A Brief History of Literary Arrests in Ukraine
When exploring the history of Ukrainian literature through the biographies of its authors, one might think it’s the invention of a wildly obsessive mind consumed by a fixation on arrests. From decade to decade, the same accusations of rebellion resurface, followed by exile and, in some cases, execution by firing squad. Is there no variation in historical circumstances or personal motivations? Does the law of probability not apply?
But no, all of this is real. The systematic subjugation of Ukraine—enforced by the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation for centuries—has seemingly “overcome the theory of probability.”
Some places of imprisonment and exile of Ukrainian writers
Тарас Шевченко
Тарас Шевченко
Павло Грабовський
Багато письменників, ув’язнених у 1920-1930-ті роки
Остап Вишня, Володимир Ґжицький
Надія Суровцова
Василь Рубан, Микола Плахотнюк
В одному з таборів — Іван Багряний
Ірина Стасів-Калинець
Василь Стус, Олесь Бердник, Микола Горбаль, Іван Сокульський
The Empire Suspects
Ukrainian literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when writers first began creating works in the vernacular Ukrainian language and the “new Ukrainian literature” emerged, was largely loyal to the empire. At the time, it was often considered as a charming but insignificant regional phenomenon. However, over time—particularly with the rise of romanticism and the expansion of university education—this phenomenon grew, flourished, and began to echo the societal contradictions of its era.
The memory of the French Revolution, the Polish uprising, the Greek Revolution, and events in the Balkans and Italy, along with the Slavic movement within the Austrian Empire and the widespread fascination with secret societies, inspired Ukrainian intellectuals to form their own group in Kyiv. This group became known as the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Historians still debate whether it was truly a secret organization or simply a circle for free-spirited conversations and discussions.
Two prominent literary figures of the time, Panteleimon Kulish and Mykola Kostomarov, played leading roles in the society. The Cyril and Methodius members discussed topics such as the abolition of serfdom, the idea of a pan-Slavic federation, equality among nations, Christian morality, and elements of democracy. Later, Taras Shevchenko, a charismatic and widely admired author, joined the group.
However, it seems that the Cyril and Methodius members were not skilled in the art of secrecy. One of the members, scholar Mykola Hulak, casually shared details about the society with a neighbor in a rented apartment—Oleksii Petrov, a student—and even allowed him to read their papers. According to investigation records, Petrov later wrote a denunciation against Hulak and his colleagues, although he denied doing so in his memoirs. Initially, the Russian authorities and the political police believed they had uncovered a significant and dangerous rebellion, suspecting a network of conspirators operating across multiple countries. This led to a wave of arrests.
On April 5, 1847, the poet Taras Shevchenko was arrested. According to recollections, well-wishers tried to toss his suitcase into the Dnipro River from a ferry, fearing it might contain compromising materials. Shevchenko had been returning to Kyiv from the Chernihiv province to attend the wedding of Mykola Kostomarov, who later was also arrested.
The investigation quickly determined that the case was not as serious as initially believed. The authorities realized that rumors and public attention posed a far greater threat to the stability of the empire than the so-called “conspiracy” itself. Consequently, they dispensed with the formalities of a trial. Instead, the members were sentenced directly by the emperor, who took a personal interest in the case. Most of the accused received relatively light punishments: short prison terms (up to three years) or exile from Ukraine. However, Taras Shevchenko faced a particularly harsh sentence. He was conscripted into the army as a private, with no fixed term of service and a specific prohibition against writing and drawing. Panteleimon Kulish was also punished—he was banned from writing and exiled to Tula, Russia. After spending about three years in exile, Kulish returned and continued his work.
Revolutionary Vynnychenko
In the 1900s, against the backdrop of growing unrest and the first revolution in the Russian Empire, Volodymyr Vynnychenko—then the most popular Ukrainian writer, a modernist, and a proponent of utopian socialism—was frequently imprisoned. As a member of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and later the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party, Vynnychenko participated in anti-government activities and distributed banned literature. Historians note that he was imprisoned three times, including stints in well-known Kyiv institutions such as Lukianivska Prison and the Kosyi Kaponir fortress.
Eventually, Vynnychenko managed to escape abroad. His experiences in prison later found their way into his writing, notably in “Notes of a Pug-Nosed Mephistopheles,” one of his best-known novels. The protagonist of this book, returning to Kyiv after the 1905 revolution, transforms from a fervent advocate for social reform and a fighter against tyranny into a disillusioned cynic.
As we can see, the Romanov Empire knew how to deal harshly with Ukrainian writers. However, such instances were relatively rare—after all, many writers were cautious in their actions.
