Barladianu, Vasyl [Барладяну, Василь; Barladjanu, Vasyl'], b 23 August 1942 in Shybka (Şibca), Hryhoriopol (Grigoriopol) raion, Transnistria, d 3 December 2010 in Odesa. Author, art historian, poet, journalist, dissident, and political prisoner. Barladianu’s paternal grandfather was UNR Army general Hulyi-Hulenko; the name Barladianu was the adopted name of Vasyl’s father, Volodymyr. In 1964 Barladianu completed studies at the Odesa School of Military Correspondents, and in 1970 he graduated from the department of philology of Odesa University. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he conducted research in museums and art galleries in Moscow, Leningrad, western Ukraine, and Prague, and in the summers of 1971–72 he studied at universities in Bucharest and Sofia. From 1969 to 1974 he served as head of the art history department at Odesa University.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Barladianu began to write samvydav articles (under several pseudonyms, the most common of which was Yan Drubala), about the history and politics of the national question in the tsarist Russian Empire and in the USSR. He established ties with Odesa dissidents such as Nina Strokata-Karavanska, and began to be persecuted for his views from 1972 onwards. In 1974 he was interrogated by the KGB, accused of Ukrainian nationalism, expelled from the Communist Party, and fired from several jobs after he was forbidden to engage in teaching and research. In June 1976 Barladianu’s apartment was searched by the KGB and a number of his works were confiscated.
In December 1976 Barladianu contacted Mykola Rudenko, head of the newly-established Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG), and began to distribute UHG documents. Soon afterwards, on 2 March 1977, he was arrested in Odesa and accused of slandering the state. Following a trial (27–29 March 1977) he was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment in general-regime camps in accordance with Article 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. He served his sentence in a labor camp in Rivne oblast, where he was punished several times for insubordination and engaging in several lengthy hunger strikes. On 29 February 1980, three days before Barladianu was to be released, a new case was initiated against him, and on 13 August 1980 he was sentenced to 3 more years of imprisonment in accordance with Article 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. He served this term in general-regime camps in Donetsk oblast.
After Barladianu was released from imprisonment on 28 February 1983, he worked in Odesa as an electrician. He continued his literary and scholarly activities, and returned to public activity in 1987 as a member of the editorial boards of the renewed Ukraïns’kyi visnyk (UV), and the new journal Kafedra. On 30 December 1987 Barladianu, together with the other members of the editorial board of UV, joined the Ukranian Helsinki Group, which on 7 July 1988 became the Ukrainian Helsinki Association. He also founded and edited the short-lived journal (only one issue appeared) Ukraïns'ki perspektyvy, published in Kishinev, Moldavian SSR. In 1990 Barladianu visited Canada and the United States of America to give lectures on the political situation in Ukraine, and the same year two collections of his essays, Bilia vorit derzhavy (At the Gates of the State), and Shche raz pro nevoliu (Once Again About Slavery), were published in Toronto. Barladianu resumed teaching at Odesa University in 1992, and in the mid-1990s he lectured, on a part-time basis, at the Theological Academy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate.
Barladianu was a prolific author/journalist and wrote several books and many articles dealing with Soviet nationality policy, the history of Ukraine, and the political situation in Ukraine. The main focus of his scholarly work was the history of art in Ukraine, and Ukraine’s historical and cultural links to the Balkan region, especially Romania and Bulgaria. The most complete bibliography of Barladianu’s many works can be found in the book Vasyl' Volodymyrovych Barladianu-Byrladnyk: Biobibliohrafichnyi pokazhchyk (Vasyl Volodymyrovych Barladianu-Byrladnyk: A Bibliographic Index; Odesa 2016) compiled by A. Ivanchenko.
Ivan Jaworsky
[This article was written in 2025.]