Ya.Lesiv: Life Way of a Dissent, of a Religious Figure, of a Fighter for Independence of Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to clarify various aspects of Ya.Lesiv’s participation in the Ukrainian liberation movement in the second half of the 20th century, which includes an analysis of the process of his formation as a socio-political and religious figure, coverage of the issue of involvement in the anti-regime resistance movement, in particular the Ukrainian National Front, a description of participation in Ukrainian Public Group for Assistance to the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, determining the contribution to the restoration of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, systematics. General scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction) and specific scientific (critical, historical-genetic, structuraldiachronic analysis) methods were used in the research.

Scientific novelty is determined by the fact that comprehensively studied socio-political and religious activities of Ya.Lesiv on the basis of materials of the Sectoral State Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (Ivano-Frankivsk), published documents, memoirs and testimonies, publications and periodicals, scientific and scientific popular works; the main forms of dissident activity of this famous historical figure are clarified; the important role of Father Yaroslav in the anti-regime resistance movement and the struggle for the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is shown.

Conclusions. In 1965–1967, Ya.Lesiv was a member of an illegal independent political organization, the Ukrainian National Front (UNF). He actively distributed materials of the armed underground of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and samizdat. In fact, he formed the Haivoron group of the UNF. As a result, he was sentenced by the Soviet authorities to six years in prison. In October 1979, Ya.Lesiv became a member of the Ukrainian Public Group for the Promotion of the Helsinki Accords, a legal human rights organization. This led to his new imprisonment, first for two and then for another five years. Ya.Lesiv made a significant contribution to the Ukrainian national-democratic movement of the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. association. He also advocated the transfer of OUN activities from political emigration directly to Ukrainian lands. In 1988 he joined the Committee for the Protection of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. In 1989, Father Ya.Lesiv was among the participants in a hunger strike in Moscow for the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and also led a procession for the reburial in Kyiv of prisoners of conscience destroyed by the Soviet totalitarian regime Yu.Lytvyn, V.Stus and O.Tykhyi.