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The situation of the family of a political exile sent to the remotest corners of the Soviet Union is not much better. Many women leave their own homes, running the risk of losing the right of returning to Ukraine. In the far Siberian wilderness they share with their exiled hus bands shacks unsuitable for human habitation. Others, in order not to lose the right of returning to Ukraine, keep both homes. The woman’s life becomes a continu ous journey between Siberia and Ukraine — a long and exhausting journey. The lack of adequate transporta tion, bad roads, and the continuing stress of Soviet life only add to her hardships. Liolia Svitlychna, the wife of the literary critic Ivan Svitlychnyi, spent five years beside her exiled husband, at the same time maintaining their living quarters in Kiev. When her husband was paralyzed by a stroke becoming gravely ill, she cared for him in the remote Altai region for a year and a half. Liolia, not healthy her self, was everything for her husband: nurse, mother, faithful wife. In 1974 while still in the concentration camp, before his exile, Ivan Svitlychnyi devoted a poem to his wife as if summing up her past and future experiences. This is a free translation: To me, you were everything you could have been: You were Easter and everyday, A guarantee of “we will survive”, You were the dew upon the rock, And you were the rock itself, a hard corundum. You were the cuckoo-bird and Lada, Balm upon a wound, and power, The one and only for everything and all. And I do not know who else you will be, When this spinning whirlpool of life carries us on in its vortex. In recent years, the political atmosphere in the Soviet Union has deteriorated drastically. The government has begun enforcing a number of new regulations to com pletely stop the activities of dissidents and, to be sure, of their wives. The repressions in Ukraine have become Mafia-like in character. Defamatory articles and denunciations, published in the newspapers, blackmail, intimidations, instances of beatings in the streets by “unidentified per sons” in civilian dress and threats of rape have become frequent and routine. It is quite common for a wife of an imprisoned dissident to be taken off a train as she is heading to Moscow (where, from the authorities’ point of view, she could ‘pass information abroad’), subjected to a search for different reasons, kept for a while by the police, then put on the train and sent back home. Most wives of political prisoners, especially those who actively defend their own rights and the rights of their husbands by writing petitions and appeals, get “warnings”. This means that if they persist in their activ ity they may face criminal charges. Such “warnings” preceded the recent arrests of Raissa Rudenko and Olha Heyko. The reactions of women in these circumstances is different depending upon their character and tempera ment, level of education and intelligence, inclination to conform, etc. Some of the women behave cautiously, avoiding direct confrontation with the regime. However, the regime’s treatment of these women, is not much dif ferent. As long as you stick to your imprisoned husband you are treated as an outcast. As a result, the wives of political prisoners, no mat ter who they are or where they live, feel a solidarity. Scattered throughout the Ukraine, they keep in contact and know each other very well. The KGB tries to des troy their friendship but without much success. For these women their solidarity is an important source of strength. Another ray of sunshine in the darkness of their lives are friends — a rather tight-knit circle throughout the Soviet Union. “A friend in need is a friend indeed” —says the English proverb. Looking back at my past, full of bitter trials, I constantly recall my former friends. Never before had I sensed so clearly what the warmth of friendship means. I can never complain about my fate because it gave me the opportunity to meet such rare and brilliant people as Ivan Svitlychnyi — the late poet Vasyl Stus in Kiev, Andrey Sakharov and Liudmila Alek seeva in Moscow, Olena Antoniv and Vyacheslav Chor- novil in Lviv. For to me friendship with such people changed my whole concept of life and its values. Turning again to the behavior of the wives of Ukrainian political prisoners, I would like to focus on the women who without hesitation become the voices of their imprisoned husbands. In recent years their peti tions, ‘Open Letters’ and appeals, have contributed sub stantially to the Ukrainian “Samvydav”. Attracting the attention of the world to the desperate situation of Soviet political prisoners, to the ruthless behavior of camp administrators, to the arbitrariness of the KGB and to the totalitarian nature of the Soviet system. Regretably, these petitions and appeals printed by various Ukrainian newspapers and journals, have not been compiled into a single volume, which might give an overview of the underground correspondence of these women. Some of these authors have created brilliant samples of publicism. The appeals of Svitlana Kyry- chenko, for example, proved to be equal to the works of her imprisoned husband Jurij Badzio, the author of the sophisticated study of Ukrainian national politics in the U. S. S. R. (confiscated by the KGB). In the case of Stefania Sichko, a woman with no academic education and the mother of three children, her “Samvydav” output exceeded that of her imprisoned husband and two sons. In 1980, Iryna Zisels wrote that she carried the heavy burden of being the wife of a political prisoner for only three years. She expressed her deep admiration of those " who for long years — 10, 15, 25 — with their faith and loyalty, warmth and care, gave support to their husbands — the finest sons of a country enclosed by 24 ’НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ЛЮ ТИЙ 1986 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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