September 04, 2015 at 03:27PM

Remembering Vasyl Stus http://bit.ly/1KQ44LL Thirty years ago, the world lost one of Ukraine’s greatest literary talents and one of the most active and determined members of the Ukrainian dissident movement. After 23 years of inhumane Soviet imprisonment, renowned Ukrainian poet and publicist, Vasyl Stus, died in a Soviet gulag at the age of 47. Vasyl Stus was born in the small village of Rakhnivka in the central Ukrainian oblast of Vinnytsia, but spent most of his formative years in Donets’k. (In a twist of history, Stus’ alma mater Donets’k University recently relocated to Vinnytsia due to the Russian military invasion of Donets’k.) Having been raised in a Ukrainian-speaking household, Stus later taught Ukrainian language and literature in Horlivka (another city now decimated by the current Russian occupation). An avid writer, the young Stus had his earliest poems published while still at university. After being conscripted into the Soviet military, Stus continued to write, translating many works by Goethe and Rilke into the Ukrainian language. In 1963, at the age of 25, Vasyl turned his attention to his love of history and literature and was accepted into a doctoral program at Kyiv’s Shevchenko Institute of Literature. During this time he became very active in the literary circles of the time, writing poetry and critical articles, many of which appeared in journals. In 1965, Vasyl Stus was expelled from the Literary Institute for taking part in a protest meeting that denounced the secret arrests and closed trials of members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. He nevertheless continued to write his poetry and literary criticism. He attempted to publish his first two collections of poetry, Circulation and Trees of Winter, but both were rejected for publication because they questioned Soviet orthodoxy. He turned to self-publishing appeals protesting the restoration of the personality cult, Russification and the denial of freedom of thought. As a result, Stus was arrested in 1972 along with other dissident writers – Ivan Svitlychny, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ihor and Iryna Kalynets - and sentenced to five years in a Soviet labor camp and three years' exile. He spent his imprisonment in Mordovia and his exile some 6,000 miles away in the Russian Far East at the notorious and brutal Soviet death camp of Kolyma. Luckily, he survived, returned to Kyiv in 1979 and soon joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, a human rights organization. Eight months later on the eve of the USSR’s Summer Olympic publicity campaign, he was arrested again, and this time sentenced to 15 years (10 years' imprisonment and five years' exile). The circumstances of his second incarceration in the strict-regime camp in the Perm Oblast were unbearable. He was allowed no visitations, was continually harassed by the authorities and due to the harsh and inhumane conditions in the camp, his health deteriorated drastically. Perhaps worst of all for Stus was his inability to smuggle out a single line of his writings. His letters and all of his writings were confiscated, many destroyed by the authorities, including his early Ukrainian translations of Rilke and Goethe, and because of his political convictions, his works were banned by the Soviet regime. He died a brutal and lonely death in solitary confinement during a hunger strike and was buried at the camp cemetery in a grave marked only No. 9. Vasyl Stus will always remain a symbol of the strength of the human spirit in its struggle for freedom and righteousness. His love for Ukraine is interwoven in his many writings and poems which have endured and continue to inspire Ukrainians throughout the world. On November 26, 2005 he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. Heroyam slava. ----------------------- More about Vasyl Stus: His writings (in Ukrainian): http://vasylstus.com/ Remembering Vasyl Stus, a voice raised against tyranny: http://bit.ly/1OiewdX The Death of Vasyl Stus: http://bit.ly/1NfQhA0 "I have no fear of dying" - the late Vasyl Stus: http://bit.ly/1L9ApsJ Vinnytsia has never before seen Vasyl Stus’s poetry celebrated on such a grand scale: http://bit.ly/1i2cuoD Activists Want to Name Donetsk University in Honor of Ukrainian Hero Vasyl Stus: http://bit.ly/1L9QqiC Thirty years later, mystery surrounds death of Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus: http://bit.ly/1Us89ft
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