Protest letter 139

The protest letter 139 ( Ukrainian Лист-протест 139 , Russian Письмо-протест 139 ) or Kiev letter (Ukrainian Київський лист , Russian Киевское письмо ) was one of 139 scientists and cultural workers in in April 1968 Kiev signed and the Soviet leadership directed an open letter of protest .

Initiators

In late autumn or early winter 1967 (November / December) a group of people gathered in Kiev to prepare a letter of protest with the purpose of making the country and the world aware of the oppression in Ukraine. At the beginning of 1968 signatures began to be collected, so that by April 1968 139 people had signed the letter. The initiators of the letter were the writers Ivan Switlytschnyj , Ivan Dsjuba , the physicist Yuri Zechmistrenko ( Юрій Цехмістренко ) and Iryna Saslawska ( Ірина Заславська ) and cybernetics Viktor Bodnartschuk ( Віктор Гаврилович Боднарчук ).

receiver

The open letter was addressed to the party leader of the CPSU and head of state of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev , the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Alexej Kosygin and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and thus head of state of the Soviet Union Nikolai Podgorny .

content

The protest letter called for an end to the violations of the USSR against the principles of socialist democracy and legal norms and thus an end to the practice of illegal political trials against dissidents , whereby the imprisoned dissidents Yuri Timofejewitsch Galanskow , Alexander Ilyich Ginsburg and Vyacheslav Chornovil were named.

Official KGB photo of Ivan Djuba after his arrest in 1973

consequences

After a while there was repression against the signatories. Many were initially removed from their jobs and from professional or artist associations.

In Kiev and all of Ukraine, the KGB fueled rumors of the existence of a terrorist Bandera organization initiated by Western intelligence services, headed by Alla Horska . She was killed on November 28, 1970 under mysterious circumstances. In 1972 a major wave of persecution began, in which numerous dissidents were arrested and sentenced to long years of forced labor in the Gulag and then exiled.

Signatory (selection)

Among the 139 personalities who signed the protest letter were among others:

• Sergei Parajanov
• Ivan Martschuk
• Ivan Djuba
• Ivan Switlychnyj

Writer:

• Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov
• Wassyl Stus
• Valery Shevchuk
• Lina Kostenko
• Mykola Winhranowskyj
• Ivan Dratsch
• Borys Antonenko-Davydovych
• Yevhen Swerstyuk

Translator:

• Hryhoriy Kochur

Artist:

• Alla Horska

Scientist:

• Anatoly Scorochod
• Kirill Borisovich Tolpygo

Individual evidence

1. ^ Protest letter 139 in the Encyclopedia of the History of the Ukraine ; accessed on October 23, 2016 (Ukrainian)
2. ↑ How was the Kiev letter prepared? ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed on October 22, 2016 (Ukrainian) 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Kiev letter 1968 ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. with all signatories; accessed on October 22, 2016 (Russian) 
4. ↑ Biography Alla Horska on incognita.day.kiev; accessed on October 21, 2016 (Ukrainian)