On the occasion of the National Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repressions on May 18, let us recall this year Ivan Vynnychenko – a war veteran, lawyer, doctor of law, public and political figure, who was killed on the basis of the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the AUCP (b) of 5 March 1940 “On the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, police, settlers and other persons”.
Ivan Vynnychenko was born in 1891 in Warm Podillia, in the village of Hadynkivtsi of Husiatyn County in a poor peasant family. His father, Danylo Vynnychenko, worked as a hireling in the household of the parson of Hadynkivtsi, the Greek Catholic priest Klyment Sonevytskyi.
The Vynnychenko family raised three sons: Petro, Ivan and Martyn. Due to poverty, it was impossible to bequeath any sufficient plot of land to them. Therefore the eldest son, Petro Vynnychenko, emigrated to Canada back before the Great War, in 1911. There he found work and settled in Winnipeg.
As for Ivan Vynnychenko, back in primary folk school he showed remarkable abilities for learning. Noticing this, Father Klyment Sonevytskyi sent him together with his son Volodymyr to the 2nd Kolomyia State Ukrainian Gymnasium, taking upon himself all financial expenses for the education of both boys.
After finishing the gymnasium in 1913, Ivan and Volodymyr continued studies together at law faculties of Lviv University and Charles University in Prague.
Unfortunately, university studies were interrupted by the war. Open sources mention that Ivan served in the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen with the rank of platoon commander [chotar], was captured by Russians in battles near Potutory, from where he escaped.
Then in 1917 he reached Kyiv, where he joined the Army of the UPR. But at the beginning of 1919 he returned to his native land and defended the West Ukrainian People's Republic, joining the ranks of the Galician Army. In 1919 he served as deputy military commandant of the city of Chortkiv, Dmytro Bairak, who also came from Hadynkivtsi.
A unique photo reminds of these times, preserved in the family archive of Mariia Mykhailivna Navolska-Soltysiuk. In it, Ivan Vynnychenko sits to the right of Otaman Vasyl Orobko, commandant of the Chortkiv District Military Command of the ZUNR. Also recognizable in this photograph are UGA officers Nestor Hamorak and Antin Navolskyi.
After the crossing of the Zbruch by the Galician Army, brothers Ivan and Martyn Vynnychenko volunteered for the Army of the UPR. In 1920 Martyn, who served as a simple rifleman, returned to native Hadynkivtsi. But Ivan, as an officer, was destined to be interned for some time in the Szczypiorno camp (according to other information – in one of the camps for Ukrainian officers on the territory of Czechoslovakia).
After release from the camp, Ivan Vynnychenko continued studies at Prague University. In 1925 he obtained the degree of Doctor of Law at Lviv University. In the 20s–30s he worked as a private lawyer in Buchach, Skala, Melnytsia. Apart from criminal and civil cases, political ones occurred in his legal practice too – specifically, he defended members of the CPWU and OUN in court.
From the very beginning of legal practice Ivan Vynnychenko dedicated all free time to public and political activity. He was elected a member of the Borshchiv County Board of “Prosvita” and “Silskyi Hospodar” societies. In the 30s he was elected deputy head of the Ternopil Voivodeship Board of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO) – at that time the most numerous and authoritative legal political party. He often visited native Hadynkivtsi; during discussions in the living room of Stepan Pohoretskyi, where village youth gathered, he criticized the tactic of terror professed by the OUN. He was acquainted and met personally with Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and with Stanyslaviv Bishop Hryhoriy Khomyshyn, who also had family roots in Hadynkivtsi.
Ivan Vynnychenko married only in the late 30s. His wife became Yaroslava Lazarenko, daughter of a teacher from Kolomyia. From this marriage Ivan and Yaroslava had a son, Bohdan.
The news of the crossing of the Zbruch by the Red Army on 17 September 1939 caught Ivan in his native village, in his brother’s house. Brother Martyn was convinced that the NKVD would punish Ivan for his past as a Petliurist officer and for activity in UNDO. He insisted that he immediately save himself by crossing to the Romanian side of the Dniester. But the latter was certain that he was not guilty of anything before the Bolshevik authorities. For a person who respected principles of rule of law, it was probably hard to imagine the colossal scale of repressions and the level of legal lawlessness in Stalin’s despotism. He returned to Melnytsia on the Dniester, where his wife and son were at that time, but never crossed to the Romanian side.
