Krasivsky, Zenovii

Krasivsky, Zenovii [Красівський, Зеновій; Krasivs'kyj, Zenovij], b 12 November 1929 in Vytvytsia, Dolyna county, Stanislaviv voivodeship, d 20 September 1991 in Morshyn, Stryi raion, Lviv oblast. Poet, writer, bibliographer, dissident, political prisoner, political activist, and victim of Soviet punitive psychiatry; husband of fellow dissident and human rights activist Olena Antoniv. A fervent and committed Ukrainian nationalist, Krasivsky was also a strong proponent of human rights. Krasivsky was born into a large and patriotic peasant family. His world view, as a committed Ukrainian nationalist, was shaped by his knowledge of, and participation in, the activities of Ogranization of Ukrainian Nationalist (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in western Ukraine. Krasivsky had three older brothers, all of whom joined UPA during the Second World War. In late 1944 Zenovii, then 15, joined them, but was sent home after he suffered a concussion. After the war, initially he and his parents avoided deportation to the Soviet interior, and he was able to continue his education in Bolekhiv, Kalush raion, but in 1947 the family was deported to the Kazakh SSR. Krasivsky escaped the deportation convoy, and after hiding in the Carpathian Mountains he lived on an illegal basis in Lviv.

He was arrested in March 1949, and during the investigation into his case he was subjected to 21 continuous days of interrogation. He was sentenced by a special council (OSO) of the NKVD to 5 years of imprisonment and lifelong exile. He served his sentence in the Arkhangelsk region of the RSFSR, at a logging camp.

In 1953 Krasivsky was released from imprisonment in accordance with the amnesty following Joseph Stalin’s death. He was exiled to Karaganda, where he joined his family. There he registered as a part-time correspondence student with the department of philology of Lviv University. Working in local mines, Krasivsky was the victim of two mining accidents, and after a serious injury in 1957 he was designated a Category 2 invalid. In 1959 he was accused of ‘inciting nationalist sentiments’ among the Ukrainians living in Karaganda, but he left for Ukraine and found work in the bibliographic department of Lviv University’s library. In recognition of his accomplishments as a bibliographer Krasivsky was allowed to renew his enrolment in the department of philology at Lviv University, and he received his university diploma in 1962.

In late August 1963 history teachers Dmytro Kvetsko and Bohdan Ravniuk invited Krasivsky to join them in creating an underground organization, the Ukrainian National Front (UNF). It was to serve as an ideological successor to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and Krasivsky drafted a programmatic document entitled ‘Tactics of the Ukrainian National Front.’ According to the UNF’s program Ukraine could achieve independence only through a revolution, but force could not be used in the current circumstances. The UNF also published a theoretical journal Volia i Bat'kivshchyna, co-edited by Kvetsko and Krasivsky. The first issue of the journal appeared in October 1964, which is usually considered the date when the UNF initiated its activities. The first three issues were printed in the attic of Krasivsky’s home and as many as 100 copies of each issue (a total of 16 issues) were published; this was one of the most successful samvydav efforts in Soviet Ukraine. Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk were the main centers of the UNF’s activities, but over 150 members were found in various regions of Ukraine. During this period Krasivsky also wrote a novel Baida and prepared several samvydav poetry collections.

In March 1967 the KGB began to arrest members of the UNF. Krasivsky was arrested on 24 March 1967 and the UNF’s leading members, including Krasivsky, were charged with ‘treason’ as well as the creation of an ‘anti-Soviet organization.’ They were tried, in Lviv, by a special visiting session of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR. On 27 November 1967 Krasivsky was sentenced, in accordance with Articles 64 and 56-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, to 12 years of imprisonment (5 years in prison and 7 years in a strict-regime labor camp), and 5 years of exile.

