Interview with Ivan Semenovych Botsyan
V. Ovsienko. On June 27, 2017, at the "Hoverla" sanatorium in Morshyn, we are recording a conversation with Ivan Semenovych Botsyan. (He says: Botsyan).
I. Botsyan. I am registered as born on October 23, 1932. This is a nominal date because there was no birth certificate. I was actually born in January 1932, as I later found out.
I was born in the village of Mala Tatarnivka, now Malosilka in the Berdychiv Raion. My parents were peasants. Already kolkhozniks.
I survived the famine of 1932-33. I don't remember the famine, but my mother told me about it. In the spring of 1933, my brother and I were lying in the weeds near our house. I looked like a dead person. Corpse collectors wanted to take me onto their cart, but my brother, who was a year and a half older, clung to me and wouldn't let them. My mother had just gone to Berdychiv to find some salt. Her mother worked on the railway. She gave her a bottle of milk and a piece of bread. Kolya showed me to our mother, and she somehow managed to revive me.
In 1934, my brother and I went to the nursery. I was half-dead then too. My brother told my mother: "When we eat, he sleeps." My mother went to the nursery, and the nanny justified herself: "I give him food, but he sleeps." But in reality, she was taking food from our meals home to her own children.
In 1945, 1946-47. We were starving again. As a teenager, I was taken to a logging site. I worked in timber harvesting, trimming branches. The axe was heavy; I'd swing it and fall over to the other side of the log. Such was my childhood and early youth. A teenager.
In the spring of 1947, my brother and I would dig up smelly, frozen potatoes from the previous year, which my mother would wash and bake into "lipyoshky." Little pancakes. We had to eat them to survive. This is how the organism of the young socialist generation was formed.
In 1951, I enrolled in the Berdychiv Teachers' Institute. I graduated in 1953 with a specialty in physics and mathematics. I worked at a school in the village of Khochyno, Olevsk Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast. My colleagues Ivan Feshchuk and Ivan Kasyanchuk also worked in the same district. Poverty. I walked around in trousers with baggy, worn-out knees. And a borrowed coat.
In 1954, I was drafted into the army. I was assigned to a unit of the Pskov Airborne Division. It was stationed in the town of Ostrov-3. There were many Ukrainians there. A whole trainload of guys was brought from Ukraine. Among them were those who had studied at our institute, Vitaliy Lypynskyi from the Chudniv Raion, Ivan Kasyanchuk, Ivan Feshchuk from Vinnytsia Oblast, Koziatyn Raion. All acquaintances. Those with a proper education were taken into the regimental school. I stayed there. Feshchuk was in the motor company. Kasyanchuk and Lypynskyi too. We often got together in our free time. Especially during the second year of service. Such nostalgia… We would gather, reminisce about our studies, about our families. These "fraternal groups." And what was there to remember? Our poverty. And it was already clear who felt what way… You could see those who understood what our trouble was. Such "groups of trust" formed in the units where we served.
The guys would go to get provisions. The bags had labels, for instance, from the Berdychiv sugar factory. Labels from Vinnytsia, from Zhytomyr Oblast. In these "groups of trust," we discussed how there was such poverty in our native land, yet the products were being exported. We determined that what was produced in Ukraine was being taken out.
In 1956, the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, its materials on the fulfillment of the five-year plan were published. Both for the Union and for the republics. I analyzed that Ukraine occupied a small territory of the USSR, about three percent, with 16% of the population, yet produced 40 or even 50% of various products, and for some, as much as 90%. We (Lypynskyi, Feshchuk, Kasyanchuk) talked about this and decided to prepare such a letter. I prepared a letter with an analysis of the causes of the famine in Ukraine. Each in his own circle said that the Constitution gives the right to self-determination, up to secession from the USSR. We either believed it, or we wanted to so much, that we had to secede. I give my letter to Feshchuk for him to reproduce it. By hand. Without carbon paper. He made his own changes to it. In terms of volume, it was several pages. The conclusion: only the independence of Ukraine can lead to an improvement in the material situation of the people. He sent the letter to his guys, and I to mine. My friend Oleksiy Ivanovych Vlasyuk was serving in Liepāja, Latvia. I sent it to him.