The Falsified “SVU” Trial
After the 1917 revolution, the brief existence of an independent Ukraine, and the chaos of warfare, the country fell under the control of the Russian Bolsheviks. While they allowed the Ukrainian Soviet Republic to exist and lifted many of the tsarist-era bans and restrictions on the Ukrainian language, they introduced total political—and later, aesthetic—censorship. A far stricter model of coexistence between writers and the state emerged. The systemic repressions began.
The creative intelligentsia had no opportunity to resist the pressure and demands of the Bolshevik regime. Trade unions, courts, and anything that might have even slightly protected human rights were entirely controlled by the state. The boldest and most rebellious writers could just navigate between competing alignments, keep a low profile, and use Aesopian language to express indignation during meetings with friends (some of whom were almost certainly willing or compelled to report such conversations).
The Stalinist regime, however, deemed this insufficient. To further intimidate, it orchestrated the infamous trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Ukr. SVU) in 1929–1930. Most historians agree that the SVU case was entirely fabricated by Soviet authorities and that the organization never actually existed. The regime simply accused a group of older-generation Ukrainian intellectuals, clergy, and former politicians of the Ukrainian People’s Republic of belonging to this fictional organization. The trial was a calculated move to terrify Ukrainian society, particularly silencing any potential or former opposition.
Serhii Yefremov was designated as one of the so-called “leaders” of the fictitious SVU. A literary critic, scholar, journalist, and former public and political figure, Yefremov was known for his conservative aesthetic views as a “neo-Narodnik” and his moderate democratic stance in politics. For his supposed role in leading this fabricated organization, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Yefremov died in 1939 while imprisoned in the Russian city of Vladimir.
The writer Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska was sentenced to five years in prison, though in 1930 her sentence was commuted to a suspended sentence. However, her time out of custody was brief. In 1941, during the German offensive against the USSR, she was arrested again. As Nazi troops approached Kharkiv, the authorities decided to evacuate prisoners under escort. During this evacuation, the 73-year-old Starytska-Cherniakhivska died.
A similarly tragic fate befell the poet Volodymyr Svidzinsky, who was unrelated to the SVU case. Known for his meditative and scenic, metaphorical, lyrical, and fairy-tale–like romantic poems, which were as far removed from politics as possible, Svidzinsky nonetheless became a victim of the same brutal regime. In 1941, he was arrested and evacuated from Kharkiv during the German offensive. According to evidence, NKVD agents burned Svidzinsky and several other prisoners alive in a barn, fearing they would not have time to transport them further.
“Writers’ Rebellions”
The 1930s became a quintessential era of police terror against Ukrainian literature. Not that other segments of Soviet Ukraine’s population escaped the watchful gaze of the “organs,” but the scrutiny directed at the literary community was particularly intense.
The campaign against writers escalated after the aggressive collectivization, which in Ukraine culminated in the Holodomor. This coincided with the most active phase of the USSR’s industrialization efforts and was paralleled by purges targeting technical and intellectual professionals as well as members of the Bolshevik Party itself.
The first truly high-profile literary arrest was that of Mykhailo Yalovyi, who wrote under the pseudonym Yulian Shpol. An author of experimental poetry and the formalist novel Golden Fox Cubs, Yalovyi was a member of the literary group “VAPLITE”, which in the 1920s allowed itself a degree of defiance, sharp polemical attacks, and ties to national communists. For many writers, including Shpol, the search for new literary horizons was paramount. They sought a European context and aimed not to create a separate Soviet “closed literary cycle” but rather to embrace the free international exchange of literary forms and ideas. This pursuit, combined with Yalovyi’s politically ambiguous past, became one of the reasons for the attack against him.
He was arrested in 1933. The Holodomor dealt a severe blow to the balance of Soviet writers who, until then, had either supported the Soviet government “as a whole” or held distinct leftist or even left-wing radical views that allowed them to tolerate at least some of the Bolsheviks’ actions—especially those who felt responsible for building a new society and consciously participated in its creation. After Yulian Shpol’s arrest, his friends, led by Mykola Khvylovyi, the leader of the former “VAPLITE” group, attempted to use their connections within the communist government to clarify the situation and influence it.
While we don’t know the exact details of these conversations, it seems they only deepened the despair. Mykola Khvylovyi ultimately took his own life, seemingly due to the overall hopelessness of the situation, but perhaps also because of the events surrounding Shpol’s arrest. It is telling that Khvylovyi’s suicide note began with the words: “The arrest of Yalovyi is the execution of an entire generation. For what? For being the most sincere communists? I do not understand anything. First of all, I, Mykola Khvylovyi, am responsible for Yalovyi’s generation … .”
