it by registered mail to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and I'm still waiting for a reply to this day—there is none. Later, when Prostotin so persistently demanded the receipt, and I refused for a long time (this went on for several years), I realized that they were “covering the tracks” of our appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR.
So what happened next? Just after I wrote this letter—and we’re reading Lenin here, we have the materials—I find out: Volodia Sirenko has been expelled from the Party, removed from his job. (V. Sirenko was expelled from the CPSU in the autumn of 1967. —V.O.) I met him in the cafeteria one day, went up to him, we got to know each other better, and then we went to his apartment and discussed his work problems.
Then we bought a collection of poems by Volodymyr Zhytnyk, “Zelenyi Viter” (The Green Wind), at a bookstore. There are poems based on the motifs of Bezruč. He says: “Language is the soul of a people, and the soul of a people is its language. If you are unenlightened and betray your language, your name is slave, for the absence of consciousness is a sign of slavery. But if you are educated and betray your language, you are called a scoundrel, for you buy your well-being at the price of the people's life.” A typist in my laboratory printed several copies of this poem, and it circulated. Some of my colleagues, hot-headed guys, also read Lenin and switched to Ukrainian. They would approach a Ukrainian and ask: “Tell me, are you a slave or a scoundrel?” Some were outraged, but others said: “What’s this? Ah, I get it, I don’t want to be a scoundrel, I’d rather be a Ukrainian, I’m switching to Ukrainian.” Consequently, many switched to the Ukrainian language. And they were watching us—who knew they were watching?
V. I. Sirenko: Nobody thought they were watching back then, I was naive too.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I didn't know they were watching. Then one day, Mykola Kaliberda, a very, very dull engineer, comes up to us. He used to fawn over me because I was the only Candidate of Sciences in the whole department, and highly qualified engineers would come to me to ask how to start their dissertation work. I would explain, suggest what to do. The institute's management in Dnipropetrovsk was already saying: “We will appoint this young man as the director of the Zaporizhzhia branch of the Institute of Automation because there is no Candidate of Sciences there.” And I was already planning my doctoral dissertation. And then this Kaliberda says: “You know, Borys, I heard there is some nationalist organization in our city.” I say: “That’s a lie, it can’t be.” But to myself, I think, maybe there is, and I should find it—that’s what I’m thinking. Where could it be? I say: “That’s a lie, Mykola, it can’t be.” (It later turned out that Kaliberda was a KGB informant).
The party organizer, V. L. Zavatskyi, also took part in our discussions. At first, he carefully read this article by Lenin but didn't express his opinion. After a while, he suggested I stop all this talk about Lenin and the Ukrainian language. I proposed writing a letter to the raikom (district committee) of the CPU to have them send a lecturer to give a talk on Lenin's article and the issues we raised in our letter to the Verkhovna Rada. I said I didn't have time to study it, I'm a technical person, but these questions concern us, so let the ideology specialists explain it to us. The party organizer agreed, and with the participation of active, thinking engineers, I prepared a letter to the raikom. In the letter, we wrote what topic we wanted to hear a lecture on: how to understand Lenin's article? Should the Ukrainian language be used in Ukraine for education, in the workplace, etc.? We repeated the same questions that were in the letter to the Verkhovna Rada. They didn't send a lecturer for a month, but finally, some woman came. Our people were already prepared for this topic; there were about 50–60 of us working there. When she arrived, the hall was packed, full of people, listening.
She gave a lecture on internationalism, on the “great Russian language,” but said nothing about the questions we had posed. And they immediately started pouring questions on her. And she, apparently, hadn't been warned. She was from some department of the history of the CPSU, she had read something, but she wasn't prepared for our questions: what should the language be, and Lenin says this, so why don't you follow Lenin, don't you know Lenin? That sort of thing. They overwhelmed her—she didn't know what to say. She left, indignant, and wrote a report to the raikom of the CPU: Dovhalyuk organized this against me, there were such chauvinistic, nationalistic speeches... I organized all this? The people organized themselves, as these issues had been freely discussed among us for several months!
Even before these events, when I was the secretary of the party organization, I didn't have a good relationship with Vertyporokh, the head of the raikom department, and other raikom workers. He, as a retired officer, demanded soldier-like discipline from me: to promptly submit minutes of party meetings, insisted on retyping or rewriting them with his corrections; to rewrite the party organization's work plan; to rewrite a recommendation for party admission in violet ink, and so on. I, of course, protested, calling his proposals formalism that served no useful purpose but required additional time to implement. Besides, I was a progressive, creative party organizer, regularly read the journal “Partiynaya Zhizn” (Party Life), and put them in “their place.” For my independent and creative behavior (after all, I didn't violate the statutes), they opened a personal file on me and started summoning me to the bureau of the raikom of the CPU. As a rule, around nine in the morning, they would call me at work from the raikom and inform me that there would be a bureau meeting that day. I would reply that I couldn't make it today as I was going on a business trip, and suggested they notify me of the next meeting 2–3 days in advance so I could plan my work (I emphasized to them that during working hours, my main focus was my job, and party matters were public work that should be done in one's free time). This went on for several months. I was in charge of a laboratory in Dniprodzerzhynsk, while our management and the institute were in Dnipropetrovsk. So every week I traveled to Dnipropetrovsk for operational meetings, academic council meetings, scientific conferences, seminars, and so on. Then on April 30, before the May holidays, they called to say there was a raikom bureau meeting that day. I replied that I was free today and would come. What a scene it was! All the bureau members spoke and accused me of non-existent sins. I listened calmly, noted down all the accusations, and when they gave me the floor, I said, “I am surprised by the accusations leveled against me, since everything I did was within the framework of the CPSU statutes.” My speech added fuel to the fire—the bureau members began to speak more aggressively (oh, he didn't understand his mistakes, let's raise the question of his expulsion from the CPSU, and so on). I listened to their hysteria and pondered what to do (if I stood my ground, they would expel me from the party right now and fire me with a “wolf's ticket”; if I pretended I understood everything, they would give me a reprimand, and I could then appeal to the obkom (regional committee) of the CPU). I said that I understood everything and would not make “such mistakes” again. The bureau breathed a sigh of relief (they had achieved their goal, “re-educated” me) and gave me a “severe reprimand with an entry in the record card.” That same day, I filed an appeal with the obkom, and from there it was sent to the city committee (miskkom) of the CPU, where they summoned Vertyporokh and me. Vertyporokh was reprimanded, and in my presence they said to him: “Aren't you ashamed? Why did you reprimand Dovhalyuk? He is not at fault, immediately convene a raikom bureau meeting and remove the reprimand from Dovhalyuk.”
Let me return to the events that took place after the lecture was given. The USSR Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy included me in an interdepartmental commission that was to convene in Novokuznetsk to accept the latest automated system for industrial operation (an interdepartmental commission consists of highly qualified representatives from various research institutes, design organizations, and factories, specialists in various fields).
I arrive in Dnipropetrovsk to arrange my business trip and go to Novokuznetsk. Then a call from the district party committee to my institute's director: “Do not send Dovhalyuk on a business trip; there will be a party meeting tomorrow.” What party meeting? I know nothing about it. The director says: “Borys Petrovych, well, since it’s the raikom, we can't go against the raikom...”
