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	NADIYA SVITLYCHNA
	A New Era In Her Life Began, Behind The Barbed Wires Of Mordovia, Far From Her Native Land And Her Beloved Son Arrested April 1972, Sentenced, March, 1973 NADIYA SVITLYCHNA "Nadiya Svitlychna's journey from a village in the Donbass area, through Kyiv, and finally to a Mordovian concentration camp was a long one. As a young girl, she dreamed of Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, where she someday hoped to find her happiness. As a philology student at the University of Kyiv, she filled each free moment with total enthusiasm for the academic world she found herself in. She associated with people who loved literature and were dedicated to the principle of free expression. Soon she completed her studies, then found a job in a Kyiv radio station and later in a library. Nadiya Svitlychna Life, in the meantime, boiled in an exciting ferment all around her, but she never stopped to examine it. Instead, she became an active participant in it, a participant and co-creator of the literary movement of the sixties. The name of her brother, Ivan Svitlychny, one of the most prominent literary critics of the sixties, found its way into the nation's press, seemingly, every day. Ardent discussions, polemics, conversations about the great works of literature and their creators filled Nadiya's life. The exciting swirl of creative life took place in the lecture halls of the University of Kyiv, during outings along the Dnipro, in the shade of Kyiv's chestnut trees, in the offices of the Writer's Union of Ukraine. "Christmas In Mordovia" Hryhor Pavlokiemetz, Artist Ukrainian Christmas Card Published By Smoloskyp, 1980 Ellicott City, Maryland, USA (Mordovia, A Soviet Concentration Camp) In the meantime, Kyiv, after several years of thaw, again began to freeze up in repression and fear. People began to be afraid to speak to one another, and when they did, they spoke with lowered voices and whispers, so that hidden microphones would not record what had been said. Life in such circumstances becomes unbearable. How can you live with people and not be able to trust them, Nadiya asked herself. She became hardened and strong through troubles and misfortunes; her brother was being repressed. But she lived in hope. She hoped she would be spared and permitted to raise her son. But it did not happen that way. She also was taken away. They accused her of copying the words of samvydav. She was kept in an interrogation cell for eleven months, because they could find nothing for which they could convict an innocent person. The verdict was brutal: four years' imprisonment in a concentration camp. And so a new ear in her life began, behind the barbed wires of Mordovia, far from her native land and her beloved son... LETTERS -- "The arrests of 1972, which culminated in trials with indictments based on Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian S.S.R., produced a large group of people to whom the sentences handed them gave an unwritten right to consider themselves political prisoners, inasmuch as Article 62 by its very nature provides for punishment for actions directed against the political foundations of the U.S.S.R. Thus I became a political prisoner, although I had considered the main concern of my life to be the upbringing of my son. In fact, I was deprived not only of freedom, but of motherhood as well. In this, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 and which served as the basis of the international covenant on the civil and political rights of man, a covenant which was ratified by the government of our country exactly in the year when I was sentenced, played no minor role. An indiscreet faith in such solid documents as the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights led me to prison. In my case, the advantage turned out to be not on the side of the constitutional guarantees of the freedom of speech and guarantees stemming from international human rights covenants. "Christmas In Mordovia" Hryhor Pavlokimetz, Artist Ukrainian Christmas Card Published By Smoloskyp, 1986 Ellicott City, Maryland, USA (Mordovia, A Soviet Concentration Camp) The advantage turned out to be on the side of the above-mentioned article of the Criminal Code, and my two-year-old son was orphaned. Therefore, having re-assessed my attitude toward the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I hold it to be a provocative document of international scope, and one which may serve as a trap for the credulous. Nadiya Svitlychna (From A Letter To the Procurator-General Of The U.S.S.R., Roman Rudenko. December 10, 1973) Nadiya Svitlychna's Son, Yarema, With His Grandmother. Nadiya's Mother Cared For The Boy While Nadiya Was Imprisoned, From 1972 to 1976. NADIYA SVITLYCHNA... Born in 1925 in the Donbas. Philologist. Married and mother of a son. Arrested in April 1972 and charged with copying the works of the 'samvydav'. Tried in March 1973 under Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Urk.S.S.R., ("anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda") and sentenced to four years' labor camp. Served her sentence in Camp No. 3 in Mordovia, where she was often punished with incarceration in penal isolation cells for writing protest letters and demanding political prisoner status. Released in May 1976 upon completing her term." "INVINCIBLE SPIRIT " Art and Poetry of Ukrainian Women Political Prisoners In The U.S.S.R. Album Design by Taras B. Horalewskyj Color Photography by Taras B. Horalewskyj Poetry and Text Translated by Bohdan Yasen Ukrainian Text by Bohden Arey Smoloskyp Publishers Baltimore-Chicago-Toronto-Paris 1977, Pages 87, 101, 121

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