The activities to celebrate this prominent Ukrainian’s 110th birth anniversary took place in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv. On October 15, an art exhibit commemorating Mr. Hryhorenko was launched in Kyiv at the Sixtiers Museum. His son Andrii (Andrew) flew from the States to Kyiv to be present during the ceremony. On October 16 a two-volume Russian version of stories about Petro Hryhorenko, compiled by Andrii Hryhorenko and published in Kharkiv two years ago, was launched at the National Museum of Ukrainian Literature. On October 17 a news conference took place in Kharkiv. A memorial plaque was unveiled the next day at the dorm of Kharkiv’s Polytechnic University (where Petro Hryhorenko resided in 1929-31 and ended his study, joining the Soviet Army, but his eldest son was born at the time) and a meeting with students was held. After that, Andrii Hryhorenko visited his father’s home village of Borysivka in Zaporizhia oblast. In addition to these events Mr. Myrsolav Marynovych will organize a soiree in memory of Petro Hryhorenko at the Ukrainian Catholic University of Lviv, some time after October 20.
I got in touch with Yevhen ZAKHAROV, head of Kharkiv’s Human Rights Group, since he was a member of the welcome committee, and my first question was:
Mr. Zakharov, how would you describe Petro Hryhorenko as a fellow human, as a dissident and as a human rights activist? Also, what kind of information regarding this personality should be made public knowledge in Ukraine?
“Petro Hryhorenko was a very special human rights champion and I believe that his ideas are still relevant, as well as his methods and his I-can’t-remain-silent attitude. He took a principled stand and this is very important today. He wrote that only rats can be found in the underground. His stance was one of open confrontation with the Soviets. He also believed that going about business the dirty way was unacceptable, that good ideas couldn’t be implemented indecently, and that violence couldn’t be used to prove the ultimate truth. He was opposed to any acts of terrorism, even if meant for the common good.
“He was an excellent organizer, a natural leader. People believed what he said. He was brave and he was tough. Also, he kept every word he said, every promise he made. He wrote ‘The Testament of a Former Communist’ where he admitted to his guilt, that he had faith in the wrong system. He was born in 1907, another country bumpkin who could hardly have chosen another political faith, since socialist and communist ideas were rampant at the time. However, his IQ was anything but ordinary. He would become one of Soviet Russia’s first IT experts and placed at the head of the Cybernetics Chairs of the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, in the late 1970s. He wrote his doctorate, but then he spoke his mind which differed from the Soviet party line. He was first posted to the Far East, then demoted, ending up as a private, then kicked out of the Soviet army. Then he had to earn his living as a grocery store porter, at the age of 56.
“Who is Petro Hryhorenko to me? He was close to my Kharkiv [Human Rights Group]. He visited Kharkiv a couple of times, but I was away and we’ve never met, much to my regret. I know a protest letter was sent after he was confined to a mental hospital in Tashkent in 1969. That letter was signed by nine residents of Kharkiv and there were 61 signatures in all. Four of the Kharkiv residents who’d signed the letter received three years each, but no one else has suffered, as far as I know. Petro Hryhorenko visited Kharkiv when they were out of jail, they met, my mother was also there. I know that Mr. Hryhorenko praised my mom’s poetry (written using the pen name Marlena Rakhlina). There was a bard among his close friends, by the name of Petro Starchyk. He used some of my mom’s poetry for his music...
“Petro Hryhorenko was a cheerful, optimistic, and generous individual. He was also physically strong and brave. I knew about him even when in high school. I always respected him. To me, he remains an intrepid die-hard.”
Too bad we appear to have missed that stage in our history when we could rely on our dissidents. In fact, our Editor-in-Chief has a test for the rookies who attend our School of Summer Journalism. It reads: “What is Petro Hryhorenko?” For a number of years even the best of them have failed to answer this question. We remember him and there are his essays in our Library series, so, I guess, our students will learn about him. May I ask you why, do you think, his name and others like him remain unexplored?
“Many reasons. After the Soviet Union fell apart, the dissident movement became history. Sad bad true: history, including Nikita Khrushchev and his political ‘thaw,’ then what happened in the1960s-1970s-1980s, ending with [Gorbachev’s] perestroika... all this is distant history for people born in 1974, currently aged 43, or between 35 and 40. If their families weren’t involved, these people know nothing about what happened then.
“A colleague of mine, a human rights activist, a real professional in the field, admitted he knew nothing about the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial. I asked why and he replied he wasn’t interested, that it was history. I knew he was telling me the truth the way he knew it. I tried to explain that some part of history should be revised and brought up. He said he would read up on the subject, but his response struck me as typical: no one seems to realize these days that [Soviet] society was actually relying on the dissidents during the perestroika campaign, that the dissidents in Ukraine had everything to do with the national liberation movement (although this is also being kept secret), and that this can explain many events that have taken place in Ukraine – something few are paying attention to these days. However, these topics must be discussed!