I arrive in Dniprodzerzhynsk—a meeting. People from the district party committee come in “Stalin-style coats”—as if Khrushchev had never existed. They say: “Dovhalyuk is connected with foreign intelligence services, Dovhalyuk is conducting anti-state, anti-party propaganda under the direction of these intelligence services—he must be expelled from the party.” I knew the decision of the 20th Congress, that the KGB cannot be above the Party. But the KGB is dealing with me, the KGB has information that Dovhalyuk must be expelled from the party. I speak up: “First,” I say, “this is all a lie, and second, the KGB cannot be above the Party now, and you,” I say, “as members of the Party, should think about how you vote. What you know about me is the truth.” Someone there spoke in my defense, but the district party committee was against it again, and they expelled me from the party.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: Do you remember the date of this event?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: It was in 1968, around June, when I was expelled from the party. And after the meeting, those who voted “for” came to me and said: “Borys Petrovych, forgive us. From what we know about you, there is no reason to expel you from the party. We know you well. But the KGB says you are connected with foreign intelligence services—that’s why we expelled you from the party. If that’s not true, then we are against it.” And so one, then another, then a third.
I, of course, in some kind of shock, go to the secretary of the raikom, Pushkar. I say: “Ivan Maksymovych, these members of your raikom commission have violated the statutes, they imposed the KGB's opinion, and our party members would have voted against it.” They summon our party organization secretary, Zavadskyi, to the raikom. He was such a fanatical communist, and they wind him up. They summon the communists who said they were against it, that they were ready to reinstate me in the CPSU. But that Kaliberda wrote something completely different. He had told me: “Borys, I know you, you’re such a good person.” But there he wrote: “No, we did the right thing by expelling Dovhalyuk from the party.” He wrote about three pages, and the raikom secretary gives it to me to read. And so did everyone else. He shows me the letter from those old liars from the raikom, who write: “We did not say a single word about the KGB at the party meeting.”
I wrote an appeal to the district party committee. They summon me to the raikom bureau. There was a woman there named Shevchenko. She says: “Borys Petrovych, whatever the decision of the raikom bureau, you must appeal to the highest authorities.” And she repeated this to me about five times. When I came the next day, she repeated it again. I thought, why are they saying this, did the raikom expel me?
And before that, there was an interesting seminar... I was active, I conducted political education, and in the plan for political education for the next year, I scheduled the study of Lenin's works on the national question. So a lecturer-propagandist comes from Kyiv. He spoke about the pacifism of Ilya Ehrenburg, then touched upon Oles Honchar, his novel “Sobor” (The Cathedral), saying it should be criticized. I had already read this novel and knew it well. Not only that: I worked as a lecturer at a teaching institute in the evenings. I had a group of about 70 evening faculty students, I told them about this novel, they went to a kiosk, bought 70 copies of “Sobor,” and they all read it.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: Which edition was that? The booklet from the “Novels and Stories” series?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: The first edition. I still have it. I read the journal “Vitchyzna” (Fatherland)—there were good reviews there. A good novel, I began to seriously respect Honchar. So I ask the lecturer: “Which aspects of this novel,” I say, “should be criticized?” And some new instructor (I knew everyone at the raikom, I had been the secretary of the party organization), some young punk, sits next to me and says: “Stay behind and we'll tell you.” I stay. Everyone left, and that lecturer left too. “Why are you here?” “Well, you were going to tell me about Honchar’s novel ‘Sobor.’” “Ah, yes, yes, I'll tell you,” he says. “Honchar writes that dust flies in the blast furnace shop—well, Honchar is lying.” “Why,” I say, “is he lying?” “There is no dust there—there are dust collectors,” he tells me in Russian. I laugh: a complete fool, this instructor knows nothing. Some young punk, new to the raikom. I say to him, laughing: “It's not the dust that is caught by the dust collectors that's flying. It's the dust that isn't caught, and there's a lot of it.” And he says to me: “Well, why are you arguing with me, you don't know blast furnace production.” And I am a Candidate of Sciences in blast furnace production, I deal with the automation of blast furnace production. I think, should I tell him I’m a Candidate of Sciences? But then I think: ah, what's the point. I put my hand on his shoulder and say: “Thank you for the joke,” just to end the conversation. And I left.
And so, the raikom bureau, a huge table, the raikom secretary sits at the far end, and here I am at the very end. This instructor is sitting next to me. I think: “What is this scumbag doing here?” Well, he's sitting there, so he's sitting there. And I just sit. They are expelling me from the party. And he also spoke against me with words like “anti-party,” “nationalist,” and so on.
V. I. Sirenko: And do you remember, there was a guy named Chaika? He worked at your PKhZ plant. A young man, Chaika, he was a geodesist.
Y. O. Dovhalyuk, wife: Yes, yes. He was younger.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: And for some reason, he was a member of the raikom bureau then. He knew me from PKhZ. He says: “What are you making up? What nationalism?” he says. “Let's write it down as ‘for distorting the national policy of the CPSU.’” But they expelled me from the party, I handed over my party card, and left. And they told me: appeal further, all the way to the Central Committee. I wrote an appeal to the city party committee. I wrote it, went there, told them how it was. And the chairman of the party commission was Dobryk, the father of Dobryk—the secretary of the city party committee...
B. P. Dovhalyuk: And he says: “Everything will be fine, we’ll reinstate you. Write an application, explain everything, and come to the commission meeting.” I come to the commission meeting a week later. They show me a letter from CPSU members who were witnesses to how I raised the discussion about Honchar's “Sobor” at the district meeting, when people from Kyiv came and said that Honchar should be criticized. I read it, two pages: “Dovhalyuk imposed a discussion on Honchar's ‘Sobor,’ thereby showing a distorted understanding of our reality,” and so on. Signed by: members of the CPSU, about thirty people. But none of them were there when I was talking with that instructor, no one heard it! I tell the city party commission what happened—they laugh.
It might have turned out okay if not for the events in Czechoslovakia. We at NDIAChormet had been following these events from the very beginning, when they removed Novotný (Antonín Novotný, from 1951—first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, from 1957 to 1967—President of the ČSSR. —V.O.). We read the newspaper “Trud,” which often printed excerpts from the Czech “Práce,” so we understood some of it. We, of course, supported Dubček (Alexander Dubček—first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968. —V.O.), and we kept wondering how it would all end. We followed it when Brezhnev went there, when they were preparing everything. We, of course, were against interfering in the Czech events. And suddenly, they sent in the troops (of the Warsaw Pact, August 21, 1968. —V.O.). Then the city party committee became more aggressive towards me. Two days after the troops were sent in, they summoned me to the city party committee bureau. Dobryk didn’t come. Loginov, my rector, had spoken with him: “What are you doing? We know Dovhalyuk—he’s a normal person, why are you expelling him from the party?” So, to avoid embarrassment, he didn't show up at the bureau; Molochyk presided. I had been to see Molochyk a few times before; he was a person with nothing to him. I went to see him on a Saturday, and on the phone, all he talked about was how to gather some promiscuous women, get some vodka, and go have a good time—he wasn't interested in anything else. He says: “Why did you raise the issue of Skrypnyk, Khvylovyi, Zatonsky, and other people (who were repressed), what do you need it for? What do you want, what will you achieve?” And one bureau member says: “Just understand: can you break a concrete wall with a human head? It's impossible.”
The city committee bureau, they read the decision, I say: “Give me the floor, I have something to say.” “Should we give him the floor or not?” “But they’re expelling me from the party?” “Ah, yes, give him the floor.” As soon as I started—they interrupted me and wouldn't let me speak. In the accusation, they said I was a nationalist, anti-party, that I knew in advance what would happen in Czechoslovakia and that I was almost directing those events—that's what was written in the decision. Now appeal wherever you want—after our troops entered Czechoslovakia, there will be no mercy for you. And then a question for me, from the chief military commissar. Do you remember that chief military commissar?
