Forty years ago, on November 9, 1976, following the signing of the Helsinki Final Act on August 1, 1975, by representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada and 33 European states, the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was formed. The founding members were Oles Berdnyk, Petro Grigorenko, Ivan Kandyba, Lev Lukianenko, Oksana Meshko, Mykola Matusevych, Oleksii Tykhy, Nina Strokata and Mykola Rudenko.
From its early days, the group had been targeted by the Soviet regime and all of its founding members were sentenced to exile or imprisonment. At the end of 1979, six members of the group were forced to emigrate, while other dissidents were forced to remain in the Soviet Union. Others were detained in psychiatric hospitals or prison camps. In 2004, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union was established as a public human rights organization.
Most notably, the Helsinki Final Act required the Soviet Union to abide by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948. The Helsinki Accords also opened up legal avenues for dissidents behind the Iron Curtain to fight against human rights violations and to speak out for national rights.
Ukraine was at the forefront of the freedom movement among the former Soviet Union nations, and similar Helsinki groups began to appear in Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia and even in Russia.
On November 10, 2006, the 30th anniversary of the Ukrainian Group’s founding was marked with a banquet at the Smoloskyp publishing house in Kyiv. In attendance were 12 of the 41 original Ukrainian Helsinki Group members.
“For the first time after decades of repression, such a small group of Ukrainian intelligentsia organized and told the world about their own people’s lack of liberty and lack of rights,” said Vasyl Ovsienko, a member of the group since 1978. “In this sense, the Helsinki movement was much more important for Ukraine than those peoples who had their own nationhood.”
During the commemorative event, Osyp Zinkewych and Mr. Ovsienko presented a new publication about the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. The book contains a history as well as key documents, biographies, photographs and articles about the group’s activity in Ukraine and in the West, with special focus on Washington.
Those remaining members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group spoke during the 30th anniversary event and expressed disappointment with the apathy and indifference among Ukrainians in 2006.
”Those who began acting in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t get discouraged, even though they were only a handful,” said Mykhailo Horyn, a former Soviet political prisoner. “We need to continue creating the Ukrainian nation and assisting in its rebirth.”
Source: “30th anniversary of Ukrainian Helsinki Group marked in Kyiv,” by Olena Labunka, The Ukrainian Weekly, November 26, 2006.