Krasivsky served his prison sentence in Moscow’s Vladimir prison (1968–72). In 1972 a new case was fabricated against him, while in prison, in accordance with Article 70-2 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’). Krasivsky refused to cooperate with the authorities and was sent for a ‘psychiatric evaluation’ to the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow, where ‘difficult’ dissidents were often declared mentally ill. Here he was declared to be ‘mentally incompetent,’ and on 4 May 1972 a session of the Vladimir oblast court ordered that Krasivsky be sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment to the Smolensk Special Psychiatric Hospital, Smolensk oblast, RSFSR, one of several such institutions where uncooperative political prisoners were isolated and ‘treated.’ In 1976 he was transferred to general psychiatric hospitals in Lviv and then Berezhany, Ternopil oblast. In July 1978, by a decision of the Vladimir oblast court, Krasivsky was released from hospital and lived in Morshyn, Lviv oblast. In October 1979 he joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

On 12 March 1980 Krasivsky was again arrested and sent to complete the remainder of the sentence he received in 1968: 8 months and 7 days in a labor camp and 5 years of exile. He served his sentence in strict-regime colony VS-389/36, village of Kuchino, Chusovoi raion, Perm oblast. In November 1980 he was sent into exile in the village of Lugovoi, Tiumen raion, Tiumen oblast, RSFSR.

In 1985 Krasivsky returned to Ukraine. In 1987 he became the secretary of the Ukrainian Helsinki Association, and he was active in efforts to revive the Ukrainian Catholic church. In April 1990 Krasivsky initiated the creation of the political association State Independence of Ukraine, which was based on the variant of nationalism espoused by Stepan Bandera. Krasivsky also founded the political journal Ukraïns'ki problemy, published in the city of Stryi, Lviv oblast. Following Krasivsky’s death in 1991 it became known that for several years prior to that he had headed the regional leadership of OUN (Bandera faction).

A lengthy volume containing Krasivsky’s poems, essays, correspondence, articles about him, commentaries about his poetry, and official documents about the cases against him, as well as materials about his wife Olena Antoniv, was compiled by Liubov Marynovych and Yurii Zaitsev and published as Blahoslovenni dushi, shcho vmiiut' vyprominiuvaty (Zenovii Krasivskyi i Olena Antoniv) (Blessed Are the Souls Who Know How to Inspire [Zenovii Krasivskyi and Olena Antoniv], 2015). Articles by and about Krasivsky can also be found in Zhaha i terpinnia: Zenovii Krasivs'kyi u doli ukraïns'koho narodu (Passion and Patience: Zenovii Krasivsky and the Fate of the Ukrainian People, 2005), and a series of articles about Krasivsky and his literary works was published in Mariia Yakibchuk under the title Chervona tin' kalyny: Iz zhyttia i tvorchosti Zenoviia Krasivs'koho (The Red Shadow of the Viburnum: From the Life and Work of Zenovii Krasivskyi, 2024). Krasivsky’s correspondence with a woman who supported him when he was imprisoned was published as Perehuk dvokh nad bezvistiu: Lystuvannia ukraïns'koho politv’iaznia Zinoviia Krasivs'koho z chlenom Mizhnarodnoï Amnistii Iris Akahoshi (A Dialogue Across the Abyss: Correspondence Between Ukrainian Political Prisoner Zinovii Krasivsky and Amnesty International Member Iris Akahoshi, 1995). This correspondence was also included in Anna Procyk (ed. And transl.), Two Worlds, One Idea: Ten Years of Correspondence between Amnesty International Group 11 and a Ukrainian Political Prisoner, Zinovii Krasivskyj (2013). An important study of the UNF, compiled by Yurii Zaitsev and M. Dubas and containing detailed information about Krasivsky and his UNF colleagues as well as all issues of Volia i bat'kivshchyna, was published as Ukraïns'kyi natsional'nyi front: Doslidzhennia, dokumenty, materialy (Ukrainian National Front: Research, Documents, Materials, 2000).

Ivan Jaworsky

[This article was updated in 2026.]