V. I. Sirenko: A big mug like this. Bald head. Some Russian last name.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes. Blagov. The hall is down there, and here's the table, I'm sitting at the table. And Blagov stands up, turns to me: “Tell me, are you against us sending troops into Czechoslovakia?” And I say: “First of all, we didn't send troops, we are helping them restore order at the request of Czechoslovakia”—that was the line then. And he sees he said the wrong thing—and slumps back into his chair. There was one member of the raikom bureau there, who had studied under me at the institute, he said before this: “Borys Petrovych, I can’t be at such a city committee bureau.” And he fled from the city committee bureau meeting so as not to take part in this vote. Well, of course, they expelled me from the party.
Then—the regional party committee. At the regional party committee, it was like this. Some Prostotin handled my case, but he interrogated me very, very thoroughly, about who I was with, who my accomplices were: “Tell me, who is directing you, where did you get this from?” And then he says: “Did you write a letter?” “I did.” “And do you have the receipt?” “I do.” “Then bring me the receipt for that registered letter you wrote to the Verkhovna Rada.” I say: “I don’t know, I lost it somewhere.” I had it, but I decided not to give it to him. But later, after a year or two, I gave him the receipt, let him have it. They wanted to destroy the evidence of that letter, so it wouldn't exist in the Verkhovna Rada. I later understood that’s what they did: as soon as that letter arrived, they started watching us.
When the secretary of the regional committee asked me, “Where did you get this from?” I said that these were my convictions based on reading Lenin's work “On the Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomization,'” which states that every national republic should have its own national state language. The secretary of the regional committee slammed his fist on the table and said: “There is no such thing in Lenin!” I couldn't say anything more, I was silent, it was strange to me: in my appeal, which was written on thirty pages, I refer to Lenin—volume, page, edition, and he says there is no such thing in Lenin. And I understood that everything happening here was pure lawlessness. They talked among themselves for a bit and the secretary of the regional committee said: “Well, he should be removed from his job, stripped of his academic degree, and sent to work as a laborer.” I stand up and say: “I’m no stranger to being a laborer, I worked as a laborer from 1948 to 1959, until I became an engineer.” They thought I was some young candidate, straight from university, that I had never worked. This caused a bit of confusion, but they upheld the decision of the city party committee and expelled me from the party.
I went to Kyiv. Two months later, my appeal was reviewed by the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee of the CPU. The commission decided that there were no grounds to overturn the decision of the regional party committee, and thus, I was expelled by the Central Committee of Ukraine as well.
Then I appealed to the Central Committee of the CPSU. There, it was a slightly different matter. The instructor of the Party Control Committee, Fedir Pechenyi from Zaporizhzhia, handled my case. He sorted everything out. When I arrived, he already knew everything, and he said to me: “What kind of fools are sitting there with you? How can they expel someone like you from the party? A man who went through vocational school, worked as a laborer, attended evening school, an evening institute, correspondence postgraduate studies, became a Candidate of Sciences without any interruption, works, is preparing a doctoral dissertation without leaving his job, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, is involved in sports—and he’s expelled from the party! Who will be left there then?”—that’s what he said to me. And he says: “Borys Petrovych, I’m leaving you here, in the office, for two hours, look through your entire case, read it, see who surrounds you. Just don’t copy anything.”
I read it—and my hair stood on end: how many vile people were around me!
And when they expelled me from the party, our entire department of the Institute of Automation, 60 people, wrote a letter to the city party committee: “We believe that Dovhalyuk is being treated unfairly; Dovhalyuk is an honest, decent person, he was wrongly expelled from the party.” Everyone signed it, even the communists who had voted for the expulsion. They sent this letter to the city party committee. And what does the city party committee do? It sends a commission from the city committee to our institute department.
V. I. Sirenko: Where was Dobryk?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I don't know where Dobryk was. This commission summons each employee individually: “Write that everything in your letter is untrue.” And they write it. But there were a few people who said: “No.” They wrote honestly, decently. For example, we had a man named Zhorzh Pylypenko, a Jew, he wrote honestly: “I know him as an honest, decent person, I have never heard anything bad from him.” Sasha Fomin also wrote: “I have never heard any anti-state, anti-party statements from him.” And when they showed me all this at the Central Committee, I thought: “My God, how can you intimidate a person so much that they will write anything.” And what does this Fedir Pechenyi tell me? “I have decided to push for your reinstatement in the party, we will reinstate you. We will have a meeting with a member of the committee, Fursov, and you must behave well there. And Pelshe will lead the Party Control Committee. We will prove to Pelshe that you need to be reinstated in the party.” I was so happy, I thought everything would be fine.
And what was the most terrible thing? When they expelled me from the party, they removed me from my job, they forbade me from scientific supervision, they forbade me from teaching at the institute—I had already passed the competition to transfer to a teaching position at our technical university as an associate professor, they had already accepted me, but they—forbade it. The choice was: either I am unemployed, or I need to be reinstated in the party. So I write, because I need to work. I think, if they reinstate me, I will finish my doctoral dissertation and work. And this Pechenyi says: “We will reinstate you.” The next day—a meeting with a member of the committee. What’s interesting is that Petro Hryhorenko writes that he also met with this committee member. Hryhorenko writes: he's drunk, his eyes are glazed over, he doesn't listen to you. When I later listened to Hryhorenko's memoirs—it was the same with me. He says: “Well, speak.” I start to tell my story. He: “Well, what happened?” I think: “What should I tell him? Pechenyi seems to have told him everything, what else is there to say?” So I sat like this, Fedir Pechenyi like this, and he was at the table like that. “Well, alright, tomorrow there will be a committee meeting and we’ll sort it out there.”
We arrive, Pelshe is leading the committee. And this Fursov is sitting there. Fedir Pechenyi read out the report and proposes my reinstatement. But this Fursov, whether he was drunk or what: “No, we didn't agree on that, no, we didn't talk about that, no-no-no.” And so I was not reinstated.
I came home, and the secretary of the raikom says to me: “Come in, tell me how they handled your appeal.” I think: “Why is he so interested?” Then I appealed to the 24th Congress of the CPSU. After the congress, they send the papers to the regional committee. The regional committee demands a character reference, and then decides whether to reinstate me or not. But the character reference remained as for someone expelled from the party, that is, negative. They write about me that I am a careerist, that I am preparing to defend a doctoral dissertation, that I am a bad person. Thus, I receive a negative character reference, and the regional party committee does not reinstate me. I go to Kyiv—they don't reinstate me in Kyiv, so I go to Moscow—to the 24th Congress. Well, it's only called “to the congress”—it was after the congress. The congress had ended, but the commission continued to review all appeals for a long time. I ended up with a member of the Committee, Lazarenko, an interesting man. And again, Fedir Pechenyi handled my case. He said: “Now the congress commission will reinstate you.”
They gave me the file to read again, more papers had been added, the folder was growing, probably four centimeters thick by now. I read it and went to meet with this Lazarenko. Lazarenko respectfully—a very polite man—says to me: “We have studied your case, we see that it is such that you can be reinstated, but since you have already been rejected by the regional committee and the Central Committee of the CPU, we cannot reinstate you immediately. But I am giving you my phone numbers, you go to the secretary of the raikom and say that so-and-so, a member of the Party Control Committee of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Lazarenko, proposes to reinstate me. You need to call him, and he will tell you what to do.” I say: “No, I don't want to, it won't work.” He persuades me: “Just write a statement that my appeal should not be considered until a second request...” I resist, I don't write. Then just before the committee meeting, I finally wrote the statement, and the committee was chaired not by Pelshe, but by Lazarenko. When my statement was read, he was simply delighted and said to me: “Borys Petrovych, wait for me, come see me, I’ll talk to you.” I go to him, and he says to me: “Here are my phone numbers, go to the secretary of the raikom and ask him to call me, I’ll tell him what needs to be done to reinstate you. We will reinstate you in the party in a month, you will work normally, live normally.”