Yalovyi (Shpol) was accused of belonging to a fictitious representative office of a foreign Ukrainian military organization, of plotting to assassinate one of the leaders of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, Pavlo Postyshev, and of inciting an uprising. The Soviet authorities fabricated a confession in which Yalovyi and several of his colleagues were allegedly planning to capture the city of Krasnohrad (now in Kharkiv region).
According to the fabricated story, writer Yurii Yanovskyi was supposed to lead the uprising in Zinovievsk (now Kropyvnytskyi), while Mykola Kulish would organize resistance in the Dnipro region, and Oleksa Slisarenko would command the united rebel forces of the Kharkiv region. All of these writers, except for Yanovskyi, were arrested and executed.
The wave of arrests continued to grow, peaking in 1934 and 1937, during the “Kirov set” (repressions linked to the assassination of Bolshevik leader Sergei Kirov) and the “Great Terror.” The total number of imprisoned Ukrainian writers reached the hundreds. This was a devastating blow to literature, culture, and society as a whole. (Read about the executions of Ukrainian writers)
Laughter in the Shadow of Horror
In their efforts to fabricate “charges” and find even the slightest hint of “evidence,” Soviet investigators sometimes created a tragicomic effect. For example, in the case of poet Oleksa Vlyzko, who somehow managed to be both a neoromantic and a futurist, there emerged a real story: the adventurous Vlyzko once climbed onto a bust of Vladimir Lenin and planned to do the same with a bust of Stalin.
Similarly, in the case of Valerian (Valeriian) Polishchuk, leader of the “Avanguard” organization, we encounter what seems to be the first official charge in the history of Ukrainian literature accusing a writer of pornography—for his publications in an art magazine he edited. This included a text about how artist and designer, constructivist Vasyl Yeremilov, worked with his wife to create a special “bed for love,” as well as the slogan “Long live the public kiss on the bare chest!”
Once again, arrested Polishchuk was one of the leaders of literary life and a strong advocate for maintaining connections between Ukrainian writers and their colleagues from other countries, particularly those involved in Europe’s left-wing literary movements. In the NKVD cells the prominent Ukrainian futurist Mykhailo Semenko also disappeared. He was a key cultural figure and founder of the journal “Nova Generatsiia,” where experimental artists from various countries eagerly published their works. Also arrested was his natural opponent, poet, translator, teacher, and scholar Mykola Zerov, who espoused neoclassicism. And many others. They all, as a rule, faced similar absurd accusations, much like Mykhailo Yalovyi. Under the influence of both physical and psychological torture, the overwhelming majority confessed to crimes they did not commit.
A Coercive Reality
After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet Union and Soviet Ukraine experienced a period of relaxation and easing of restrictions. Those associated with literature, in particular, began to breathe easier. Arrests stopped, and the formerly repressed were “rehabilitated.” Survivors were released, allowed to work, and even granted housing. The censorship regime loosened slightly. A new generation, known as the “Sixtiers,” emerged in Ukrainian literature. These individuals had grown up in the hermetic reality of the Soviet Union.
At first, things were progressing well. The “Sixtiers” were spirited, but the Soviet government during the Khrushchev Thaw showed a certain tolerance for young people who sometimes asked uncomfortable questions. However, everything changed when Nikita Khrushchev, the emotional Soviet leader, launched an attack on “formalist” artists during a scandalous visit to the famous Manege exhibition in Moscow in 1962. This marked the beginning of a public campaign against the young cultural movement across the USSR. The authorities decided that the “Thaw” had gone too far, that there was too much freedom, and that this could potentially threaten the stability of the state in the future.
In August-September 1965, the first wave of arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals took place. However, this was far from being on a Stalinist scale—rather than hundreds, only dozens of people were detained. Among those arrested was the literary critic and poet Ivan Svitlychnyi, who later became one of the leaders of the dissident community. He was released due to lack of evidence, but was arrested and imprisoned again in the 1970s. Also detained was the novelist Anatolii Shevchuk (brother of Valerii Shevchuk, one of the key Ukrainian writers of the second half of the twentieth century), who was caught producing “samvysav” and sentenced to five years. Writer and journalist Mykhailo Osadchyi also received a two-year sentence.
Some Ukrainian writers in Russian/Soviet captivity (prisons, camps, exile and ‘settlements’, soldiering, etc.)
These repressions did not scare the intelligentsia, the “Sixtiers,” and the dissidents; rather, they fueled their anger. Small-scale but noticeable protests emerged, and public statements and open letters began to circulate. In 1972, the Soviet authorities took more decisive action.