Some time passes. We are armed and are supposed to be taken somewhere. Not for training. We knew nothing about any unrest. But the parachutes were packed, weapons ready. We are waiting for some command. They tell us nothing. The thought is that there is some unrest in Ukraine or in the Baltics. I tell my friends: "Guys, we took an oath to defend our Motherland from an enemy that attacks our state. We don't see this as a war. And if they want to use us against our own people, well, we are not punitive forces. If we do not shoot at our own people, we will not violate the oath."
But for some reason, our departure to the "hot spot" was postponed.
V.O. And what time of year was this?
I.B. It was late October or early November 1956. This was right during the Hungarian events. I wanted to contact Feshchuk. But he had been sent to haul timber, as someone told me. Some time passes. I notice that in my diary, where we write down our military lessons, pages have been torn out. It later turned out that Feshchuk was betrayed by a fellow serviceman. And during a search, my letter was found. There was no signature on it. The pages from my work plan were needed for expert analysis.
V.O. In what sense betrayed?
I.B. The traitor reported Ivan Feshchuk's conversations to the special department. My manuscript was found on Feshchuk. But he did not name me. After a while, for some reason, I was also transferred from the regimental school to a battery company. On the second day at the new location, the battery commander said that I was summoned to the regimental headquarters and that he had to escort me there. A sergeant came out, led me into a small room where Major Kotov was sitting. This was already autumn. He says: "Take off your pea coat." The sergeant rips the epaulets off me. A search. "Do you write anything?" - "I wrote for the newspaper." - "No. Some kind of appeal?" - "I didn't write anything." - "And is this yours?" - "I wrote down my thoughts that maybe it would be better for Ukraine if it were independent. That right is written in the Constitution." - "Where were you trained?" They didn't think we had come to this conclusion on our own. They grilled me like this all day: "Who are your friends?!", "Who prepared you?!", "Where is the center?" and so on.
V.O. And what language were those letters written in?
I.B. I wrote the leaflet in Russian because I was using Russian texts (newspapers), and Feshchuk translated it into Ukrainian. It was Feshchuk's mistake that he didn't return my text to me. And upon his arrest, my leaflet, found by the secret service, had no signature.
At the end of the day, they put me in a "voronok" [KGB car] and take me to Pskov, to prison. Two days later, by train to Leningrad. This was at the end of November 1956. I was in solitary confinement in Leningrad for three months. The interrogations were mainly conducted by Major Kotov. But other investigators came too, including some general.
V.O. Did you know that others had been arrested?
I.B. I didn't know, but I suspected. Since they took the text from Feshchuk, they must have taken him too. Towards the end of the investigation, we were confronted with the soldier who had informed on Feshchuk. I asked that soldier: "Do you know me? Have you spoken with me?" - "No." He only knew Feshchuk.
V.O. And when was the trial?
I.B. I don't remember. I think it was in February 1957.
V.O. Where were you tried?
I.B. In Leningrad. The Tribunal of the Leningrad Military District. There were threats that in wartime this would have meant a firing squad. The trial was closed. We refused a lawyer. We did not admit guilt. We referred to the Constitution. We expressed our opinion that we wanted independence. We proceeded from our own reasoning that we had been poor all our lives. Life forced us to conclude that Ukraine must be independent to provide for itself, and to share goods with someone—that should be with surpluses, or through exchange.
V.O. How long did the trial last?
I.B. One day. Only the two of us were tried. Apart from the traitor, the other servicemen who were interrogated said they had heard nothing from me. I later met one of them, Zarovny, from Adler. He testified nothing against me.
The investigation lasted about 3-4 months. The friends to whom we sent letters were not identified, and we did not confess.
My mother was informed through the village council that I was convicted of anti-Soviet activities. No one in the village believed it. They said it was because of religious propaganda. Because my mother went to church.
I was given 4 years, and Feshchuk got 7. I don't have the verdict. They gave it to me, but it got lost.
In the spring of 1957, they brought us to Mordovia, to the Potma station, to camp No. 7. Then to camp No. 19.
V.O. I was in No. 19 too, but later.