I arrive in Dniprodzerzhynsk, go to see Pushkar, and he’s waiting. I hadn't wanted to go to the congress, I said: “I don’t want to go, I don’t expect anything good from the congress.” But he said: “No, go, Borys Petrovych, maybe they will reinstate you there.” The secretary of the raikom asked me to go. I come to Pushkar—“Well, what happened?” I tell him. He swore and said: “Damn them, they gave the order to expel, so let them give the order to reinstate. Why should I take responsibility for this? I’m not going to call anywhere, because it will be my initiative. I don’t want to take the initiative, I won’t call the Central Committee of the CPSU.”
So I remained non-party, but that’s not the point, that I’m non-party—the point is that they are terrorizing my wife at work too, she works at PKhZ, a secret atomic plant. They don’t give her classified work, no promotions, low salary. As a Candidate of Sciences, I get a normal salary. They wanted to strip me of my academic degree. A commission from the regional committee, a commission from the city committee went to my scientific advisor, V. I. Loginov, to get him to write a statement that my dissertation was worthless, that I understood nothing about science, so he proposes to strip me of my academic degree of Candidate of Technical Sciences. Meanwhile, the journal “Stal” (Steel), the 11th issue, a festive one for the October holidays, in color, came out, and on the first page was a major scientific article by Candidate of Technical Sciences Borys Petrovych Dovhalyuk. And “Stal” was one of the leading metallurgical journals of the USSR, it was translated into foreign languages—German, English, and others. I was told that Loginov took this journal, went to the secretary of the city party committee, threw it on his desk and said: “Here, read it. You say his dissertation is worthless, and look what journals are publishing him. I,” he said, “am not going to get involved in this.”
Then they went to Moscow, to the world-renowned scientist Anatoliy Mykolayovych Pokhvisnev. He was an interesting man, had suffered a lot from these communists. He was from Russia himself, but before the war he worked in Ukraine, in Dnipropetrovsk, knew Ukrainian, and even told me about Ukrainization in Ukrainian. He answered me in Ukrainian. His fate was like this. His brother, Mykola Mykolayovych, was two years older than him, in 1914 they were both called up for military service—his brother was taken, became an officer, but Anatoliy was not taken for military service, he turned out to be ill, so he became a scientist. And after the civil war, his brother, a colonel in the White Army, ended up in Western Ukraine. In 1939, when Berestechko was liberated—he lived in Berestechko—Anatoliy said he thought he would be imprisoned for concealing the presence of a brother abroad. But then the war started, Anatoliy moved with the metallurgical institute to Magnitogorsk, and then at the end of the war to Moscow, where he headed the department of ore-thermal processes at the Institute of Steel and Alloys. When this delegation from Dnipropetrovsk came to this professor, as I was told, he kicked them out, wouldn’t even talk to them. I remained a Candidate of Sciences thanks to the fact that my advisor, Loginov, turned out to be a decent man. And the opponent of my dissertation, Professor Pokhvisnev, who lived to be 87, had a clear mind, spoke at conferences at the age of 85, was also a very decent man. May his memory be eternal.
So I remained a Candidate of Sciences. But at work, they didn't let me work freely—they controlled my every step. But at the factories I worked with, everything went well for me. We would arrive at a factory—there would be someone from the NDIAChormet institute, he was considered the boss, but no one talked to him, they talked to me because I was the scientific director and executor of the work.
Then there was the 25th Congress—I wrote an appeal again, and again nothing came of it. The 26th Congress—also nothing.
And then—the Party Conference in 1988. For the Party Conference, I wrote one sentence, that I was unjustifiably expelled from the party, practically repressed for almost twenty years. And this appeal was sent, of course, to the regional committee, but I was already working at the teaching institute...
Ah, I want to add something before that. When I wrote an appeal to the 26th Congress and was again not reinstated in the party... And they didn't reinstate me because I went to... Do you remember, Volodia, there was a man named Vasilyev in the regional committee, the secretary of the regional party committee? Before writing the appeal, I went to him, we talked. I said: “I won’t write any more appeals, because they aren’t genuinely considered there. Whatever character reference the primary organization gives, that’s the decision that’s made. It’s all a lie that the party congress considers appeals.” He says: “Everything will be normal, write it, I am in favor of us reinstating you in the party and I will help you get an objective character reference.” My appeal came from the congress, and Vasilyev is not at the regional committee bureau. So I submit a statement: I request to postpone the consideration of my appeal. In the hope that Vasilyev will return, then we will sort it out. He was ill. But they disregard my statement, considered my appeal without me, and did not reinstate me in the party. An instructor from the regional committee comes to my work and tells me I was not reinstated, and I say to his face: “Well, you people there,” I say, “have grown into your chairs, you don’t care about anything—not about a person, not about the truth, you don't care about real life. I’ll just quit all this, what the hell do I need all this for. I’m a propagandist for you, I’m a shock worker of communist labor for you, I’m working on a doctoral dissertation—I’ll quit all this,” I say, “I’ll go work as a shepherd, I won’t do any work with you.” I said that and went on vacation to the North Caucasus for treatment. I had a little trouble with my digestion. I return—the director of the institute has fired me. I’m unemployed. They couldn’t stand the little bit of criticism I expressed to that instructor’s face—about the kind of people sitting in the regional party committee.
I was acquainted with Borys Vasylyovych Shcherbytsky, the brother of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky. He worked at our metallurgical plant, and I helped him with his Ph.D. dissertation. By the time I was fired, he had already moved to Kyiv and was working at the Institute of Economics. I called him and told him what had happened. “Have they,” he said, “gone mad?” I don’t know how it happened, but something was sent to the city party committee... I had wanted to go teach at the institute, but Loginov said: “We can’t hire you. The decision of the district party committee states: ‘To forbid work as a lecturer in a teaching institute.’ I can’t hire you. Unless you can get the district committee's decision overturned...” And so a paper came through Borys Shcherbytsky. Volodymyr might not have even known about it. Borys had great influence even without his brother. I went to work in scientific research as a research associate. Then one lecturer went on a business trip abroad, and by the rector’s order (this position is filled by competition, which requires a character reference, and mine was a “wolf’s ticket,” negative, I was almost an enemy of the state), I was appointed an associate professor, since I had a Certificate from the USSR Higher Attestation Commission (VAK) as a “senior research associate.” Then I was elected as an associate professor. I work, of course, on my doctoral dissertation, I have a large volume of research work, a large R&D sector with contracts worth over 200,000 rubles a year. Everything is fine for me.
When the 19th Party Conference came, I submitted an appeal stating that I request to be reinstated in the party, as I had been effectively repressed. I could not realize my abilities because I was not a member of the party. And what do you think? They summon me directly to the Central Committee of the CPU. I arrive there: my file is even bigger. They ask me: “Do you want to read it?” I say: “I’ll read it.” I was curious to know what was in it...
Ah, there was another interesting event. When I came to work at the teaching institute, a lawyer, also a research associate, was sitting in the library's reading room. He says: “Here’s our hero.” “Oh, come on, what are you talking about?” “I know you’re a hero. You were expelled from the party, but you’re still fighting. You’re a great guy,” he says. And how does he, a lawyer from the institute, know me? Who is he? I ask, and he says: “I was working at the district party committee back then, you should know me.” “No, I don’t know you,” I say. And then, a few years later—stop, I think, this must be the guy who wrote that thing about me and “Sobor”! When I went to the Central Committee of the CPU in 1988, I thought, let me see who among the communists signed that statement that Dovhalyuk conducted anti-party agitation by imposing a discussion about “Sobor.” I look—it’s him, this same lecturer, the institute’s lawyer, Leonid Rudin. I returned from Kyiv and told my friends about him. “Ah, that’s just like him,” they say. They reinstated me there, but that Zavatskyi wrote to the Central Committee again, saying I shouldn’t be reinstated even now, after the conference.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: What year was this 19th Party Conference?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: 1988. The Party Conference reinstated me. I return home, work for about six months, and then I submit a statement:
“To the primary organization of the CPU of the Faculty of Technology of the DII
From B. P. Dovhalyuk
If only all the deceived could see,
If only all the murdered could come back to life…
V. Symonenko
Statement.
