How did Russia destroy Ukrainian intelligentsia for centuries?

Russia has always tried to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Starting from the Russian Empire and ending with modern Russia, the Russians carried out repressions, persecutions, arrests and executions of Ukrainian intellectuals. The oppression of Ukrainians took place mostly under the motto of fighting alleged Ukrainian nationalism. 

Representatives of Ukrainian culture were destroyed not only by executions and arrests, in some cases they were forced to work in the interests of the communist regime. 

Russia's crimes against intellectuals did not end with the Shot Revival or the Helsinki Group. During the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russians continue to kidnap and kill the country's cultural elite. 

Svidomi recounts how the Russian Empire, the USSR, and Russia destroyed the Ukrainian intelligentsia that fought for Ukrainian identity and distinctiveness for centuries.

One of the first manifestations of repression against the intellectual elite was the Ems Decree, issued by Russian Emperor Alexander II in 1876, which prohibited the import, printing or translation of any works in Ukrainian. The decree also provided that Ukrainian teachers were sent to work in St. Petersburg, Kazan and Orenburg educational districts. 

During 1876-1880 scientists and teachers Mykhailo Drahomanov and Pavlo Zhytetskyi were dismissed from their jobs for their scientific works on Ukrainian studies. Mykhailo Drahomanov and Pavlo Chubynskyi were also expelled from the country. 

"In the first half of the 19th century, the Russian authorities did not yet see the Ukrainian movement as a danger to themselves. The Polish movement seemed much more dangerous, so the repressions were directed primarily against it," said historian and author of the History Without Myths channel Vladlen Maraiev. 

The first attempt of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to move from the cultural to the political stage of the struggle for the national liberation of Ukraine was 

Cyril and Methodius Society. It functioned in the 1840s, when the first repressions against the members of the brotherhood, in particular against Taras Shevchenko and Mykola Kostromarov, were already partially spreading. Lesya Ukrainka was also arrested for one day during the wave of Ukrainian figures detained in Kyiv. 

"If we compare with Stalin's times, the Executed Renaissance, the scale was absolutely different: as a rule, there were fewer arrests, they were not so widespread, and the sentences were milder," says Maraiev. 

Since the late 20s, arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals took place mainly within the framework of fabricated trials organised by the Soviet authorities.

"Usually, these people were charged with fictitious proceedings unrelated to their artistic activities, such as 'preparation of terrorist attacks, bomb-making, weapons possession, work for foreign intelligence services,'" Maraiev said. 

Despite the constant persecution, arrests and killings, the Soviet authorities often concealed the exact dates of the executions of Ukrainians. In particular, the true date of death of Ukrainian director Les Kurbas was November 3, 1937. Although according to documents, he allegedly died in the camps in 1942. 

Also, in the 20s, Ukrainian writers went abroad to hold creative events to meet with Western artists. During such trips, intellectuals were almost always accompanied by representatives of the Soviet secret services, who carefully monitored the behaviour of each member of the delegation and tried to prevent any attempts of Ukrainians to stay there. 

The first trial against the Ukrainian intelligentsia was the case of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Soiuz Vyzvolennia Ukraïny, or SVU) in March 1930. The aim was to discredit the Ukrainian intelligentsia and destroy the national movement. A public figure and historian, Serhii Yefremov, allegedly headed the fictitious union.

In the dock, in this case, were 45 people, most of them - representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia: Volodymyr Chekhovskyi, Andriy Nikovskyi, Liudmyla Staritska-Chernyakhivska, Yosyp Hermaize, Volodymyr Durdukivskyi, Maria Tobilevych. 

All the detainees were accused of allegedly creating an organisation in Yefremov's apartment in Kyiv in 1926 with the aim of "an armed uprising to overthrow the Bolshevik government".

"It is impossible to comprehend all the terrible damage that the trial in the Kharkiv Opera House [the place where the prosecution in the SVU case took place - ed.] — Ukrainian writer Borys Antonenko-Davydovych wrote on the case.

The Communist Party considered literature and art as one of the links of the cultural front. In March 1937, a campaign of repression known as the Great Terror began in the USSR. On July 2, 1937, Stalin signed a decision according to which the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR had to search for "enemies of the people". 

From October 27 to November 4, 1937, the most massive execution of Ukrainian intellectuals took place in the Sandarmokh Tract. The NKVD shot 1111 people, including 287 Ukrainians and people closely associated with Ukraine. Then the Soviet authorities killed director Les Kurbas, writers Mykola Kulish and Valerian Pidmohylnyi, poets Mark Voronyi and Mykola Zerov and other artists. 

"As a result, Ukrainian culture suffered catastrophic losses when many people were killed in their prime long before they could create many masterpieces. As a result, our culture is poorly known worldwide," Vladlen Maraiev said. 

In the summer of 1971, the Soviet authorities began to develop an operation called Blok, the measures aimed at "neutralising" people who could spread anti-Soviet policies. The Soviet authorities opposed carolling and generosity, as it was a "nationalist manifestation".

On January 12-14, 1972, KGB officers in Kyiv and Lviv arrested 14 people, including poet Vasyl Stus, critics Viacheslav Chornovil and Ivan Svitlychnyi, as well as artists, scientists and doctors.

The KGB document contained lists of addresses the carolers were to visit. The order stated: "Nationalist-minded persons intend to organise groups from among students of Kyiv State University, Polytechnic Institute and creative intellectuals to perform carols in Rusanivka, Darnytsia, Sviatoshyn, Akademhorodok, as well as in the centre of Kyiv."

Most of those arrested on January 12, 1972, were convicted of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and sentenced to five to seven years in high-security camps and three years in exile.

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, in 1972-1974, 193 people were arrested in Ukraine, including 100 people for anti-Soviet propaganda and 27 for religious beliefs.

On November 9, 1976, Ukrainians established a human rights organisation - the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which opposed human rights violations. The goal was to acquaint Ukrainian citizens with the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to demand from the authorities the exercise of the right to free exchange of information and ideas, accreditation of foreign press representatives in Ukraine, and the establishment of independent press agencies. 

Almost all group members were arrested on trumped-up criminal charges and sentenced to maximum sentences. Together, the group members received 550 years in Soviet camps.

Modern Russia continues to destroy Ukrainian intelligentsia. On April 10, 2022, it became known about the abduction of children's writer, poet and laureate of literary prizes Volodymyr Vakulenko by Russians. 

Only after the de-occupation of Izium in the Kharkiv region a mass grave was discovered where the writer's body was found. During the exhumation, two bullets from a Makarov pistol were found in Vakulenko's body.

Currently, his diary is being digitised in the Kharkiv Literary Museum. Before the abduction, Vakulenko hid his notes under a cherry tree in the garden. The author's relatives and writer Victoria Amelina handed them over to the museum. 

"On March 18, he wrote: "I believe in the Armed Forces". He wrote something about food. Here you can read that "people died". Apparently, he saw how people were killed or died from bombs. "In one of the villages, a school was destroyed. People died, several people", - the researcher of the Kharkiv Literary Museum, Oleksii Yurchenko, quoted the writer's diary. 

As a result of the repressions, the creative process in Ukraine was interrupted several times, greatly hampering its development.

"The creative process did not have the opportunity to develop as it could have but for the oppression. The artistic process in the 60s-80s could have been completely different, quite at the level of the best examples of world art, if those terrible events had not happened," - said historian Vladlen Maraiev.