Anatolіy Kotsur
Doctor of Historical Sciences,
Professor of the Department of Ethnology and Local History,Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,
Kyiv, Ukraine
E-mail: kotsur_anatolij@knu.ua
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4076-2977
DOI: 10.17721/2522-4611.2025.52.1
ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS AND MEMORIES OF STUDENTS OF CHERNIVTSI STATE UNIVERSITY REPRESSED BY THE TOTALITARIAN SYSTEM (LATE 1940S – EARLY 1980S)
The publication presents a document “On the liquidation of the OUN organization among students of Chernivtsi State University”, dated February 12, 1948. It provides information from the Ministry of State Security of the Ukrainian SSR on the arrest and accusation of belonging to the student nationalist organization “Burevii”. This refers to a meeting where “several organizational and program issues were discussed” and “the organization outlined a plan of action”: active struggle against the Soviet government, the colonial policy of Moscow, the Russification of the Ukrainian people, nationalist work and interaction with the Bukovyna leadership of the OUN, the distribution of nationalist literature among the population and leaflets with calls for an independent Ukrainian united state, etc. In total, the investigative case takes up four volumes. The accused in this case, using various interrogation methods, were forced to confess guilt based on many falsified testimonies. The students were sentenced from 3 to 25 years in maximum-security camps. The document below is an important source on the history of political sentiment and participation of Chernivtsi University students in the Ukrainian national movement of the post-war years.
The fight against “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” was actively carried out in almost all higher education institutions in Ukraine, including in the early 1980s. It was often conducted with the aim of prevention, the authorities worked ahead of time, acting on any reports from informants, secret collaborators, and local officials.
During the totalitarian era, students with a pro-Ukrainian civic position were persecuted. They were accused of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism”, expelled from the Komsomol, and higher education institutions, arrested, intimidated, etc. Those who had their own opinion about the CPSU, the Soviet government, and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, were seen by the KGB as unreliable, dissidents. At Chernivtsi University in general, and the Faculty of History in particular, some party "activists" tried to curry favor with higher authorities and security forces and often overly perceived, sometimes literally picked up the ideological thesis "... boldly expose shortcomings in the organization of teaching and educating students, fight for their correction, expose... manifestations of bourgeois-nationalist ideology among both teachers and students." A kind of "socialist competition" unfolded to search for and debunk such signs in the university environment. One example is the creation in December 1980 at the Faculty of History of the student club "Verax" and the publication of the wall newspaper "Sodalitas", preparation of the Shevchenko evening for the 120th anniversary of the Kobzar's death, etc. Then - searches, seizure of notebooks with diaries, notes, and poems, and arrests and expulsions from the university.
It should be noted that any gathering of students that was not previously agreed with the party bureau, the Komsomol committee, and the dean's office was considered dubious, suspicious; and quite often - insidious, anti-Soviet, bourgeois-nationalist.
Thus, the document from the Branch Archive of the SBU s an important source on the history of socio-political sentiments among student youth in the late 1940s and the participation of Chernivtsi University students in the Ukrainian national movement of the post-war period. The memoirs of students of the Faculty of History in the early 1980s reflect a real picture of persecution for their pro-Ukrainian civic position and accusations of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism”. These two documents are separated by more than thirty years, but nothing has changed in the era of totalitarianism regarding the extermination of freethinking, dissent, and Ukrainian identity.
Key words: Chernivtsi State University, students, Faculty of Philology, OUN, Faculty of History, student club "Verax", wall newspaper "Sodalitas", Taras Shevchenko, Kobzar, KGB.
Received 31.03.2025.
Revised 25.04.2025.
Accepted 5.05.2025.
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