The criminal activity of the CPSU knows no bounds. As a result of this activity, the economy, agriculture, culture, education, ecology, medicine, and the spirituality of the people have been brought to a catastrophe. The perestroika, declared by the party leadership, is now being hindered by this very same leadership. This is evident in how the elections of people's deputies to the people's councils were conducted in 1990 in Ukraine and Russia, and in the attitude of the party leadership in Moscow, Leningrad, Lviv, and other cities towards truly people's councils. The Central Committee of the CPU is heading for confrontation with democratic forces, effectively fanning inter-ethnic clashes, and does not care about the interests of the working people of Ukraine. The elections of delegates to the 28th congresses of the CPU and the CPSU at the institute showed the absence of perestroika in the party. The party leadership has not condemned all the crimes of the past 72 years, has not repented before the people for these crimes, and wants to continue leading society. Under such circumstances, I cannot support the party's policy and am leaving its ranks of my own free will.
06/04/90 B. P. Dovhalyuk”..
And I left it.
But life goes on, and there are already many people in the city thinking about the fate of Ukraine, how it will develop. Even earlier, when I was traveling to the Central Committee, through Volodymyr Sirenko, through Mykola Kucher, I became acquainted with Borys Dmytrovych Antonenko-Davydovych, I was already acquainted with Ivan Benedyktovych Brovko, with Vasyl Skrypka, Oleksiy Stavytskyi, and when Mr. Yevhen Sverstyuk returned from exile, I became closely acquainted with him as well.
The cause of our lives was not dying; we had a task before us. As Volodia Sirenko used to say, and we believe it: “We are Ukrainians, we must, wherever we are, dress cleanly, neatly—in trams, buses, electric trains—and speak only Ukrainian.” And we did this. Everywhere I went, I spoke only Ukrainian. I get on an electric train, go to Dnipropetrovsk (in the morning), and in the evening to Dniprodzerzhynsk, and I start a conversation with passengers in Ukrainian. They answer me in Russian. At first, they talk to me in Russian, and I in Ukrainian, and then they switch to Ukrainian, almost always. In this way, we carried the word wherever we could. Borys Dmytrovych helped us greatly with ideas. I must have been at his place a hundred times.
V. I. Sirenko: Do you remember how you got to his place? You were going to Kyiv, and he was extremely cautious about receiving strangers, so I wrote a note.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, yes.
V. I. Sirenko: Borys was going to Kyiv, and Borys Dmytrovych was sometimes reckless...
Wife: He wasn't entirely trusting.
V. I. Sirenko: I said: “Go see this man, I’ll write a note.” I wrote, “Please receive this good man.” That's how Oleksiy Klymenko also visited him. Dovhalyuk came to Borys Dmytrovych with the note—and he received him immediately. I don’t know, but how did you meet Brovko?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Well, of course, through Vasyl Skrypka.
V. I. Sirenko: Ah, through Vasyl Skrypka, yes. That's how he got to Borys Dmytrovych.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I must have been at Borys Dmytrovych's place a hundred times.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: He died on May 9, 1984, so during what period did you visit him?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Volodymyr Sirenko and I were at his funeral together.
V. I. Sirenko: I called Dovhalyuk and told him about the funeral.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: We had been communicating with him since about 1975.
V. I. Sirenko: I don’t remember, did we drive to the funeral by car?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: By car. We went in my car. I had been communicating with him since about 1975–1976. At the institute, things had quieted down a bit, probably because I had met Shcherbytsky’s brother, and he said: “Enough repressing him.” They gave me the opportunity to work, I was a research associate, the head of major scientific projects, I planned business trips, I planned the distribution of finances, I could go to Kyiv whenever I needed to.
So I would come to Kyiv on a business trip, check into a hotel, and call: “Borys Dmytrovych, when can I come to see you?” He always told me to come in the afternoon, after three o'clock, and would set a date. His apartment was on Lenin Street. And behind the Opera House, there was a good grocery store. I go into the grocery store, buy, as a rule, half a kilo of one kind of sausage, another, half a kilo of butter, half a kilo of cheese, I take a liter bottle of vodka—my wife didn't know where I was spending the money—and I bring these big tomatoes from home. I go to his place, give my briefcase to his wife. Volodymyr had told me that he only had a pension of one hundred rubles and no other help. I thought it would be awkward to give money, so I would help him a little with food. So I'd come, his wife would lay everything out, prepare the table, and Borys Dmytrovych would read. He was writing his memoirs. He would read me one chapter, then another, or tell me something. And this happened very, very many times.
Wife: He was teaching.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Teaching, of course. It was there that I got to know Levko Lukyanenko in absentia, in fact—he showed me his photograph. He showed me a photograph of Mykola Rudenko.
Then in Kyiv, Volodia Sirenko introduced me to Oksana Meshko. We went to her home with him. One time, a whole group of us gathered in Kyiv. It was Borys Dmytrovych's birthday, and we wanted to go out to the forest in Obolon.
V. I. Sirenko: To take Borys Dmytrovych out into nature.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, into nature. Mykola Vasyleha from Zaporizhzhia was there, Oleksiy Stavytskyi, Mykola Kucher, Ivan Brovko, and others. We gathered at Vasyl Skrypka’s apartment. And in the morning, Volodia says: “Let’s go to Meshko’s.” Skrypka and everyone else tell him: “We shouldn’t go, because they’re watching there, it will be dangerous.”
V. I. Sirenko: Constant surveillance.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I say: “Maybe we shouldn’t go?” “If you don’t go, I’ll go by myself!” I think: “Well, I’ll go too.” We get into my car and drive from the left bank to her place, along Zhytomyrska, then down to Podil, we even asked a policeman how to get to Verbolozna Street—he told us. We parked the car somewhere far away, went into her yard, and started talking. We talked and talked about this and that...
V. I. Sirenko: She, remember, pointed to the gable of the house opposite, and you could see a camera there.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: She says: “They’re watching from there, so be careful, don’t say everything, say something completely different.” We talked and talked, and she said: “Volodia, write a code of the nationalist.” Do you remember she said that?
V. I. Sirenko: That was already in the car. She said: “Let’s go to the car.”
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, yes, yes. We went to the car and started driving around. She says: “Write a code of the nationalist or patriot.” “But I’m a poet.” I say: “Write it.” And he: “But I’m a poet...” “No, write the code,” she insisted. She told us how the KGB was watching her, how she broke away to go to Moscow: she left her house through the gardens—and went to Moscow.
As soon as we left her place, I say: “Volodia, look...”
V. I. Sirenko: Velyka Zhytomyrska Street...
B. P. Dovhalyuk: That same policeman is standing all the way on Velyka Zhytomyrska. Volodia says: “That’s not him.” “No, it probably is.” Then he—waves—stops us, says: “Where were you? Over there, on Shevchenko Square, a woman was hit by a car.”
V. I. Sirenko: “A car just like this hit a woman there.”
B. P. Dovhalyuk: And I say: “But we weren’t even there, on that square, we didn’t hit anyone.”
V. I. Sirenko: No, I said right away: “You know where we were—we were on Verbolozna at Meshko’s.”
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes. To make a long story short, a tough-looking character approaches, a huge guy in civilian clothes, and says: “Yes, yes, it’s them, take them in.” And this traffic cop gets into our car...
