ARRESTS OF UKRAINIAN INTELLECTUALS IN 1965 IN IVANO-FRANKIVSK REGION

Abstract

The purpose of the article is a complex study of the arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals in 1965 in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. In the context of this goal, the following tasks were identified: establishing the quantitative scale of arrests in Ivano-Frankivsk region, analysis of accusations against intellectuals, methods of investigation, behavior of detainees, studying of trials of Ivano-Frankivsk dissidents. The source base is based on the documents of the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (HDA SBU) in Kyiv and sa­mizdat materials. The methodological basis of the study is J. Seko’s concept of the coexistence of two paradigms in the Ukrainian resistance movement of the 1950s and 1980s – national liberation (underground organizations) and nationalization (legal activity of the intelligentsia among the Sixties). The author of the article concludes that during the wave of repressions against the Ukrainian Sixties human rights activists in August-September 1965, five representatives of the intelligentsia of Ivano-Frankivsk region were detained, four of whom (V. Moroz, O. Zalyvakha, M. Ozernyi, V. Ivanyshyn) were arrested. The main charges were distributing banned literature and talking about the need for Ukraine to leave the USSR, which was interpreted as “anti-So­viet agitation and propaganda”. As a result of the use of moral pressure by KGB officers, as well as the psychological unprepa­redness of dissidents to confront the system, all prisoners were forced to cooperate with the investigation. The severity of the punishment of dissenters largely depended on the manifestation of the ne­ces­sary emotions during the investigation, which would have indicated their “repentance” and “re-education”. During the January–March 1966 trials, V. Moroz, M. Ozernyi, and O. Zalyvakha were sentenced to four, three, and five years in a maximum security prison colonies, respectively. A preventive measure with public partici­pa­tion was used to punish V. Ivanyshyn. During the “first wave of arrests” Ivano-Frankivsk region was in third pla­ce in the number of repressed people after Lviv and Kyiv. The repression dealt a significant blow to the Sixties human rights centers in Prykarpattia and the local network for the distribution of self-published literature.

Keywords: Ukrainian dissident movement, Soviet regime, “first wave of arrests”, samizdat, State Security Committee (KGB), Valentyn Moroz, Opanas Zalyvakha, Mykhailo Ozernyi.