The Case of Ivan Dziuba From a Distance of Half a Century

Abstract

The purpose is to investigate the motives and consequences of the fabrication of the case of Ivan Dziuba by employees of the Committee for State Security under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The methodological basis is the principle of historicism in the unity of all its components. The research is based on a critical analysis of archival and printed sources. A microhistorical approach was used.

The scientific novelty lies in an attempt to reconstruct the history of the fabrication of the case of Ivan Dziuba, who, seven years after the publication of his pamphlet “Internationalism or Russification?” was repressed for this text on the basis of unique archival resources as well as taking into account available publications. The operational record (casecard) on Dziuba (the most valuable source for understanding on which basis by agency testimony surveillance of him was organized and how the material against him was gathered) was eliminated. However, in the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, eighteen volumes of the case, marked DF, that is, Discontinued Fund, have been preserved. The author used it as well as declassified documents of the special services, some other archival sources, publications of scientists, and memories when writing this material. From the mid-1990s, the author of the article had the opportunity to meet and talk with Ivan Dziuba himself. It provided an opportunity to clarify many circumstances and details of the dramatic period of the life of the hero of this story.

Conclusions. In the conditions of the national and cultural rise of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ivan Dziuba was one of the most beautiful representatives of the sixties movement due to his independent behavior and innovative aesthetic position. After preparing in 1965 the pamphlet “Internationa lism or Russifi cation?” he began to be considered one of the leaders of the intellectual opposition in the Ukrainian SSR. He distinguished by his desire to express his thoughts openly, publicly, and not conspiratorially. Having started repressive actions against representatives of Ukrainian creative youth in late August-early September 1965, the leadership of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the secret services of the Ukrainian SSR qualified Ivan Dziuba’s non-conformist creativity and activity as “nationalist”, “anti-Soviet”, “Russophobic”. In the next wave of repression, which began in January 1972, political charges were brought against him (and against those who distributed or even read his pamphlets). They ended with Ivan Dziuba’s arrest, trial, and forced repentance. The analysis of his case confirms that he implicitly never aspired and was not ready for the role of the main ideologist or leader of the opposition in the Ukrainian SSR. His resignation disappointed his supporters in Ukraine and abroad. However, it could not devalue what Ivan Dziuba wrote and did before his arrest and after his return to the cultural and political life of Ukraine after August 1991 in particular.