Yuriy Shchur
The Soviet state security agencies, as is known, were the “watchful eye” of the communist regime. Accordingly, no anti-Soviet sentiments and manifestations passed their attention, especially if they concerned Ukraine. Flipping through the pages of reports, reports, and other documents that became available to researchers thanks to the processes of declassification and decommunization, we find a lot of information, in particular, about Ukrainian writers.
On October 7, 1974, a report dedicated to the 46-year-old writer Serhiy Plachynda, who “admitted ideologically harmful judgments, communicated with a number of nationalistically inclined individuals, and took ideologically unclear positions in his work,” landed on the desk of the head of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR, Shcherbytsky.
The writer, whose views and activities worried the KGB, was born on June 18, 1928, on the Shevchenko farm (Kirovohrad region) in a peasant family. As a child, he became a witness to the Holodomor-genocide of 1931-1933, organized by the communists in Ukraine. As a teenager, he experienced the Nazi occupation and the return of Soviet power. The specifics of the era also affected his growing up years: he worked as a turner in the mechanical workshops of the state farm, later he was an employee of the Kirovohrad district newspaper and at the same time studied in high school. Since 1948, he collaborated in republican newspapers and magazines, publishing essays and stories. In 1953, he graduated from the Philological Faculty of Kyiv State University, and then completed postgraduate studies at the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, where he continued to work as a research fellow. However, in 1960, at the initiative of the then head of the socialist realism department and deputy director of the institute, Mykola Shamota, he was dismissed “for Ukrainian nationalism”.
He was fruitfully engaged in science, wrote literary monographs “Composition and Characters in the Novels of Yu. Yanovsky” (1957), “The Mastery of Yu. Yanovsky” (1969) and the first book about Oleksandr Dovzhenko in post-Stalin Ukraine, which was published in 1964. Serhiy Plachynda was also the first to publish Dovzhenko’s previously unknown “Diaries”.
He also found time for artistic creativity. In 1959, Plachynda’s books “Stone Rainbow” (short stories and essays) and “Tanya Solomakha” (short story) were published. The same year, the book-essay “Brothers of the Moon” about the creative activity of the brilliant Ukrainian spacecraft designer Yuriy Kondratyuk-Sharhei also saw its publication.
In 1960, Serhiy Plachynda was accepted into the Writers’ Union of Ukraine. He worked in the editorial office of “Literary Ukraine” and in the publishing house “Molod”.
In 1968, he published a book of historical stories “The Burning Bush”, in which the characters of Roksolana, Halshka Gulevichivna, Artem Vedel, Maksym Berezovsky, and Teofan Prokopovich were artistically interpreted. Soon, the book was withdrawn from libraries and sold for “nationalistic bias”.
In the above-mentioned report to Shcherbytsky, attention was once again focused on the nationalistic “manifestations” of Serhiy Plachynda. First of all, about the events that took place in October 1971 at a school literary dinner in Novomyrhorod, Kirovohrad region. At that time, Plachynda was outraged by the fact that the event was held in Russian. As the KGB officers were informed by the interviewed witnesses of the events, P. Maleyev and I. Tabunets, the writer said something like the following: “This is how it always happens here – everything is in Russian, and the Ukrainian language and culture are suppressed, put on the back burner …, we have reached the point where in Kyiv the vast majority of schools are Russian and only a few are Ukrainian.”
The KGB’s investigation also did not miss the facts of Plachynda’s communication with other writers whose works showed “breakdowns” of an ideological nature. Hryhir Tyutyunnyk, in particular, was one of them. More on that later. In 1972, Serhiy Plachynda established correspondence with the Zaporizhzhia artist Ivan Vasylenko, who, according to the KGB, was a “nationalistically inclined person.”
