THE 1970s - A LOOK BACK: Freedom won (12/30/79)

THE 1970s - A LOOK BACK

Freedom won

The plight of the men and women involved in the resistance movement in Ukraine has always been close to the hearts of Ukrainians in the West. While the demonstrations and other actions held on their behalf depicted Ukraine's colonial status, the immediate consideration of the defense campaigns was the release of the Ukrainian political prisoners.

One of the first to be released from imprisonment in the 1970s was Bishop Vasyl Velychkowsky on January 26, 1972. After Patriarch Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, who was released from Soviet imprisonment in 1963, Bishop Velychkowsky was the second highest Ukrainian Catholic prelate to be released from incarceration in the USSR and allowed to emigrate to the West. He died in June of 1973.

After an intense campaign in his defense by Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians in the free world, Leonid Plyushch and his family were allowed to leave the Soviet Union. A political prisoner in the Dnipropetrovske psychiatric asylum, Mr. Plyushch and his family arrived in January 1976 in Vienna and later flew to the United States and Canada, where they were greeted in every center of Ukrainian community life that they visited. Though his initial remarks in the United States did cause a turmoil, after the Plyushches settled down in Paris, Mr. Plyushch wrote an autobiography, and at the same time, kept active in actions in defense of his dissident colleagues who remained in Ukraine.

The Soviet authorities allowed Gen. Petro Grigorenko, a member of the Ukrainian and Moscow Helsinki groups, to come to the Unite States in December of 1977 for a badly needed prostate operation. The 70-year-old human rights activist kept a low profile in the United States until the Soviet government, without warning, cancelled his passport in March of 1978 and barred his return to Ukraine. Then Gen. Grigorenko lashed out against the Soviet Union for violating human, national and religious rights. Gen. Grigorenko subsequently formed the External Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which today consists of former Ukrainian political prisoners now living in the West or persons who were associated with the dissident movement in Ukraine.

Nadia Svitlychna, a mother of two boys and a victim of 1972 arrests in Ukraine, was allowed to immigrate to the West in October 1978. After a brief stay in Rome, Ms. Svitlychna settled down in Newark, N.J., and has kept active in campaigns in defense of her incarcerated colleagues in the Soviet Union.

Valentyn Moroz, probably the best-known and most-admired Ukrainian political prisoner of the 1970s, stunned Ukrainians in the free world when he and four other political prisoners landed in New York in April 1979 after the United States arranged their exchange for two convicted Soviet spies. Speaking without restraint against the Soviet Union and constantly underlining Ukraine's struggle for independence, Mr. Moroz was greeted as a hero by Ukrainians in North America and in Europe. His welcome arrival was offset somewhat by Mr. Moroz's stinging, yet often unfounded, criticism of Ukrainian community life in the free world and his inexplicably erratic personal behavior.

Among those who accompanied Mr. Moroz to the West was pastor Georgi Vins, a Ukrainian Baptist leader. Subsequently, the families of both Mr. Moroz and Pastor Vins joined them in the West. Pastor Vins's son, Petro, was the youngest member of the Ukrainian Helsinki group.

In the closing weeks of 1979, Ukrainians in the free world welcomed Sviatoslav and Nina Karavansky, two Ukrainian political prisoners who spent a total of 34 years behind bars. Repeating much of what was said about the Soviet Union by their predecessors, the Karavanskys differed from some of their dissident colleagues in that they chose to rest and study Ukrainian life in the West for several weeks before embarking on a speaking tour of the Ukrainian community.

As the Ukrainian community stood on the doorstep of the 1980s, it remained steadfast in the commitment to aid Ukrainians behind the Iron Curtain who are struggling for their human, national and religious rights.

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