As we anticipate the midterm elections, hoping for the best outcome for both America and Ukraine, let’s take a look back at something that took place 50 years ago: a small meeting that had a profound impact on developments in the years that followed and that still resonates today.
Fifty years ago, on November 9, 1976, 10 concerned and courageous Ukrainian citizens, led by Ukrainian dissident writer and poet Mykola Rudenko, met in Kyiv and formed the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG). Their mission: to monitor Soviet compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act. In signing the Final Act a year earlier in August 1975, 35 countries, including the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada and 32 European states, formally agreed to respect the human rights of their citizens.
A Helsinki group of prominent Soviet dissidents was formed in Moscow in June 1976. The Moscow group encouraged the formation of the Ukrainian group, which then served as a catalyst for the formation of groups in Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian and other affiliated entities. The Ukrainian Helsinki Group eventually became the largest, numbering 39 people, and, in short order, the most persecuted.
The Ukrainian group, like the others, took the daring step of taking the Kremlin at its word in its freely undertaken Helsinki human rights commitments, asserting its legal right to exist as an open, civic movement for the defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In numerous memorandums and open letters, the UHG documented myriad egregious human rights violations, including the plight of political prisoners, of which Ukrainians constituted a disproportionate share. The UHG stressed the importance of individual rights, including freedom of speech and conscience, revealing the gap between Soviet propaganda and harsh on-the-ground realities. The group called for political, economic, social and cultural rights.
The UHG exposed the many crimes of Soviet communism in Ukraine. They condemned Russification, which was at the time particularly pronounced. According to historian Yaroslav Hrytsak, the denigration of the Ukrainian language was such that those who spoke Ukrainian in public, in public transportation, shops or libraries were sometimes told: “Speak a human language!”
The UHG also protested Soviet ethnocide – the systematic suppression of Ukraine’s linguistic, historical, religious and cultural identity. In doing so, it exposed Moscow’s attempts to erode non-Russian identities to create an artificial, homogenized Russified Soviet nation. The group sought Ukraine’s liberation from colonial rule, envisioning a united Europe in which Ukraine could realize its national and democratic aspirations. They combined human rights work with support of Ukraine’s national sovereignty.
As much as the Ukrainian group was committed to see the promises of the Helsinki Final Act extended to the people of Ukraine, the autocratic Soviet regime was equally determined to suppress it. The Ukrainians, not surprisingly, experienced the heaviest persecution of any Soviet monitoring group. Within two years of its formation, all 10 of its founding members were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of 7-10 years, followed by internal exile. That did not stop 31 other brave men and women from joining, some of whom were already serving sentences in labor camps for peacefully exercising their rights.
In the end, 39 of the 41 members were subjected to prisons, labor camps, internal exile or punitive psychiatric hospitals. Collectively, they were sentenced to serve more than 550 years of detention. Four members made up the group: co-founder Oleksa Tykhy, Valeriy Marchenko, Yuri Lytvyn and iconic poet Vasyl Stus, who died in 1985 while serving sentences in the notorious “special regime” camps. What these men and women endured is a tribute to their courage, fortitude and perseverance in adhering to the principles enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act and the subsequent Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other international agreements.
Some of the group’s members were able to emigrate after having been repressed. Mykola Rudenko, Raisa Rudenko, Gen. Petro Hryhorenko, Nina Strokata Karavanska, Nadia Svitlychna, Leonid Plyushch, Danylo Shumuk and Petro Ruban continued to speak out about Soviet human and national rights abuses, including at hearings in the U.S. Congress. (Advocacy on behalf of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and human rights in captive Ukraine, particularly by the U.S. Congress and the Helsinki Commission in cooperation with the Ukrainian American community, is a separate topic – one which I have previously addressed and intend to examine again in the future.)
The Ukrainian Helsinki Group shifted Ukraine’s national liberation struggle into a universal human rights framework. They laid the legal and moral groundwork for Ukraine’s independence. In 1988, as reforms under Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika were taking root, members of the UHG formed the Ukrainian Helsinki Union (UHU), a civic and opposition movement. Soon after, in 1989, UHG and UHU members were instrumental in the creation and development of Rukh, the mass movement that mobilized millions of Ukrainians for independence. I consider Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mykhaylo Horyn and Levko Lukianenko – all former political prisoners and veterans of the Helsinki movement – to be the founding fathers of Ukrainian Independence.
The courage, nobility and moral clarity of Ukrainian Helsinki Group members cannot be overstated. They were far more than non-conformists – a stance difficult enough to take in a highly repressive Soviet state. (Frankly, it is difficult to be a non-conformist and ‘rock the boat’ in any society, even a democratic one.) They spoke truth to power. For their immense sacrifice – speaking out when few others at the time were understandably willing or able to do so – they are deeply worthy of our gratitude and respect.
Tragically, 50 years after the inception of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and 35 years after the restoration of independence, Ukrainians are subjected to gross, relentless Russian violations of the 10 founding principles enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act. These principles encompass not only human rights, but also sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. By resolutely defending these ideals in the face of Moscow’s imperialistic, anti-democratic abuses, Ukrainians are setting a powerful example for the entire world.
The Ukrainian Helsinki Group articulated the very values of freedom, democracy, identity and human dignity that Ukrainians are valiantly fighting for today – a noble legacy that continues to resonate and endure.
Author: Orest Deychakiwsky