In his letters, the writer called the artist a champion of the Ukrainian people, apparently based on the subject matter of the latter’s paintings. And there was quite a lot of history in it – both of Kyivan Rus and the Cossacks. It is not superfluous, in our opinion, to note that Ivan Vasylenko, a participant in the German-Soviet war, had the “Order of the Patriotic War”, medals “For Courage”, “For Military Merit”, “For the Capture of Königsberg”, “For the Victory over Germany”, etc., but nevertheless in February 1974 he was “prevented” by Zaporizhzhia KGB officers for statements hostile to the regime. It is obvious that in the years when the study and popularization of the history of the Ukrainian Cossacks was not tolerated by the Soviet authorities, the pressure on the artist fully corresponded to state policy.
In addition, Plachynda allowed himself to maintain ties with political prisoners. Thus, the KGB noticed his contacts with Stepan Soroka, who at that time was serving his sentence in the Skalnyn camp (apparently, this is a member of the OUN and the “Union” organization). In his letters, Plachynda supported the latter in his research on the history of Ukraine, receiving a clear ma from him in 1973 “Essays about the Eastern Slavs”. History specialists from under the roof of the KGB immediately recognized this work of Soroka as having an ideologically harmful orientation.
In 1973, Plachynda was tried to “tame” at a meeting of the editorial board of the newspaper “Literary Ukraine”. The writer, of course, promised to take into account his mistakes. At the same time, the KGB emphasized that these promises remained so. He continued to produce ideologically harmful works, “distorted Soviet reality, showed interest in similar works of other people”.
His work “Iron Boys” prepared in 1974 at the request of the Ukrainian Society of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries caused particular concern. The book was not published. The reasons for this were described in more than detail in the report: “the position of the miners of our republic, the conditions of their work and life are covered in a sharply biased manner. The author offers the foreign reader a whole gallery of negative characters: rascals, idlers and alcoholics, surrounded by whom the front-line workers are forced to work: ordinary miner Ivan Duma and chief engineer Viktor Sapelnyk.” But most of all, the editor of the book was outraged by the fact that Plachynda derived the labor achievements of Duma and Sapelnyk not from the social conditions created by the Soviet authorities for the workers, but from the fact that one was a representative of the “multifaceted and infinitely talented Ukrainian people,” and the other was a descendant of “the most militant and strongest part of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.” As the editor emphasized, Plachynda’s book could have been published with pleasure by any nationalist publishing house.
Apparently, with the help of agents, KGB officers managed to establish that Plachynda’s dacha contained a typescript of a work by another “ward” of the Soviet special services, A. Lukin from Lviv, which was addressed to the 24th Congress of the Communist Party.
What did the KGB officers offer Shcherbytsky in the fall of 1974? Considering that his actions could cause “political damage,” it was recommended that educational measures be taken through the party organization of the Writers’ Union of Ukraine, demanding the release of “hostile” materials stored in his possession. However, Shcherbytsky’s hand made a note on the report card asking how this could be practically done in order to achieve at least some effect.
We were unable to find a document that would answer Shcherbytsky’s question. However, we know perfectly well what and how Serhiy Plachynda lived on. And certainly not according to the scenario desired by the KGB and the CPU. He continued to write, in particular historical novels. Both during the years of the dying Soviet system and in independent Ukraine: “Kyiv Frescoes” (1982), “Cossacks in Dunkirk” (2003), “Cossack – a True Soul” (2004). In addition, there were the books “Dictionary of Ancient Ukrainian Mythology” (1993), “Myths and Legends of Ancient Ukraine” (2006), “Lebedia. How and When Ukraine Came to Be” (2005), “How Ukrainian Myths Spread Around the World” (2009).
He did not remain aloof from socio-political life. He took an active part in the activities of the People’s Movement of Ukraine. He became the founder and first chairman of the Ukrainian Peasant Democratic Party.
In 2001, he became a laureate of the Ivan Koshelevets Literary Prize, and in 2008 he was awarded the Order of Merit, 3rd degree.
In the last years of his life, Serhiy Plachynda worked as a senior researcher at the National Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies and World History. He studied the prehistory and ancient mythology of Ukraine. Shortly before his death, he settled with his wife in the Cherkasy region, in the village of Kantakuzivka. He died on September 7, 2013.
On October 17, 2019, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Kyiv on the house at 52 Olesya Honchara Street, where Serhiy Plachynda lived.
