Dissidents of Ivano-Frankivsk region on the pages of the self-published magazine «Ukrainian Herald» (1970–1972)

Abstract

The magazine «Ukrainian Herald», published in samizdat during 1970–1974, is considered one of the greatest achievements of the Ukrainian dissident movement. The editor of its first six issues was well-known journalist and publicist Viacheslav Chornovil. The magazine contained a considerable body of information on various manifestations of opposition to the policies of the Soviet regime, as well as on judicial and extrajudicial repression against dissidents. The subject of the proposed study is the state of disclosure of dissident activity in Ivano-Frankivsk region in the publications of the self-published magazine «Ukrainian Herald» edited by V. Chornovil (1970–1972). This problem has not yet received a comprehensive study in modern Ukrainian historiography. At the same time, the content of the «Ukrainian Herald» is analyzed in the works of H. Kasianov, O. Obertas, V. Derevinskyi, and T. Baklashova.
The author concludes that the self-published magazine «Ukrainian Herald» is one of the key sources of information about the dissident movement in Ivano-Frankivsk region in the second half of the 1960s – early 1970s. The pages of the magazine pay a lot of attention to the public activity of the Precarpathian center of the Sixties human rights movement, which included Valentyn Moroz, Raisa Moroz, Opanas Zalivakha, Vasyl Romaniuk, Iryna Senyk, Oksana Popovych, Volodymyr Ivanyshyn and others. One of the central cross-cutting themes that runs through all issues of the magazine is the Soviet regime’s massacre of Ivano-Frankivsk dissident leader V. Moroz in 1970 and the campaign for his protection. Thanks to the materials of the «Ukrainian Herald», it is possible to trace a large-scale picture of the growth of judicial and extrajudicial repressions, manifestations of Ukrainophobia in Ivano-Frankivsk region on the eve of the «second wave of arrests». There are also unique documents about the struggle for freedom of conscience and oppression of the Greek Catholic Church in Ivano-Frankivsk region. At the same time, the magazine has virtually no information about the activities of local nationalist underground organizations, except for a few pieces of information about the leaders of the Ukrainian National Front (UNF).