Lytvyn, Yurii
Lytvyn, Yurii [Литвин, Юрій], b 26 November 1934 in Ksaverivka, Vasylkiv raion, Kyiv oblast, d 5 September 1984 in Kuchino, Chusovo raion, Perm oblast, Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Poet, author, dissident, and political prisoner; one of the few ‘mainstream’ dissidents in Soviet Ukraine with a strong interest in socioeconomic and labor-related issues. Born into a family of village schoolteachers, Lytvyn was first arrested on 24 June 1953 for ‘theft’ although the supposed theft was designed to draw attention to how village youths had great difficulty leaving the village to continue their education. On 29 July 1953 Lytvyn was sentenced by the Vasylkiv raion court, in accordance with Article 4 of the Decree of 4 June 1947 on theft of state property, to 12 years of imprisonment in the Kunyeev Corrective Labor Camp, Kuibyshev oblast, RSFSR. Lytvyn was released from detention on 31 January 1955 after the Soviet partisan leader Sydir Kovpak, with whom Lytvyn’s father had served during the Second World War, interceded on Lytvyn’s behalf. Soon afterwards, however, on 14 April 1955, Lytvyn was re-arrested for creating, while imprisoned, an anti-Soviet ‘Brotherhood of Free Ukraine.’ Although this Brotherhood did not engage in any concrete activity, Lytvyn, the leading figure in this organization, was sentenced, by the Kuibyshev oblast court, to 10 years of imprisonment and 3 years of deprivation of civil rights in accordance with Articles 58-10, Part 2 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code (CC) of the RSFSR.
Upon his release Lytvyn lived with his mother in the village of Barakhty, Obukhiv raion, Kyiv oblast, and was employed as a blue-collar worker. A member of a trade union committee, he encouraged local workers to defend their rights, and after the KGB threatened to arrest him he left Ukraine to work in Siberia. Upon returning to Ukraine he was arrested in Rivne on 14 November 1974, and charged with writing and circulating a number of samvydav works criticizing the Soviet political and socioeconomic system as well as Soviet nationality policy. On 13 March 1975 the Kyiv oblast court sentenced him, in accordance with Article 187-1 of the CC of the Ukrainian SSR, to 3 years of corrective labor for slandering the state. After returning to Barakhty on 14 November 1977 Lytvyn was placed under administrative supervision, but joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in June 1978 and authored, in April 1979, a document on the foundations of and prospects for the human rights movement in Ukraine.
After Lytvyn was detained and assaulted by five police officers on 19 July 1979, on 6 July 1979 he was arrested on charges of resisting detention by the militia. On 17 December 1979 the Vasylkiv raion court sentenced him to 3 years of detention in strict-regime camps in accordance with Article 188-1 of the CC of the Ukrainian SSR, and Lytvyn served this sentence in Ukraine. 1.5 months before the end of this sentence the Kyiv oblast court declared that Lytvyn, as the author of a number of ‘anti-Soviet’ works, was a particularly dangerous repeat offender, and sentenced him to 10 years of detention in a special-regime camp and 5 years of exile in accordance with Article 62-2 of the CC of the Ukrainian SSR.
Lytvyn was detained in Special-Regime Corrective Labor Camp 389/36, Kuchino, Chusovo raion, Perm oblast, RSFSR. Seriously ill, lacking proper medical treatment, and in great pain, Lytvyn soon fell into a depression. Bedridden, on 23 August 1984 Lytvyn was found in the camp barracks with his stomach cut open. Although this may have been a suicide attempt, the circumstances were unclear and the object used to create the wound could not be located. Two weeks later Lytvyn passed away in a nearby hospital in Chusovo.
On 19 November 1989 the remains of Lytvyn and two other Ukrainian political prisoners who died in the same camp and were buried on its territory—Vasyl Stus and Oleksa Tykhy—were reburied with great honors at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv after some 30,000 residents of Kyiv accompanied the coffins in an unprecedented, at the time, ceremonial procession.
Lytvyn’s initial works, including poems, were written in Russian. Many of these poems can be found in the collection Tragicheskaia galereia: Stikhi (A Tragic Gallery: Poems, 1996). Lytvyn gradually shifted to writing in Ukrainian, but most of his literary works have never been published and many have been lost. The most complete collection of materials written by, or about, Lytvyn, are found in the collection Na lezakh blyskavok: Poezii, statti, zvernennia, zaiavy, spohady, dokumenty, lysty (On the Edge of Lightning: Poems, Articles, Appeals, Statements, Memoirs, Documents, Letters, 2009).
Ivan Jaworsky
[This article was written in 2025.]