V. I. Sirenko: And the other guy tries to get in too.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: And the other guy tries to get in too.
V. I. Sirenko: I say: “And you, don't get in—who are you?”
B. P. Dovhalyuk: We drive to the police station. Somewhere there on Lenin Street, on the hills, there is a police station. Right away: “Lock the car and come with us.” We locked the car and went.
V. I. Sirenko: They took us inside, and I went to check if they were searching the car. We went to the restroom, and a major followed us.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: They held us for a while and then let us go.
V. I. Sirenko: No, they established who we were and where we were from—from our driver's licenses, from our passports.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: I’m saying it now and I said it to Volodia the next day, that they probably, when we parked the car and went to Meshko's, put a listening device in the car, and they needed to retrieve it, that's why they detained us.
V. I. Sirenko: I told you it was the hands of the KGB, and you said: oh no, it's a coincidence. When we told Borys Dmytrovych, he burst out laughing and said: “What coincidence?!”
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Yes, yes, that’s how it was.
So we gathered in the meadow...
V. I. Sirenko: We still picked up Borys Dmytrovych anyway.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: We picked up Borys Dmytrovych, went to a meadow, it was beautiful. But to prevent KGB agents from infiltrating, we had two guards: Sirko and Brovko. They walked around and kept watch.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: And who is this Sirko?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: He was just joking: Sirko and Brovko—Sirenko and Ivan Benedyktovych Brovko.
V. I. Sirenko: Two dogs.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: They were laughing themselves. We went swimming there, then set a big table in the meadow, sat down in our swimming trunks.
V. I. Sirenko: We laid out the food, and Borys Dmytrovych sat on a stump and started telling stories—we even forgot about the food...
B. P. Dovhalyuk: What do you mean, we drank and ate everything.
V. I. Sirenko: No, we didn't sit down for a long time.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Borys Dmytrovych was talking about the SVU (Union for the Liberation of Ukraine)—he was a defendant in that case. He told us about Ataman Zelenyi, how they threw the communists into the Dnipro.
V. I. Sirenko: They call it the Trypillia Tragedy.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: The Trypillia Tragedy. He said that after that Trypillia Tragedy, he was walking through the villages as a hunter and came across a watchman. The old man sang a song about this Zelenyi, and there were such words: "Пливуть Дніпром комуністи спілі і не спілі, – не хоче їх риба їсти, бо осточортіли" (“спілі”—ripe—means full party members, and “не спілі”—unripe—means candidates). That's how Zelenyi mocked the communists.
V. I. Sirenko: I want to say this about Borys. In those times, many dissidents, so-called human rights defenders, when they began to be suppressed, avoided any contact with people—they withdrew into themselves, crawled under sofas. But Borys, in those times, never avoided any meetings. We traveled with him to Meshko's and to Borys Dmytrovych's. In those days, it was dangerous even to stay at Brovko's.
Y. O. Dovhalyuk: And he went to Shevchenko's grave.
V. I. Sirenko: Yes, and to Shevchenko's grave. So, returning from Kyiv, we stopped in Kaniv at T. H. Shevchenko's grave, where we met the kobzar Chupryna. Borys did not shut himself off, he was not afraid, he did not crawl under the sofa—that is the most valuable thing. That is, he remained himself.
Y. O. Dovhalyuk: A “ripe” nationalist.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: Those were remarks from Sirenko and Mrs. Yevhenia.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Thank you, that's probably how it was. It’s hard to list all my meetings with Borys Dmytrovych, Ivan Benedyktovych, Vasyl Skrypka, as I often stayed with them. But I tried not to spend the night at Borys Dmytrovych's home. I would take a business trip, stay in a hotel, and come to him from the hotel. But at Ivan Benedyktovych's, we would sit up in the evenings until one in the morning and longer. Borys Dmytrovych told me many interesting things, and this, of course, was a great school of upbringing. And when Yevhen Sverstyuk appeared, we met with him too. Once, Mykola Kucher and I traveled through Western Ukraine, visited Lviv, visited Zakarpattia, and met very interesting people—this also influenced my national consciousness.
In Dniprodzerzhynsk, we already had a core group: Volodia, me, Klymenko, Kucher—this foursome. Mostly Kucher, me, and Sirenko. We often traveled by electric train to Dnipropetrovsk, met up, Volodia worked at the same institute as I did, we had a lot in common, we communicated the most. Around 1989, at Volodymyr's apartment, we began to develop the idea of how to create the Ukrainian Language Society. At first, we gathered at his apartment, and then we gathered at the Railway Workers' Palace of Culture. Remember, Volodia?
On March 3, 1989, I organized a meeting at our institute—I went around to all those who were interested. We created the Ukrainian Language Society.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: What is the name of this institute?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Now it's called the Dniprodzerzhynsk State Technical University (DDTU), but back then it was called the Dniprodzerzhynsk Industrial Institute (DII). I opened and chaired the meeting, gave an introductory speech about the importance of the Ukrainian language, we elected a council, and it began its work. Then, on my initiative and Volodia's, we organized the Dniprodzerzhynsk city organization.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: April 1, 2001, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Mr. Borys Dovhalyuk continues. Tape two. This is Mrs. Yevhenia.
Y. O. Dovhalyuk: And at work, they told me: “It would be better if he went out carousing, got drunk, instead of dealing with these nationalist issues. What is he looking for, what does he need, what is he missing? The Communist Party raised him!” And everything started to put pressure on me—I wasn't getting promoted at work, even though they said I had a smart head, good hands, worked as a designer, but there would be no advancement for this nationalist woman, period.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: So, Volodymyr and I gathered a group that created the Ukrainian Language Society of the city of Dniprodzerzhynsk. We went to schools, technical colleges, enterprises, sought out patriots of Ukraine, and invited them to an organizational conference. And we scheduled the conference for June 1989. I gave the opening remarks and chaired the conference. Volodymyr Sirenko gave a major speech. At this conference, we elected a council for the city branch; the council included Volodia Sirenko, Oleksiy Klymenko, me, and other people, about twenty in all. Two days later, there was a council meeting where I was elected chairman of the local branch of the “Prosvita” society—at that time, it was called TUM (Ukrainian Language Society). I was the chairman until 1993, and then I was finishing my doctoral dissertation, so I left that position.
The “Prosvita” society worked at the university, we did fruitful work. We raised the issue of transitioning the educational process to Ukrainian. We approached the rector, the vice-rectors. At our insistence, the rector issued an order to conduct the educational process only in Ukrainian. Of course, not everyone follows the order, so we are planning to go to the rector and submit a list of those lecturers who do not comply with the rector's order.
I was one of the organizers of the People's Movement (Narodnyi Rukh) here in Dniprodzerzhynsk. I was a delegate to the first, second, and third congresses of the Rukh, and when the Rukh split at the third congress, I left it. Then I was an organizer of the KUN (Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists) in Dniprodzerzhynsk. I tried to be where the action was. I was an organizer in Dniprodzerzhynsk of the Democratic Party, the Ukrainian Republican Party, and was even a delegate to the founding congress of the URP.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: So you created all the parties here?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: How so? I simply organized people in “Prosvita,” gave them work. But now I have this thought. The URP, KUN, OUN, the two Rukhs, “Sobor,” and the offshoot of the URP—they should have united long ago to create one single, powerful, nationally conscious democratic party. The main goal of this party should be Ukraine.