A new crackdown on dissenters—including writers—was launched under Operation Blok. This time, many more people were arrested, including poet Vasyl Stus, who is now considered a classic of twentieth-century Ukrainian literature, and Mykola Kholodnyi, an ironic and sharp poet. The authorities managed to break Kholodnyi morally, forcing him to sign a letter of repentance, which was then published in the newspaper “Literaturna Ukraina.” By publishing such confessions, the authorities aimed to sow discord among the rebels or, at the very least, instill distrust. Ivan Dziuba, the principal literary critic of the “Sixtiers,” also appealed for clemency.
Taras Melnychuk and Vasyl Ruban both faced significant persecution from the Soviet authorities. Melnychuk was arrested in 1972 and imprisoned for three years. He was released, but in 1979, he was arrested again and imprisoned. The poet and novelist Vasyl Ruban first faced detention in 1968 for distributing leaflets with the slogan “Long live an independent socialist Ukraine!” He was released due to lack of evidence. However, in 1972, the authorities had no such hesitations and subjected him to forced psychiatric treatment. His experience in this oppressive reality later became the basis for his insightful novel-memoir On the Opposite Side of Good.
The brilliant, larger than life, and polyphonic poet Hrytsko Chubai, who lived in Lviv, was arrested, but only for a few days. Despite this brief detention, Soviet investigators managed to intimidate him into testifying against poets and dissidents Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets and Ihor Kalynets. While it is believed that this testimony was not decisive, it became a significant moral and psychological burden for Chubai and destroyed his relationships with most of his peers.
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The traditions of the Russian Empire, and even more so of the Soviet Union, in dealing with Ukrainian writers have not been left behind. A classic example is the story of director, screenwriter, and writer Oleh Sentsov, who was kidnapped by Russian security forces in occupied Crimea in 2014. Nothing new: as in the good old days, he was charged with creating a terrorist organization. And, as tradition dictates, the court sentenced him to 20 years without real evidence. In 2019, Sentsov was released as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.
That same year, journalist and writer Stanislav Asieiev, who had remained in Donetsk after the city’s occupation and reported on events there, was also exchanged. Asieiev had been held in the infamous “Izolyatsia” prison. The occupiers turned the art space “Izolyatsia” into this prison, which had emerged on the site of a former plant for the production of insulation materials. This is a telling “evolution” of urban space under Russia’s control.
During the full-scale war in 2022, Russian forces detained 78-year-old writer, journalist, and captain Yevhen Bal, in the village of Melekine near Mariupol. After three days of interrogations and torture, he was released—only to die shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, in the village of Kapytolivka near Izium, Kharkiv region, Russian forces detained poet and writer Volodymyr Vakulenko in March of the same year. Vakulenko, known for his punk-style poetry and prose as well as children’s poetry, disappeared, and for a long time, no information about his fate was available. Eventually, investigations revealed that he had been tortured, forced to make a propaganda video, and then executed.
The End
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, young Ukrainian poets would gather at the corner of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard and Khreshchatyk in Kyiv, near the “Kyivske” café. Poet and researcher of the “Sixtiers” and the “Displaced Generation,” Anna Yutchenko, in her article “Scatter, Gather, and Scatter Stones Again” (an allusion to Hrytsko Chubai’s poem “Speak, Be Silent, and Speak Again”), quotes the recollection of poet Nadiia Kyrian:
According to Nadiia’s memories, they, as young poets, sometimes didn’t have enough money to enter the café. They would gather outside, often sitting on the curb by the road, talking. “But how could you hear each other?” I asked, surprised by the loud traffic. “Well, like this,” Nadia laughed. “Maybe we didn’t say anything at all, but just sat together.” Like stones under the water, I thought. Nadiia Kyrian explained that they didn’t have mobile phones back then, and they didn’t arrange meetings. But there was always someone to meet near that café.
In the 1970s, the gatherings by the “Kyivske” café were broken up. The café itself has long since disappeared. Today, at this noisy intersection in Kyiv, no one gathers in the same way. Across from where the “Kyivske” café once stood is a small park, where a monument to Lenin once stood. It was toppled during the 2014 Maidan protests, and now, from time to time, various installations appear in its place. For example, a layer of living plants that envelops the empty pedestal, a structure that anyone can climb and become the “monument,” or simply a giant blue hand.
Copy editing: Joy Tataryn
Translator: Iryna Saviuk
Author: Oleh Kotsarev
This article is a part of the special project ‘Erasure of a Word’ created in support of the exhibition ‘Antitext’. The project is implemented by the Chytomo media in cooperation with the Kharkiv Literary Museum