In September, for a short time, he was even elected head of the city council in Melnytsia. But, as turned out soon, Martyn Vynnychenko, a simple peasant who had not studied in gymnasium and university, understood the new cruel reality better than his brother, the doctor of law…
Already in October 1939 Ivan Vynnychenko was arrested by NKVD functionaries. He was under investigation in Chortkiv prison. After April 1940 the family received no more information about the verdict passed on him and his whereabouts.
Yaroslava Lazarenko-Vynnychenko later returned with her son to her parental home in Kolomyia. All her attempts to find out something about her husband’s fate turned out futile. Ghostly hope for his return from some distant camps, despite everything, lived on for a long time. Only in the post-war time did Yaroslava erect a symbolic tombstone for him in the old Kolomyia cemetery “Monastyrk”, near the Church of the Annunciation of Virgin Mary. His actual burial place remains unknown.
Ivan Vynnychenko’s archival-criminal file was not preserved in the archives of Ukraine, so he has not been rehabilitated. According to the version of authoritative Ternopil historian Petro Hutsal, Ivan Vynnychenko was executed in prison on the basis of the secret decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the AUCP (b) of 5 March 1940 “Decision on the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, police, settlers and other persons from POW camps, as well as prisoners of prisons of western regions of Ukraine and Belorussia”.
The mentioned decision of the Politburo was adopted on personal instructions of J. Stalin and concerned primarily Polish prisoners of war from three special camps: Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobilsk. But, as Ivan Vynnychenko’s fate testifies, not only POWs fell into the millstones of Stalinist repressions, but also civilian inhabitants of regions occupied by the Red Army.
In execution of this decision, based on lists compiled by chekist “troikas”, without bringing charges, without trial, without announcing verdicts and without possibility of any justification and defence, Polish prisoners of war from three special camps were executed: in Katyn Forest 4,421 persons from Kozelsk camp No. 1, in prisons of Kharkiv – 3,820 persons from Starobilsk camp No. 1, in the city of Kalinin – 6,311 persons from Ostashkov camp. The majority of them were officers of the Polish army. The NKVD made no exceptions in passing extrajudicial death sentences for military doctors, nor for military chaplains and rabbis.
In the historiography of WWII this tragedy received the names “Katyn crime”, or “Katyn massacre”.
However, simultaneously with prisoners of war, based on the same decision of the Politburo of the CC AUCP(b) in April – May 1940 7,305 prisoners held in prisons of western regions of the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR were executed. Including in NKVD prisons in Ternopil and Chortkiv. And these were mainly civilians: landowners, entrepreneurs, civil servants of the Polish state, lawyers, doctors, professors, former soldiers of UPR Army, Galician Army and “White Guards”, leaders of public and political organisations, including Ukrainian ones, treated as “counter-revolutionary”. Victims of this crime also varied by ethnic criteria: Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians, Russians…
In total, 21,857 persons (!) were executed without trial and verdict based on this criminal decision of the Stalinist Politburo.
Not coincidentally, the term “Ukrainian Katyn List” has long been used in the circle of researchers. Firstly, part of the victims of the “Katyn crime” met violent death on the territory of then Ukrainian SSR, modern Ukraine, particularly in Kharkiv NKVD prisons. And among the killed POWs there was a certain number of Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin. And among thousands executed in April – May 1940 civilians there were also many Ukrainians.
Out of 15,000 persons held in Kozelsk, Starobilsk and Ostashkov special camps, by some happy coincidence only 400 prisoners were saved. Among them was artist and publicist Józef Czapski, imprisoned in Starobilsk, who subsequently persistently searched for missing prisoners of war and described those tragic circumstances in his memoirs “Inhuman Land”.
