Badzo, Yurii
Badzo, Yurii [Бадзьо, Юрій; Badz'o, Jurij], b 25 April 1936 in Kopynivtsi, Subcarpathian Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia (now in Mukachevo raion, Transcarpathia oblast), d 1 September 2018 in Kyiv. Philologist, literary critic, dissident, political prisoner, political theorist and civic activist; husband of fellow dissident Svitlana Kyrychenko. The most prominent Ukrainian dissident from Transcarpathia, Badzo was a national democrat who, in his written works and political activity, demonstrated a strong commitment to the values of democratic socialism. Born into a large peasant family, he was a student at the Faculty of Philology of Uzhhorod University in 1953–58, then for three years he worked as a teacher and school principal in several villages of Mukachevo raion, Transcarpathia oblast. In 1961 he began postgraduate studies in literary theory at the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and soon afterwards he became a staff member at this institute. Badzo completed his postgraduate studies in 1964 but was not allowed to defend his dissertation.
As soon as he moved to Kyiv, Badzo actively engaged in both scholarly and public activities. He published a number of literary studies, and in 1961–64 he was a member of the council of the Club of Creative Youth in Kyiv. He joined a public protest against the arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals during a screening of Sergei Paradzhanov’s film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors on 4 September 1965, when he and his wife both responded to Viacheslav Chornovil’s appeal that ‘Those who oppose tyranny—stand up.’ For this act, and for refusing to renounce his position, Badzo was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and dismissed from the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. He was gradually deprived of the opportunity to work not only in his profession but in the intellectual sphere in general, and subjected to constant administrative harassment. For five years prior to his arrest Badzo worked as a loader in a bakery.
In 1972, in response to a new wave of political arrests, Badzo began writing a treatise called The Right to Live—a detailed democratic socialist critique of the totalitarian foundations of the Soviet system of ‘real socialism’ and of Soviet nationality policy, with a focus on Ukraine. The first draft of the study—1,400 pages of a handwritten text that took five years to write—was stolen from a friend’s apartment in 1977; Badzo was convinced that the KGB was behind this theft. He began working on the study anew but in February 1979, during a search, 450 pages of the second unfinished draft of The Right to Live were seized. Two months later, on 23 April 1979, Badzo was arrested. During the period between the search and his arrest, Badzo wrote an ‘Open Letter to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,’ as well as an ‘Open Letter to Ukrainian and Russian Historians,’ in which he briefly outlined the main ideas of The Right to Live.
Badzo’s trial took place on 19–21 December 1979, and only individuals selected by the authorities were allowed to attend. Badzo was charged with preparing the manuscript The Right to Live, and the possession of a variety of documents circulating as samvydav. Badzo did not admit to committing a crime and his wife, Svitlana Kyrychenko, refused to testify. Badzo was sentenced by the Kyiv Municipal Court, in accordance with Article 62-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, to the maximum possible sentence: 7 years in a strict-regime labor camp and 5 years of exile, and the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR upheld this sentence. On 21 March 1980, Badzo began to serve his sentence at Mordovian Camp ZhK-385/3-5, village of Barashevo, Mordovian ASSR, RSFSR.
While imprisoned Badzo participated in a political strike during the Moscow Olympics, staged several hunger strikes, and wrote a number of political statements criticizing the government. In response, he was repeatedly denied visits from his family, placed in solitary confinement, and his wife and children were persecuted. Svitlana Kyrychenko (an employee of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in the 1960s), was fired 11 times, including from menial positions as a mail carrier and a cleaning lady, and in 1983, at a Komsomol meeting, Badzo’s son Serhii was expelled from the Komsomol after he was encouraged to denounce his parents.
In 1986 Badzo was sent into in internal exile in the village of Khandyga, Tomponsk raion, Yakut ASSR, RSFSR; his wife, Svitlana Kyrychenko, was with him throughout his exile. In early 1987 Badzo refused to submit a request to be set free, but he was finally released, at the initiative of the authorities, on 9 December 1988.
On 3 January 1989 Badzo returned to Kyiv with his wife, and he quickly renewed his political and public activities. He analyzed current affairs in Ukraine in a series of interviews and articles, and spoke at numerous public rallies. In the spring of 1990 Badzo joined an initiative group working to establish a political party opposed to the Communist Party of Ukraine, and in May 1990, Badzo’s ‘Manifesto of the Democratic Party of Ukraine’ was published. In December 1990 Badzo was elected chairman of the Democratic Party of Ukraine (known popularly as the DemPU) at its founding congress, but he withdrew his candidacy at this party’s 2nd congress in December 1992 to return to his academic work, and left the DemPU in 1996 because of changes in this party’s program with which he disagreed.
From 1 June 1993 onwards Badzo was a researcher with the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and in 1996 he became a member of the National Writers' Union of Ukraine. In his works Badzo consistently defended Ukrainian linguistic and cultural values as well as Ukraine’s sovereignty, opposed and criticized all expressions of Russian imperialism, and espoused the values of democratic socialism. Badzo remained active as a scholar, journalist, and political analyst until his death in Kyiv in 2018.
Soon after Ukraine declared independence the authorities returned to Badzo the manuscript confiscated from him in 1979, and an abridged version was published as Pravo zhyty: Ukraïna v skladi SRSR, liudyna v systemi totalitarnoho sotsializmu (The Right to Live: Ukraine within the USSR, and Individuals in the System of Totalitarian Socialism, 1996). Badzo was also the author of Boiovi heneraly, syvousi parubky z ukraïns'koï vulytsi i troians'ka kobyla istorychnoho protsesu (Martial Generals, Grizzled Lads from the Streets of Ukraine, and the Trojan Horse of the Historical Process, 2010), and he wrote a number of articles and pamphlets dealing with the sociopolitical situation in independent Ukraine; some of them are included in the collection Pidpil'na natsiia (Underground Nation, 2003). A biography of Badzo, written by Illia Shmanko, was published as Ne zrikayuchys' liubovi do Ukraïny: Zyttiepys Iuriia Badzia (Without Renouncing His Love for Ukraine: The Life of Yurii Badzo, 2021). Badzo’s life is also extensively discussed in the lengthy memoirs written by his wife, Svitlana Kyrychenko, published as Liudy ne zi strakhu: Ukraïns'ka saha; Spohady (People Without Fear: A Ukrainian Saga: Memoirs, 2013).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kampo,Volodymyr. Iurii Badz'o: Filosofiia antyimpers'koho/antyfashysts'koho sprotyvu Ukraïny; Publitsystychne ese (Kyiv 2024)
Ivan Jaworsky
[This article was updated in 2026.]