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By V. Ovsienko
G. is Alla Horska
G. was born in Yalta to a family belonging to Soviet nomenclature. She,
together with her mother survived the two blockade winters in Leningrad in
1941 - 43. She graduated from Kyiv Art institute specializing in painting.
She painted portraits, worked in easel painting, cut linoleum, made
ceramics.
Her monumental works in Donbass were done jointly with Zaretskiy and others
(butt-end walls of buildings, schools, a wall in a jeweller shop.
In the studio owned by G. and Zaretskiy friends frequently gathered. Reports
were made, discussions on various topics were carried out.
G. was one of organizers of the *Creative Youth Club 'Sovremennik'
('Contemporary'), 1959 - 1964. Jointly with V. Simonenko and L. Taniuk she
discovered the place of interment of the executed by the NKVD in
Lukyanovskoye and Vasylkovskoye cemeteries in Bykovnia (1962 - 1963), about
which they announced in Kyiv city council (Memorandum No. 2). After this V.
Simonenko was brutally beaten and soon died from a virulent malady of
kidneys in 1963.
In 1964 G., jointly with O. Zalivakha, L. Semykina, G. Sevruk and G.
Zubchenko, made a stained-glass window 'Shevchenko. Mother' in Kyiv
University. The glass shows gloomy Shevchenko who embraces the seduced
woman - Ukraine - with one arm, and in another raised hand holds a book. At
the bottom of the composition there are his words: 'I'll glorify these
silent slaves, and to protect them from a rogue I put the word as a watchdog
'. The stained-glass window was disassembled by the university
administration. The commission created after this conflict regarded the
stained-glass window as ideologically harmful: '.
Shevchenko is shown behind a grate (it was a frame to fasten the glass. -
Editor's note). The approach is quite formalistic and is not compatible with
Shevchenko's image. The authors have to show that Shevchenko's dream came
true.' and so on, and so forth. G. and L. Semykina were excluded from the
Union of Artists of Ukraine. In a year they were reinstated.
In 1963 many friends and acquaintances of G. were arrested. This year became
for her the beginning of active participation in the resistance. On 16 Dec
1965 G. directed the application to the prosecutor of the Ukrainian Republic
concerning the arrests. The application was published in *samizdat. G.
directed her application after the trial of Ya. Gavrich; besides, she
directed two complaints to the prosecutor of the Ukrainian Republic in
December 1965 and March 1966.
G. was summoned to the KGB for interrogations as a witness and for the
confrontations, where she heard 'usual KGB talks' with warnings and threats.
G. assisted to political convicts' families morally and materially, she
corresponded with them and with O. Zalivakha. In April 1966 she signed the
petition in his support. Human rights protection activists after their
release from prisons and colonies turned for help to G.
G. was also present at the trial of V. Chornovil on 15 Sep 1967 in Lviv,
where she with the group of other Kyivans protested against illegal
procedures of the court. On April 1968 G. signed The Letter of protest of
139 directed to the leaders of the Communist party and the Soviet state with
the demand to stop the practice of illegal processes. This text was included
into the samizdat collection *Protsess Chetyriokh (The process of the four)
about the case of Ginzburg - Galanskov. Administrative repressions began
against those who signed the protest, the KGB pressed on them. Rumors
circulated in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine that an underground terrorist
Bandera organization existed in Ukraine under the control of Western
security services. G. was called one of the chieftains of this organization.
On 15 June 1968 she and seven more persons were excluded from the Union of
Artists of Ukraine.
She was tailed, sometimes demonstratively, she was threatened by strangers.
In 1970 she was summoned to an interrogation in Ivano-Frankivsk about the
case of the arrested V. Moroz, but she refused to give any testimony.
Several days before her death she wrote a protest to the Supreme Court of
the Ukrainian Republic on the illegal and cruel verdict pronounced to him.
On 28 Nov 1970 G. was killed in the town Vasylkov of the Kyiv oblast. Her
funeral was appointed on 4 December. This day her friends organized an
exhibition of her pictures in her studio, some people came from other towns.
Suddenly the funeral was postponed to the 7 December allegedly in the
interests of the crime investigation. The coffin was prohibited to be
carried to her house and to her studio. Nonetheless, about 150 - 200 persons
gathered in the cemetery. E. Sverstiuk, V. Stus, I. Gel and others delivered
their speeches. The crime investigation conducted by the prosecutor's office
of the Kyiv oblast came to the conclusion that G. was killed by her
father-in-law due to personal motives, after which he committed suicide.
Awful rumors were distributed in Ukraine about these two deaths, foreign
radio stations suggested their own versions. The authorities tried to
hush-hush any talks about G.'s death.
After the disintegration of the USSR the prosecutor's office and security
service of Ukraine never made public any information about G.'s death, in
spite of the public demands, although the criminal case was reopened. The
analysis of the case showed that the investigation was incomplete, full of
contradictions and was carried with violation of the proper procedures, i.e.
it was fabricated. General traits with murder of other political figures in
the USSR are easily observed.
G. is buried in Minskoye (Berkovetskoye) cemetery in Kyiv.
I.
A. Gorskaya, Chervona tin kalyny. Letters, memoirs, articles, ed. by O.
Zaretsky and M. Marychevsky, Kyiv, Spalakh Ltd. 1996, 240 p.
II.
Ukrainskiy Visnyk ['The Ukrainian Herald'], Paris - Baltimore, Smoloskip
1971, issue IV, pp. 11-21.
Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy ['A Chronicle of Current Events'], New York,
Khronika 1977, issue 44, p. 121.
S. Belokin, Zhittya i smert Ally Gorskoyi, Rozbudova derzhavy ['State
building'] 1992, No. 4, pp. 45-55.
O. Zaretskiy. Moyi batki, Ukraina ['Ukraine'] 1994, Nos. 22-24; 1995, Nos.
1-2.
G. Kasyanov, Nezgodni: Ukrainska intelligentsiya v rusi oporu 1960-1980,
Kyiv, Lybid 1995, pp. 18, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 57, 69, 70, 73, 76, 86, 87.
A.Rusnachenko, Natsionalno-vyzvolny rukh v Ukraine, Kyiv, O. Teliga
Publishing house 1998, pp. 19, 142, 149, 151, 152, 153, 155, 171.
Sobraniye dokumentov samizdata, Vol. 18, AC935.
http://karta.icm.edu.pl/slownik/en/html/in/in2/in3/postaci/ukraina/HORSKA.htm
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