Thanks to Józef Czapski's initiative, a separate department was created at the headquarters of Anders' Polish Army, intended for finding missing POW officers. Already in December 1941 the list and file cabinet of missing POWs numbered more than 4000 surnames. The mentioned list was presented personally to Stalin during the audience of Prime Minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile General Sikorski in the Kremlin together with a demand to find them. But clearly, Bolshevik leaders tried in every way to hide information about their own crime and the fate of POWs. Only after their mass graves were discovered by Germans in Katyn Forest did the terrible truth begin to surface.
Probably, the largest burials of victims of this crime in Ukraine are located in Bykivnia Forest near Kyiv and in the forest park “Piatykhatky” near Kharkiv. But killings according to execution lists compiled by chekist “troikas” took place in NKVD prisons all over Ukraine, including prisons of Ternopil and Chortkiv.
Here we can summarise our own arguments: “Katyn crime” was not limited to execution of Polish POWs in Katyn Forest, it should be treated as a shared tragedy of Poles and Ukrainians, people of different ethnic origin, social status and faith. It has signs of a war crime – killing of prisoners of war. And also signs of a crime against humanity – mass extrajudicial killing of civilians. The only common criterion by which chekists formed lists of those doomed to die, executing the criminal order of the Politburo, was the potential disloyalty of this or that person to the Bolshevik dictatorship.
In the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine a list of almost three and a half thousand personal prison files on persons imprisoned and shortly executed in prisons of Western Ukraine is preserved (SSA SBU, fund 5, case 897. El. access mode - https://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html). This list was sent in November 1940 to the 1st Special Department of NKVD USSR in Moscow and hidden there. Unfortunately, the archival-criminal files and registration cards of prisoners themselves were destroyed back in the 50s on instructions of MGB USSR officials.
In the mentioned list we find names of several people arrested in our lands by the Ternopil NKVD directorate and executed based on the March decision of the Politburo.
Among them Władysław Wolański (1886 – 1940) – landowner in villages of Hrymailiv and Ripyntsi, known philanthropist, head of the Ternopil Voivodeship People's School Society.
In those execution lists appears also Roman Potocki (1905 – 1940) - landowner from the village of Uhryn, Chortkiv County, who, guessing the tragic fate awaiting a “Polish pan-exploiter” with the arrival of Bolsheviks, desperately tried to save himself. On 17 September he was supposed to be picked up from Uhryn by a pilot of a Polish reconnaissance aircraft to reach the Romanian bank of Dniester together. But Red Army soldiers managed to hit the plane on approach, in the area of Rosokhach village, so the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing and his attempt to rescue Roman Potocki failed (Volodymyr Marmus described this case in his book “Rosokhach in the context of Ukrainian history”).
The name of Ivan Vynnychenko, unfortunately, is not found in this list due to its incompleteness...
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In April – May 1940, a second wave of deportation of former Polish citizens swept through the region. To a large extent, these were members of families of POWs executed under the March decision of the Politburo. From territories occupied by Bolsheviks 66,000 (!) persons were forcibly evicted deep into the USSR. Now Polish settlers were scattered across the space from Mordovia, Komi and Kazakhstan to the farthest eastern borders of Stalin’s empire. Tyranny in this way tried to cover tracks of its criminal actions.
To this day, these crimes of the Stalinist regime are insufficiently described in Ukrainian historiography and have not received legal qualification – despite occupying a very prominent place in Poland's culture of memory. Here obviously we encounter once again a sample of creating a linear national narrative of historical past, according to which the suffering of one's own ethnic community is in the focus, while the suffering of others is on its margins. This deformed approach in memoiristics and historiography, both Polish and Ukrainian, as well as Jewish, Professor Ola Hnatiuk aptly outlined as “selfishness of one's own pain”.
Every year Poland marks the Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Katyn Crime. Ukraine currently has not established an official date of remembrance for this tragedy. But, as we see, it should not be considered alien, not ours. Mentioning it this year is especially relevant, as right now we observe the 85th anniversary of that tragic event and 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. And this event is capable of bringing together historical memories of Ukrainians and Poles, rather than opposing them.
