In 1988, he was still in a labor camp… But the then-leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, was constantly being asked—including by U.S. President Ronald Reagan—how he could speak of “perestroika” while political prisoners of the communist regime had not yet been released. And so, in his 16th year in the camps, Mykola Horbal was released. And what a release it was! The KGB of the Ukrainian SSR flew Horbal from the Perm colony to Ukraine by plane. Today, Mykola Horbal, a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, turns 80. Radio Svoboda asked the celebrated figure for his views on current events.
– How do you assess what is happening in Belarus?
– You know, when I was in the political labor camps, there were no Belarusians among us. And we used to say among ourselves that this meant there was no such nation. Because a nation does not exist if there are no people ready to fight for its freedom, ready to defend dignity and justice.
And that is why I am now very impressed!
The Belarusian nation exists! It exists because so many people want to achieve truth and are taking to the streets, despite the brutality and lawlessness of Lukashenka’s security forces.
– And what do you think about Ukraine?
– Allow me a comparison. In 1972, the KGB launched a total cleanup of “samvydav.” Everyone who wrote texts about the real state of affairs in the USSR, everyone who rewrote these texts by hand, everyone who read and distributed them—they were persecuted and punished.
The KGB thought that by destroying “samvydav,” they would ensure peace for themselves for decades.
But four years later, the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was formed.
I was in exile in the Tomsk region at the time. Things were relatively normal there, and I was able to listen to Radio Liberty in secret. When I found out about the UHG, I realized that this was exactly what was needed at the time. And I declared that I was joining this human rights movement.
So, there were only 41 of us. Forty-one people out of a population of 54 million openly agreed to collect and disseminate information that the punitive bodies of the USSR were violating not only the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also Soviet laws themselves.
And in Ukraine now, there are tens, hundreds of thousands of people ready to fight for truth, dignity, and justice. They proved this on the Maidan, they proved it on the front lines, and they are proving it now.
When I look into the faces of young people, I feel completely confident that everything will be fine with Ukraine.
The KGB at that time could not cope with a handful of UHG members, and its modern-day followers will not be able to do anything to Ukraine now either.
– But among those who participated in the Revolution of Dignity and among combat participants, there are now disillusioned people.
– There are grounds for disappointment, of course. It could not be otherwise.
It's a historical process, but people want to see the results of the struggle here and now.
But those who become disillusioned should know that their disappointment is very harmful to themselves and to Ukraine.
It is impossible to defeat Russia’s aggression and imperial ambitions now by any means other than by diligently and successfully building a strong and prosperous Ukraine.
One should not be disappointed, but build a better Ukraine wherever one is.
And one should not look to the majority. Always and everywhere, successful countries are built by a passionate minority, not by a passive majority.
Of course, I myself did not expect this Soviet mentality to be so resilient. Even in the West, in regions where everyone wears vyshyvankas and so many verbally praise Bandera, I saw how many people rushed to join Yanukovych’s Party of Regions to get into power.
Did they not understand that it was an anti-Ukrainian political force?!
But many centuries of survival between two empires have formed this conformism, and it is difficult to get rid of…
However, I will stress once again, these people do not move history. Ukraine is advanced by its passionate minority. Don’t stop! Do your work!
We must have faith. God is always on the side of truth. The truth is on our side. Ukraine will win!
Briefly about his life:
Mykola Horbal was born into a peasant family in 1940 in the village of Wolowiec, Gorlice County, in the Lemko region.
In 1945, during the so-called special Operation Vistula, the family was forcibly deported to the Kharkiv region—to the village of Uplatne, near the Lozova station, in the Blyzniuky Raion.
“When the NKVD was transporting us in those cattle cars from the Lemko region, we were already a repressed part of the Ukrainian people,” says Mykola Horbal.
From 1947, the Horbal family settled in the village of Letyache in the Ternopil region.
In 1963, Mykola graduated from the Chortkiv Music and Pedagogical College.
He worked as a music teacher in Borshchiv, led ensembles, wrote poetry and music, and created intense poetic miniatures.
He studied at the music faculty of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Pedagogical Institute and later at the music and pedagogy faculty of the Ivano-Frankivsk Institute.
November 24, 1970—first arrest. Horbal was accused of “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,” which, according to investigators, was present in his poem “Duma.” The sentence: 5 years of imprisonment in strict-regime camps and 2 years of exile in Siberia.
After his release in 1977, he joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
October 23, 1979—second arrest. The sentence: 5 years in strict-regime camps.
On October 24, 1984, without being released from prison, he was arrested for a third time, again on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. The sentence: 8 years of special-regime camps and 3 years of exile. His wife was not notified and waited in vain all day for her husband’s release.
He served his harshest sentence alongside criminal offenders in a granite quarry in the Mykolaiv region. The prisoners called this place “Buchenwald” among themselves.
In 1983, a book of his poems and songs, “Details of an Hourglass,” was published by the Suchasnist publishing house in the USA.
In 1986, a collection of his poems, “Here They Wait for the End,” was published in a German translation in Germany.
On August 12, 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree for the release of Mykola Horbal.
On the same day, Horbal was taken from the colony to Perm and then moved through various prisons.
It was not until August 23, 1988, that Mykola Horbal, handcuffed and in a striped prison uniform, escorted by 5 guards, was put on a passenger plane. “The terrified passengers looked at me with fear,” Mykola Horbal recalls, “wondering what dangerous criminal was being transported!”
Only when Mykola Horbal descended the plane's ramp onto Ukrainian soil were the handcuffs removed.
From September 1988, he became the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union.
From 1990 to 1994, Mykola Horbal was a deputy of the Kyiv City Council.
In 1992, a collection of Mykola Horbal's selected poems was published by the Ukrainskyi Pysmennyk publishing house, edited by Lyuba Holota.
In 1994, Mykola Horbal was elected a People’s Deputy of Ukraine.
Mykola Horbal is a member of the PEN International literary association and a recipient of the Vasyl Stus Prize.