I.B. I met Feshchuk there. There were many soldiers of the UPA, in particular, Mykhailo Zelenchuk, a leader of the liberation activities in the 1950s. In Mordovia, I became friends with Volodymyr Vasyuta and we remained friends until his death in 2016. He was the head of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in Staryi Sambir. With Mykola Kinash (a propaganda leader), with Dmytro Rabynyuk and others. These friends gave me a lot of truthful information about the liberation struggle in Ukraine. And in camp point No. 19—with Dmytro Oliynyk, Yevhen Pylypchuk, to whom I gave my home address.
In camp point No. 7, the poet Leonid Dnistrovyi—my fellow countryman—and composer Vasyl Barvinsky were imprisoned. He taught us singing. We were friends with the Lithuanians.
When there was a strike in camp point No. 7, we young prisoners with short terms were kept away by the Banderites; we sat in the barracks. They looked after us.
In camp No. 19, a school was opened, and I was transferred there in the spring of 1957 for teaching work. And during the holidays—logging, agricultural work, and so on. Feshchuk remained in No. 7, teaching physics.
I was released in September 1959, ahead of schedule, on account of work credits.
I came home on September 29 and started looking for work in my field. In Berdychiv, I went to the district education department. There were no vacancies. I went to the Korostyshiv district education department—none. I went to the Zhytomyr regional education department. I went into the personnel department, said that I had worked in Moldavia. (Not Mordovia. As if a slip of the tongue). But I didn't take my work record book, because I had left without official permission. The personnel inspector Kuznetsova glanced over my educational documents without paying much attention. The school year had already begun, and there were no specialists in the Polissia region of Zhytomyr Oblast. She gave me an assignment to the Slovechne Raion, the village of Syrnytsia (now in Ovruch Raion).
My passport was based on a certificate of release. I worked for a year in the village of Syrnytsia. The next year, I was offered the position of principal in the village of Vovcha Sloboda. The children loved me, the people respected me. I didn't tell them about my conviction, to avoid unnecessary talk. In Sloboda, I got married. There was a hospital section there, with a doctor named Raisa Ivanivna Hadion. She was from the Cherkasy region, Shpola Raion. Her parents were teachers, they worked in the Yemilchyne Raion of Zhytomyr Oblast.
In 1962, I was fired from my job—because how can someone convicted of anti-Soviet activity be a school principal? I was summoned to the district education department and told that they had to dismiss me from the post of principal. I found a job in the village of Tkhoryn in the same district. I worked there until May 1965. I started looking for work in other places.
My wife and I traveled to the Cherkasy region. In vain. To the Rivne region, where she had her student medical practice. She was assigned to the town of Mizoch, to a boarding school. I was unemployed. After some time, the director of this boarding school gave me hours for manual training classes. Soon they discovered that my passport was issued on the basis of a certificate of release. A little later—a summons to the Rivne KGB. A lieutenant colonel interrogates me rudely, in particular about my connections with Anton Oliynyk, why he had my parents' address… I didn't understand this interest in my acquaintance with Oliynyk. I hesitate with my guesses, but I say that I know him, didn't give him my address, but the letters that came to the camp lay openly on the table.
As I later found out, after Oliynyk's escape from the camp, three men had stopped at my parents' house on their way. My parents didn't know who they were, so they said they were from me. I also didn't know that my parents and my brother, who lives in Kroshnia near Zhytomyr, had their places searched because of this.
In the summer of 1967, I was again looking for a job. My wife resigned in Mizoch and found a job in Zhytomyr, also as a doctor, in boarding school No. 3. But a fortunate event: at the beginning of September 1967, I was sitting in the reception of the Zhytomyr regional education department. The director of Zhytomyr school No. 20, Ada Viktorivna Kulchytska, came in on business to see the head. She struck up a conversation with me: who? Where from? Why? And when she came out from the authorities, she offered me a place in her school, because the day before, a teacher from that school had been taken to a sobering-up station under Andropov's law.
Then I worked at the Institute for Teacher Improvement. I worked there until 1992. I retired. I worked at the school in the Zhytomyr prison until 2010.
I was rehabilitated in 1992.
My wife passed away in 2005. Diabetes, loss of sight. I have a daughter, Tetyana, born in 1977. I live in Zhytomyr.
September 1, 2017. Corrections by I. Botsyan made on September 27, 2017.