About three years ago—this was in 1997—I wrote a letter and sent it to various newspapers—“Literaturna Ukraina,” “Shlyakh Peremohy,” probably “Ukrainska Hazeta”—I don't remember where else. It was an open letter to the most authoritative figures. I probably named Mr. Ovsiyenko there too, I don't remember anymore. Lukyanenko and Chornovil were at the top of the list. I wrote to all of them: “The 1998 elections to the Verkhovna Rada are approaching. It is imperative to act as a united national-patriotic front to win these elections.” There was still more than a year until those elections. I wrote: if any of you say that we cannot unite because we have different platforms, different programs—then don’t lie, because then you are interested not in Ukraine, but in the personal positions you dream of obtaining through this or that party. If you were thinking about Ukraine, you would unite, and we would have one powerful party. But not a single newspaper printed this letter. I later spoke about this to Plavyuk, I said this to Mrs. Stetsko when she was here in Dniprodzerzhynsk, I said this to Levko Lukyanenko as well. Plavyuk was for unification, Levko was for unification, but Slava Stetsko said exactly what I had written: “But we have different platforms, different programs—how can we unite?” That’s what she said. I didn’t like that, and after that, I don’t even subscribe to or read the newspaper “Shlyakh Peremohy,” although I used to subscribe to and read it. Now I read “Ukrainska Hazeta,” “Ukrainske Slovo,” “Samostiyna Ukraina,” “Literaturna Ukraina,” and to keep up with state events, also “Holos Ukrainy.”
Now, of course, is a very crucial era. It will depend on how the right-wing forces rally. If we rally for the 2002 elections, maybe we can do something, but if not, then maybe things will get even worse. It is known that Udovenko will not unite, because he, it seems to me, is Kuchma’s appointee, he will carry out his will and will never come out with any oppositionist ideas against him, but will always support Kuchma. How to unite, I don’t know. I am currently a member of the OUN, a member of “Prosvita,” and a member of the URP, the head of the city branch of the URP. I was at the URP congress, met with Horyn there, I say: “Mr. Mykhailo, I have spoken with you before, and I want to say now: well, let’s unite, how long can this go on! How long can we keep dividing this URP?” I said the same thing to Khmara, the same thing to Serhiyenko back then. Well, and Serhiyenko—I remember how you and I, Mr. Vasyl, were traveling to Prague, we got on the train, and he forgot his passport! I don’t consider him a serious person at all. So he went with Khmara, then created his own party—what kind of party did he end up with...
V. V. Ovsiyenko: So he didn't go to Prague then?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: He didn't go. He forgot his passport. He said he would catch up, but he never did. You’re going abroad—and you don't take your passport! He was at the URP congress. I spoke there. I didn't like Shandryuk (Oleksandr Ivanovych Shandryuk, b. 1953, People's Deputy 1994-98, head of the URP 1998-2000) for a long time. Why? When there was the congress that supported Yevhen Marchuk for president, we came to Kyiv by bus. The delegates were gathering. I read in some newspaper that Shandryuk was acquainted with Borys Dmytrovych Antonenko-Davydovych. And I became curious how he knew him. There was this advertisement that Shandryuk was such a dissident, he had met with Borys Dmytrovych. Out of respect for Borys Dmytrovych, I developed respect for Shandryuk as well. I approach him, introduce myself, ask: “Are you acquainted with Borys Dmytrovych?” “Acquainted.” “I am also acquainted.” And I told him how many times I had been at Borys Dmytrovych's, what we talked about. Shandryuk immediately, in a tone as if he wanted to distance himself from me, said: “No, I’m not that close to him, I’m less acquainted with him. But when he asked me to talk to his son Yevhen, I immediately broke off all relations with him.” And with his son, the situation was this. The son, probably due to a KGB provocation, got involved in currency speculation, so they, the KGB agents, had him on a leash and wanted him to somehow influence Borys Dmytrovych. I think that when Borys Dmytrovych found out that Shandryuk knew his son, he asked him to talk to his son to get him out of that company, to stop dealing with those dollars, but Shandryuk refused. And that immediately turned me off him: if you wish this person well, why wouldn't you talk to his son? I would have talked, if he had asked me to do it. It’s always done that way. The child sees that the parents’ era is ending, and Shandryuk is about the same age as Borys Dmytrovych’s son. And you know what happened to Borys Dmytrovych’s son, right?
V. V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, very roughly.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: Later he was arrested, he wrote a statement in which he spoke out against Borys Dmytrovych. His wife died because of this.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: There was some dirty publication in the press...
B. P. Dovhalyuk: There was no publication, but Borys Dmytrovych's wife died because of it, she couldn't bear that her son had spoken out against his father.
Shandryuk, of course, destroyed the URP. At the URP congress, I supported Levko Lukyanenko at this stage. Levko Lukyanenko is still the authority, honor, and conscience of the URP, compared to Shandryuk... Such a series of events. We recently had a regional conference, we elected a new head of the regional organization—Taratushko, a retired colonel. We will work. We will build a right-wing force. Yesterday there was a city meeting of all national-democratic parties and organizations. We decided to create a right-wing force in the city, even regardless of whether the party leaders are for it. Especially Udovenko's Rukh. Everyone knows that Udovenko is very cautious, he doesn't speak out where the government is criticized. Some Rukh members even said they would leave it in order to create a right-wing force.
V. V. Ovsiyenko: Mr. Borys, please tell us about your family.
B. P. Dovhalyuk: My wife is Yevhenia Oleksiivna. Her maiden name is Krysa. She graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Industrial Technical College, and then by correspondence from the Kharkiv Construction Institute with a degree in “heat and gas supply and ventilation.”
V. V. Ovsiyenko: And when did you get married?
B. P. Dovhalyuk: We got married in 1956. We have two children. Our daughter, Valentyna, was born in 1956. Our son, Vitaliy, was born in 1960. My son currently works as an architect in Dnipropetrovsk, he has a private firm, they are involved in designing and constructing buildings and offices. My son is married, but they don't have any grandchildren yet. (As of today, there is already a granddaughter.) My daughter has two children—a son, Artem, who is graduating from the institute this year, and a daughter, Alina, who has just enrolled as a first-year student at the Metallurgical Academy, in the faculty of economics, finance, and credit. She graduated from school with a gold medal. My daughter graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Construction Institute in her mother's profession—“heat and gas supply and ventilation,” but then PKhZ. Where she used to work, everything is now destroyed, so she works at the tax inspectorate. She completed an accelerated program in economics. My wife is already retired.
Ye.O. Dovhaliuk: She bakes pastries.
B.P. Dovhaliuk: She bakes pastries, she cooks, we keep a garden. If you had come in the summer, you could have gone for a swim here. Sverstiuk was here, Ivan Benedyktovych was here too. They stayed in the attic, swam, and sunbathed. She retired early because she couldn't stand the abuse at work. It was real exploitation. Disrespect because I was expelled from the Party. She didn't even receive her pension; she only started getting it five years later. And now I work as a professor at the Department of Automation and Industrial Electronics. I supervise graduate students and thesis students, write articles, books, and monographs, and I think I'll keep working. I don't know what will happen with my civic and political activities because it's very difficult to rally people; our nation has become so indifferent to everything. This is because they have not yet freed themselves from that slavery; they don't even understand what to do or how to do it.
Of course, I educate my students. I usually do it like this. I come to a lecture. For about seven or eight minutes, I talk about the most current events, guiding them to do what is best for a Ukrainian Ukraine. I tell them: we don't need a Russian Ukraine, we need a Ukrainian Ukraine. We will do everything to make Ukrainian the state language. Since 1990, I have taught exclusively in Ukrainian, and all my students' theses are in Ukrainian. Of course, students come to me and say, “But we don't know Ukrainian.” I tell them, “My dear friends, the Law on Language has been in effect for ten years—now eleven years—there is a ruling from the Constitutional Court, and our country is Ukraine. Is it possible for universities in France to teach in English or German? Is it possible for teaching in Russia to be in Ukrainian? No, you must know the language.” And I never get any objections from the students. They just say, “We agree, but why don't other professors lecture in Ukrainian? If everyone taught in Ukrainian, we would know the language well by now, but instead, other professors Russify us.” That's the situation.
