Kalynychenko, Vitalii
Kalynychenko, Vitalii [Калиниченко, Віталій; Kalynyčenko, Vitalij], b 31 January 1938 in Vasylkivka, Synelnykove raion, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, d 27 April 2017 in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. Engineer, economist, dissident, and political prisoner. After serving in the Soviet Army, Kalynychenko pursued a higher education, beginning in 1960, and graduated from the Kyiv Institute of the National Economy in 1964. During his studies Kalynychenko was asked by representatives of the KGB to monitor the activities of foreign students, but he did not want to become an informer and decided to flee the USSR. Kalynychenko shared his plans with a fellow student who denounced him to the KGB, and Kalynychenko was arrested and detained from September 1964 to January 1965. He was released after he was warned about pursuing his plans to illegally leave the USSR.
In 1965–66 Kalynychenko worked as a senior engineer at the All-Union Design and Technical Institute of Energy Engineering in Leningrad, but he did not abandon his plans to leave the USSR. On 20 July 1966 he was detained and arrested while attempting to illegally cross the Soviet-Finnish border. He was sent to the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry for a psychiatric examination, but was determined to be sane. On 12 January 1967 the Murmansk Oblast Court sentenced Kalynychenko to 10 years in strict regime labor camps on charges of ‘attempted treason against the Motherland’ in accordance with Articles 64(a), 40, and 15 of the Criminal Code (CC) of the RSFSR.
Kalynychenko initially served his sentence in Strict-Regime Camp ZhK-385/3, in the village of Barashevo, Tengushov raion, Mordovian Autonomous Republic, RSFSR, and on 13 June 1972 he was transferred to Strict-Regime Camp VS-389/36, in the village of Kuchino, Chusovoі raion, Perm oblast, RSFSR. During this first period of imprisonment Kalynychenko was kept under observation for several months in various psychiatric institutions, and in 1975 he was detained in Moscow’s Vladimir prison. During his student days Kalynychenko was ashamed of his rural Ukrainian background, showed little interest in issues related to Ukraine, and began to show such an interest only shortly before his imprisonment. His identity as a Ukrainian was thus shaped largely under the influence of his fellow Ukrainian political prisoners in the camps where he was detained. He soon joined them in renouncing his Soviet citizenship, demanding that he be recognized as a political prisoner, protesting the conditions in which he was detained, etc.
Kalynychenko was released on 19 March 1976 and returned to his birthplace, Vasylkivka, where he remained under strict administrative supervision, worked as an engineer-economist at several different factories, and continued his non-conformist behavior. On 3 October 1977 Kalynychenko joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG), and soon afterwards he launched a hunger strike demanding to leave the USSR and renounced his Soviet citizenship. On 7 April 1978 he was arrested and detained for two weeks on charges of ‘hooliganism’ for refusing to attend a meeting where the draft Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR was to be discussed. Soon afterwards he was fired from his job and was unable to find even unskilled work.
Early in November of 1979 Kalynychenko was warned to cease his activities and forced to withdraw his application for renunciation of citizenship and his request to be allowed to emigrate. Soon he was arrested, on 29 November 1979, as a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, on charges of ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.’ Kalynychenko condemned the nature of the investigation into his case, defended himself with great dignity, and during his trial he refused to express any regret for his actions. On 18 May 1980 the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Court sentenced Kalynychenko, as a particularly dangerous repeat offender, to 10 years in special strict regime camps and 5 years of exile in accordance with Article 62-2 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. Kalynychenko initially served his sentence in the Dubravny special regime camp No. 3, VTK-10 (also known as Dubravlag), Yavas, Zubovo-Polyansky raion, Mordovian Autonomous Republic, RSFSR. After 10 October 1980 he served his sentence in the special strict regime section of Perm Camp VS-389/36-1, village of Kuchino, Chusovoі raion, Perm oblast, RSFSR, where he spent long periods in solitary confinement. Kalynychenko also spent three years in Chistopol prison, UE-148/st. 4, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, RSFSR, for his active participation in camp protests. On 8 December 1987 after the camp in Kuchino was liquidated, Kalynychenko was transferred to Perm special regime camp VS-389/35, and he was released from this camp on April 18, 1988.
After his release Kalynychenko lived in his ancestral village of Vasylkivka and then in Kharkiv, where he was active in several Ukrainian organizations. In the spring of 1989 he moved to the United States of America and lived near Washington, DC, until his death in 2017.
Ivan Jaworsky
[This article was written in 2026.]