THE 1970s - A LOOK BACK

In Ukraine

The age of national reawakening in Ukraine during the 1960s changed into an age of arrests and imprisonment in the 1970s.

The decade began with Valentyn Moroz's second imprisonment in 1970 to six years in prison, three years in a concentration camp and three years of exile. The names of Vyacheslav Chornovil, Yuriy Shukhevych, Nina Strokata, Nadia Svitlychna, Stefania Shabatura, Vasyl Romaniuk, Danylo Shumuk, Ivan Hel and Ivan Svitlychny are just a few of those which have been closely identified with the Ukrainian rights movement in the 1970s.

What began as individual actions in defense of human, national and religious rights in Ukraine in the early part of the decade mushroomed into an organized movement in November of 1976 with the establishment of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote Implementation of the Helsinki Accords. Formed by poet Mykola Rudenko and nine other persons concerned with the violations of rights in Ukraine, the group has grown to include 33 persons, those active in the Ukrainian independence struggle of the 1940s, in the dissident movement in the 1950s and 1960s and their progeny. Of the 33 members of the group, only six are in freedom, the others have either been arrested, granted visas to the West or resigned.

The decade of human rights activity in Ukraine draws to an end with the murder of Volodymyr Ivasiuk, the sentencing of Yuriy Lytvyn, Oles Berdnyk, Yaroslav Lesiv and Yuriy Badzio, and the attempted self-immolation of Oleksa Tykhy.

But there are all indications that the struggle for freedom will not abate as new men and women come to the fore and pick up the banner. Moreover, the Ukrainian people are no longer alone in this struggle: it has spread to other parts of the Soviet empire, including its satellites. Ukrainians in the free world will undoubtedly seek new ways of spotlighting the plight of their kin in Ukraine and support them in their aspirations to regain freedom and independence.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 30, 1979, No. 296, Vol. LXXXVI

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