The Trial of Kalynychenko.
The trial of Ukrainian Helsinki Group member Vitaly KALYNYCHENKO [note 1] charged under Article 62 pt. 2 (Ukrainian Criminal Code = Article 70 of the RSFSR Code), took place in Dnepropetrovsk in mid-May 1980. Kalynychenko was sentenced to 10 years of strict-regime camps and five years exile.
Kalynychenko’s previous term of imprisonment ended in March 1976 (CCE 41.6 & CCE 46.11).
ARRESTS.
The Arrest of Kurylo.
Vasyl KURYLO was arrested in February 1980 in Lvov. At a search of his home books published abroad and Ukrainian nationalist publications were confiscated.
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The Arrest of Stus.
On 14 May 1980, Ukrainian Helsinki Group member Vasyl STUS was arrested in Kiev.
He was detained at work and taken to his home for a search in connection with ‘Case No. 5’. Much poetry, notebooks, a few letters, the judgment in his case of 1972 (CCE 24.3, CCE 26.4 & CCE 27.1), materials about the situation of political prisoners and an invitation to the USA were confiscated. It was written on the record that Stus had refused to sign it, since “he does not wish to talk with representatives of an organization of murderers”. While Stus’s home was being searched another search took place at his father-in-law’s allotment.
Taking leave of his wife Valentina Popelyukh, Stus said that he would not take part in the pre-trial investigation or the trial; he would refuse a lawyer, would not appeal, and was ready to give evidence only at an open trial attended by representatives of Soviet and international legal organizations including the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (SKVU). He added that he would not refuse to make a final speech in which, as a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, he would talk about his people.
Stus was charged under Article 62, pt. 2 (Ukrainian Criminal Code = Article 70 of the RSFSR Code). Stus finished serving his previous sentence in August 1979 (there is an inaccuracy on this point in CCE 54.13).
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On 14 May 1980, manual worker Klym SEMENYUK was also searched. Only a letter from Vasyl Ovsienko, sent from camp, was confiscated.
On the same day a search was conducted at the home of Ukrainian Helsinki Group member Oksana MESHKO. Letters from her exiled son Oles SERHIYENKO (CCE 54.14 & CCE 55.4) were taken.
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On 14 May 1980, Ukrainian KGB officials Major Pastukhov and Ensign Binder searched Raisa RUDENKO at the Kiev Station in Moscow.
They were aided by another official, who refused to give his name. The warrant for a body-search and examination of personal effects was made out by Pastukhov and signed by Ukrainian SSR Procurator Glukh. The search took place in connection with Case No. 5, which Pastukhov said he knew nothing about. An open letter from Yu. BADZE to Russian and Ukrainian historians (December 1978), a notebook, a scrap of paper with foreign addresses, notes on the arrests of Vitaly N. Shevchenko (CCE 56.15) and Oles Ye. Shevchenko (CCE 56.15) and three letters were confiscated.
Ensign Binder, a woman, asked Rudenko to undress for a body-search. Rudenko refused. Binder did not insist.
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In June 1980, searches of Ukrainian exiles took place in connection with the Stus case (see “In Exile”, CCE 57.20).
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The Psychiatric Detention of Meshko.
On 12 June 1980, two police officials appeared at the home of Ukrainian Helsinki Group member Oksana MESHKO, saying that they had to take her to a KGB interrogation.
They took Meshko, however, not to the KGB but to Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital (No. 21). The duty doctor refused to admit her without papers, but she was then hospitalized on instructions from head doctor Revenok. The head of her department is Yastreb; the doctor treating Meshko is Natorzhinskaya. The doctors say that nothing depends on them — since Meshko has been admitted to the hospital they, the doctors, are obliged to treat her.
Oksana Meshko, 1905-1991
However, no special ‘psychiatric’ treatment has been authorized. Meshko’s friends and relatives have not been allowed to visit her.
In a statement to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet and the USSR Procurator-General written on 8 July 1980 (translated here from Ukrainian), Meshko states
“I am not a patient: I’m a prisoner of Psychiatric Hospital No. 27. I am being kept in a locked ward with 67 people who are chronically or seriously mentally ill …
“By imprisoning me in a psychiatric hospital the KGB has dealt with me without the need for a trial, an investigation or any inconvenient anti-constitutional charges. My mental state is such that I am responsible, so let them punish me if I have committed a crime.”
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With the arrest of Vasyl Stus and Oksana Meshko the destruction of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, is practically complete. It began in February 1977 with the arrests of Mykola Rudenko and Oleksiy Tykhy (CCE 44.4).
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The Arrest of Mazur.
On 7 July 1980, in the village of Giita-Loginovskaya (Zhitomir Region), a search was conducted at the home of Dmitry MAZUR.
Letters, a radio, and excerpts from the 19th-century writer Saltykov-Shchedrin were confiscated. The home of Mazur’s sister Galina in the town of Malin (Zhitomir Region), was also searched. On 30 July 1980 Mazur was arrested. The same day, a search linked to his case was conducted at the home of the mother of Vasyl Ovsienko (CCE 52.2) in the village of Lenino (Zhitomir Region).
Dmitry Mazur (b. 1939) could not find a job when he graduated from teachers training institute and was sentenced for ‘parasitism’. He is now charged under Article 62 (Ukrainian Criminal Code = Article 70 of the RSFSR Code). The investigators are searching intensively for his work entitled “Instead of a Last Word”.
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The Arrest of Prikhodko.