V.V. Ovsienko: Alright, thank you, Mr. Borys. This has been the story of Mr. Borys Dovhaliuk on April 1, 2001, in the city of Kamianske...
B.P. Dovhaliuk: In Dniprodzerzhynsk.
V.V. Ovsienko: Dniprodzerzhynsk? Kamianske. Right? Let me tell you, on the second of March, my village reclaimed its historical name, Stavky. It had been called Lenino since 1924. So it's time for you to achieve the return of your historical name too. Right?
B.P. Dovhaliuk: That's our position. We raised the issue with the city executive committee, we even wrote a letter to the President—I initiated that letter myself—we even wrote to the Verkhovna Rada, but this problem is not being solved because, in most cases, the people in power, both locally and centrally, are the former communist nomenklatura, and they don't want to do it.
V.V. Ovsienko: Someday they will give in.
B.P. Dovhaliuk: Yes, of course they will.
V.V. Ovsienko: Thank you.
Dovhaliuk continues.
B.P. Dovhaliuk: Sirenko and Kucher introduced us to the latest literary works by authors like Symonenko, Lina Kostenko, and Mykola Rudenko. I remember buying Rudenko's works, which contained poems like this: “Тут на чорне кажуть – біле, на безділля кажуть – діло, слава – кажуть на ганьбу, вуха мають за губу. І на рота, і на вуха вішають замки – не слуха хай ніхто крамольних слів, тут освячують ослів, і ведуть їх у палати, роблять членами сенату, під трибу-нами звиса добрий кошик для вівса.” And so, whenever someone at a congress gets up and shouts in support of Brezhnev, or Kuchma, or someone else, we say, “Oh, what a big basket of oats is hanging there!”
When Honchar's The Cathedral was published, we began to distribute it among the people. For example, this work even reached the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys through me. It was read at the Department of Ore-Thermal Processes, where I had colleagues I knew. I defended my dissertation there, and after that, they became like spiritual brothers to me, sworn brothers. They read that book for almost a year and asked to keep it forever. But I couldn't leave it permanently; I was expelled from the Party because of that book, so it's memorable for me. Then came the poems of Vasyl Symonenko, Lina Kostenko, and our other authors. I personally sent books to the Ural Polytechnic Institute in the city of Sverdlovsk. And when we had a meeting in Dnipropetrovsk and they came, I brought them a whole briefcase full of these books. They were so grateful, saying that there was nothing like it in Russia at the time—they loved the poems of Symonenko, Lina Kostenko, and Mykola Rudenko so much. They were very pleased. They said that the ecological problems Honchar raised in The Cathedral were not raised in Russia for a long time after that.
I worked at a factory, among the workers. When I was implementing my systems, I talked with almost everyone about the problems of Ukraine's independence and Ukrainian statehood. Of course, when I transferred to the Dniprodzerzhynsk Industrial Institute (now a technical university)—the director hired me at the request of Borys Vasylyovych Shcherbytsky—I had to be very careful. But I couldn't behave like that for long; I could only ever be myself. And so, one day the rector ran into me and said, “You’ve been chattering a lot, haven’t you?” But he told me this in the hallway, not in his office. We were walking down the corridor, he took me by the arm, and that’s what he said. I told him, “Volodymyr Ivanovych, I won't let you down anymore, I won't chatter anymore, I'll be careful.” He said, “No, no, you’re not letting me down, you’re letting yourself down. You have to understand that every third employee at this institute is a KGB informant. Be careful.” And this was the rector telling me this, you understand? And he said it in the hallway, not in a room. He was probably afraid his office was bugged too. And I remembered those words for the rest of my life—that's how it was. It's terrifying. I'm not sure that this isn't starting up again, that we aren't being watched.
People say I was in opposition to the Soviet regime, that I never kept silent. I say that I'm still in opposition to the government now. They ask, “So what are you? Back then you were against the communists, now you're against this system, criticizing it.” I say that I have always stood for building a just, normal Ukrainian state where everyone could live well. And if there is any injustice, any corruption, any abuse of power by the authorities, I will always speak out against it.
We now have a council of all parties and public organizations under the mayor. I am invited there as the head of the Ukrainian Republican Party's local organization. I always speak there on current issues, for example, on the language situation in the city, the language of instruction, and the economy.
In Dniprodzerzhynsk, this is the situation. The blast furnaces were using a lot of natural gas. Natural gas is used to replace coke, but in those years—1997–98, and probably still now—natural gas was very expensive, and using it in blast furnaces is a great crime. I calculated and submitted a report to the DMK, the Dnipro Metallurgical Combine, stating that one blast furnace wastes 22–25 million hryvnias a year, and with five such furnaces, that's over one hundred million hryvnias they are wasting because they use natural gas. I told the mayor about this. These people are working inefficiently. Is there something they don't understand?
I also raised the issue of the language of instruction in schools and universities, and the language of communication in the city council. While meetings used to be held in Russian, now they are held exclusively in Ukrainian. As soon as I walk in, everyone knows I'm going to demand that the meeting be held in Ukrainian.
V.V. Ovsienko: Thank you.
B.P. Dovhaliuk: I want to add something else. When we were driving in a car with Oksana Meshko, she suggested that Volodia Sirenko write a “nationalist's codex.” Volodia refused. Later, we got home, and I said to him, “Write this codex, how hard can it be for you?” He replied, “But I’m a poet, I don’t know how to write that.” The next time I was going to Kyiv, he asked me to go to Meshko and tell her that Sirenko would not be writing the codex. So I went to Oksana Meshko's. I walked, I remember, from the Institute of Automation in the Podil district. It was October, already cold. I went into her house. She motioned to me that she was being watched and suggested we communicate using a magic slate: you write something, read it, lift the film, and the message disappears. I wrote and she wrote, while out loud we talked about completely different, trivial things; we laughed, and all the while we were exchanging information. She wrote that I should go to Dnipropetrovsk to see Mykola Bereslavsky, and he should tell Vitaliy Kalynychenko in Vasylkivka not to receive a certain person, because he was a provocateur. She repeated this to me, saying the message had to be delivered immediately, by November 10. This Vitaliy Kalynychenko was a dissident. I told Sirenko about this, and Volodia traveled to Dnipropetrovsk for work every day. He contacted Bereslavsky and told him. Bereslavsky didn't believe it and called me a provocateur. I was outraged by this. So Volodymyr Sirenko and I drove to his place, and I recounted my conversation with Meshko. Later, Oksana Meshko was arrested, and when she was released and returned to Kyiv, I met her during the “Chain of Unity.” She recognized me, took my hand, and we walked along the chain near St. Sophia's Cathedral all day. Ivan Benedyktovych was with us. So I asked if Ms. Oksana remembered this. She said, “Of course, I remember.” I said, “Well, you know, he called me a provocateur.” “What, has he lost his mind?” That’s what she said about Bereslavsky. I never met with Bereslavsky again.
V.V. Ovsienko: End of Dovhaliuk's account.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group
Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko on April 1, 2001. Edited March 9–26, 2007. Corrected by B. Dovhaliuk on June 25, 2007.
Borys DOVHALIUK. Photo by V. Ovsienko. Film no. 3482, frame 30. April 1, 2001. Dniprodzerzhynsk.
At the Dovhaliuks’ home: Vasyl OVSIENKO, Yevhenia Oleksiivna DOVHALIUK-KRYSA, Borys DOVHALIUK, Volodymyr SIRENKO. Photo by V. Ovsienko: Film no. 3482, frame 29. April 1, 2001, Dniprodzerzhynsk.
