Anatolii Lupynis, former Soviet political prisoner, dead at 62 (02/27/00)

Anatolii Lupynis, former Soviet political prisoner, dead at 62

KYIV - Anatolii Lupynis, a Ukrainian nationalist leader and dissident who spent 27 years in Soviet labor camps, prisons and mental institutions, died in Kyiv on February 4 at the age of 62.

Mr. Lupynis, a dissident who fought against Communist ideology, was first arrested for his poetry readings in public as a 19-year-old in 1956 on charges of "anti-Soviet propaganda" and sentenced to six years in prison.

A year later he was transferred to Dubrovlag in the Mordovian ASSR, where new proceedings were brought against him for taking part in a strike by 2,000 prisoners and for heading the strike committee. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment to run concurrently with his other term.

In 1962, while serving his sentence in Vladimir Prison in Moscow, Mr. Lupynis became seriously ill, suffering from leg paralysis and other ailments.

Shortly before completing his term in 1967, Mr. Lupynis' case was brought up in a letter by Lev Lukianenko, at the time himself a prisoner serving a 15-year labor-camp term, to Ukrainian Prime Minister D.S. Korotchenko, calling attention to Mr. Lupynis' condition.

In 1971 he was arrested once again for reading a poem (and taking part in a public meeting at the foot of the Taras Shevchenko monument in Kyiv. Russian dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov and Ukrainian dissidents Ivan Svitlychny and Leonid Plyushch arrived in Kyiv to observe proceedings, only to be apprised that the trial was postponed.

During his incarceration in various psychiatric hospitals across the Soviet Union, Mr. Lupynis was forced to undergo treatment with insulin and such anti-psychotic drugs as sulfazin and haloperidol.

Mr. Lupynis nearly lost his sight and used crutches after being released from his final prison term in 1983, but that did not stop him from continuing his dissident activities.

He was among the founders of the nationalist Ukrainian National Assembly, and since December 1990 was head of the political section of the UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Self-Defense Organization).

He also was among the founders of Rukh, Soviet-era Ukraine's pre-eminent pro-independence movement, which was established in the late 1980s, and he was active in Memorial, a group dedicated to preserving the memory of people killed or persecuted by the Soviet regime.

A panakhyda service for Mr. Lupynis was held February 8 at St. Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv.

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