In July 1980, Grigory PRIKHODKO (CCE 52.5) was arrested in the Dnepropetrovsk Region. In 1978 he completed a sentence under Article 62 (Ukrainian Criminal Code = Article 70 of the RSFSR Code). He is now charged under part 2 of the same Article.
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Searches in Kharkov.
On 30 May 1980, searches linked to the case of Ivan SOKULSKY (CCE 56.15) were conducted in the city of Kharkov at the homes of: Genrikh Altunyan (CCE 11.11, CCE 22.8 item 15 & CCE 49.18 item 10), Yury Dzyuba (CCEs 51, 56), Anatoly Zdorovy (CCE 54.13 & CCE 56.15) and Anatoly Zinchenko (CCE 34.15, CCE 39.12 & CCE 56.15). According to the investigation, their addresses and letters were found at Sokulsky’s home.
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Thirty-seven items are listed on ALTUNYAN’s search record.
These include the second volume of The Gulag Archipelago, wrapped in a jacket from “A Social Science Reader”; a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Speech; two copies of an appeal to Amnesty International (1973); Chronicle No. 49; articles by Zhores Medvedev, Victor Nekipelov and V. Albrekht; a draft of Altunyan’s statement about Sakharov’s exile; material about Pyotr Grigorenko; a statement by Yury Dzyuba about emigration; a photograph of Dzyuba and Zinchenko holding a placard demanding permission to leave the USSR; Altunyan’s account of two conversations with the KGB; poetry by Mandelstam and Brodsky; personal letters and a notebook.
Altunyan did not sign the record.
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A letter from DZYUBA to President Carter requesting help in emigrating from the USSR; a prayer-book in Ukrainian; a notebook containing prayers and sermons; letters; a stereoscopic postcard from the USA; carbon paper, tapes; 87 copies of the photograph of Zinchenko and himself (mentioned above); films containing portraits of acquaintances, negatives; and a notebook: all were confiscated from Dzyuba’s home.
A copy of the Soviet weekly New Times, containing an article explaining that citizens of the USSR can emigrate freely, was also confiscated, as was a railway atlas. In all, there were 16 items on the record.
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From ZDOROVY the following were taken:
- a copy of the judgment in the case of I. Kravtsov (one of Zdorovy’s co-accused, CCE 48.3),
- a few old books bought in a second-hand book shop,
- a typewritten copy of Byron’s Mazeppa,
- extracts from the works of the 19th-century writer Belinsky on Ukrainian subjects,
- a few copies of recent books and articles, e.g., A. Chernov’s article on the poetics of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign published in Yunost [Youth], No. 1, 1980,
- typewritten copies of the article ‘Judaism in the History of Religion’ and G.I. Petrovsky’s address to the Fourth Duma,
- a karate course (photocopy and negatives),
- a summary of the book Contemporary Sexual Techniques,
- photographs and postal receipts.
A manuscript by Kharkov historian Yevgeny Antsupov, who has written a dissertation about the probable participants, times and military theatre of a future war, was also taken. Antsupov had sent copies of his dissertation to the Party Central Committee, the KGB, the Ministry of Defence and various research institutes.
There were 19 items in all on Zdorovy’s search record.
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There were 39 items in Zinchenko’s search record.
These included statements to official organizations about emigration and replies to these statements, appeals to international organizations on the same subject, a statement to the Free Inter-trade Association of Working People (FIAWP) about the violation of his rights, statements to the editors of Soviet newspapers and journals (one of the themes of which is the exile of Sakharov), postal receipts, letters, carbon paper, cassettes and a notebook.
Zinchenko refused to sign the record.
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Students from the Kharkov Law Institute were involved as witnesses in all the searches.
The evenings before the searches they were told to go to the KGB the next day to participate in investigative actions. Their passports were taken from them and returned only after the searches. During these ‘practicals’ the students played an extremely active part, going well beyond their duties as witnesses.
At the search of Dzyuba’s home, witness Zaitsev listened to tapes and read notes in English, telling the investigators what to confiscate. Witnesses Bigun and Redzsepnazarov, who took part in the search at Altunyan’s home, went through his papers and possessions and suggested what should be confiscated. The investigator did not respond to Altunyan’s critical remark about this.
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After the searches, interrogations linked to the Sokulsky for^hats*. Antsupov and his wife were summoned to the KGB.
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Persecution of the Sichko Family.
At the end of April 1980, Stefania Petrash, the wife of Pyotr and mother of Vasily Sichko (trial, CCE 55.1), was summoned by A. Martynyuk, director of the Dolina district Agricultural Machinery Plant. He asked her to resign.
Petrash has worked for the organization as an engineer for 12 years. She has only 15 years of service to her credit and has been petitioning for the ten years she spent in Stalin’s camps to be added to the total. Petrash refused to resign. Martynyuk told her he would find ‘20 reasons’ to dismiss her.
On 6 May 1980, an inspection of Petrash’s work was organized. No fault with her work was found. On 10 May Stefania Petrash wrote and sent a complaint about the actions of her chief to official organizations, to the Soviet daily newspaper Trud [Labour], and to the radio journal “The Individual and the Law”.
(See also the events in Kiev described in the subsection ‘Jews’ of “The Right to Leave”, CCE 57.18).
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NOTE
For more about all those mentioned above, see “The Dissident Movement in Ukraine” on the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group website.
[1] Kalynychenko — CCE 54.16, CCE 55.4 & CCE 56.15).
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