THE MASSACRE BY THE SOVIET SPECIAL SERVICES AGAINST THE ARTIST OPANAS ZALYVAKHA IN THE MID–1960S

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to cover the trial of the Ukrainian artist Opanas Zalyvakha in 1965–1966. The basis of the source base of the research was the materials of the criminal case of O Zalyvakha from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSA SSU) in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Materials from the SSA SSU in Kyiv, as well as personal memories of a dissident, were also used. The methodological basis of the article was the principles of objectivity, historicism, comprehensiveness, continuity, as well as a complex of general scientific and special-historical methods. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that this problem has not yet become the subject of a full-fledged study in modern Ukrainian historiography.

The authors comes to the conclusion that the main reasons for the arrest of O. Zalyvakha at the end of August 1965 were his worldview, which was connected with the interest and popularization of the Ukrainian language, culture and history, as well as his entry into the circle of sixties artists, and the active distribution of self-published literature. Among the accusations brought against the arrested artist, it is worth highlighting the distribution of literature of diasporic origin published abroad, self-published articles, storage of tape recordings of Ukrainian national songs and poems by Sixties poets, writing anti-Russification pamphlets, as well as making a gift plate with a trident image.

The behavior of O. Zalyvakha during the investigation was quite courageous and dignified. The artist tried not to make compromising statements about his friends, to take the blame on himself, and often refused to

communicate with KGB officers at all. The investigators used moral and psychological pressure against the detainee, as well as testimonies of his colleagues and close acquaintances. In the end, during the closed trial,

1. Zalyvakha was forced to plead guilty in part. However, the artist’s speeches during court debates indicate that his views on the national question remained unchanged. For his indomitable behavior, O. Zalyvakha received from the Soviet justice one of the harshest sentences of the period of repressions of the mid–1960s – 5 years of imprisonment.

Prospective directions for further research into the life and work of O. Zalyvakha are a comprehensive analysis of the period of the artist’s stay behind bars, as well as the coverage of his dissident activity after his release from prison in the 1970s.

Keywords: Opanas Zalyvakha, Soviet regime, Ukrainian dissident movement, the Sixtiers, State Security Committee (KGB), trial, first wave of arrests.