There was a rally with many thousands of people — the entire square was filled with people — and it was Kulchytskyi, who would later become my teacher, the head of the city, that is, of the Ukrainian self-government, who approached my mother. We were sitting there in the front rows. The square was [packed with] standing people, but there were some benches where one could sit. He suggested to my mother that, as the widow of Zbarazh’s leader, Dr. Bilynskyy, who had perished, she should take a place on the podium. My mother was in mourning, as was customary then, you know, still wearing a black veil and all that. My mother replied, "No, thank you. Let Bilynskyy’s son…" But the child was embarrassed. I didn’t want to go, and my mother told me, "Tom Sawyer would go." Ah, well, Tom Sawyer — now that was an argument. And so, they took me onto the podium. Kulchytskyi lifted me up in his arms and announced that some of Zbarazh’s most respected citizens had been invited to the podium and that the tragically deceased Dr. Bilynskyy was represented by his son here. I remember that the entire stadium was filled with blue and yellow flags. There were hundreds of those flags. I remembered that, and I held onto that memory all this time.
But we had an interesting thing. For example, we had that… Physical education, military training — everything was conducted in Russian. The commands were always in Russian. Every morning, before nine, [around] half past eight, we gathered at school, it was mandatory, and in the square in front of the school, there was morning exercise. The military instructor gave commands in Russian. And suddenly, it occurred to us that we didn’t want commands in Russian, we wanted them in Ukrainian. And we announced that we…. He gave commands, but we didn’t obey — we wanted them in Ukrainian. And, you know, the administration [accommodated] us… One of our boys, I remember, Ovchak, who was older than me, from one of the [upper] grades, started giving commands in Ukrainian, and we, the kids, followed them, and it all went smoothly.
But on our way to the gymnasium… Krynytsia is a mountain resort, with the mountain river Krynychanka flowing through it. As we walked along, I remember there was a hill, a river, and a narrow path. On that hill was a camp of the German Hitlerjugend. They were boys like us, more or less the same age, but as we walked, they threw stones into the river from above to splash us. Apparently, we had had enough of it, and one day, our older friends decided to do something… They started throwing stones, and by then, there were more of us. We agreed — attack, advance — and we drove them down and threw them all into the river. The Hitlerjugend wore uniforms: brown shirts with black ties and corduroy shorts. But they carried knives, and we threw those knives into the river… In other words, we won. There were three times as many of us as them, we won and then continued on to the gymnasium just like that. The next [day]… apparently, the Germans had complained, or maybe someone just noticed that they all showed up soaked, and the authorities… In other words, the next day, a few of those German boys came, along with the director of that [organization] of theirs, or whatever he was called, their leader, some Leiter — and a Gestapo officer. The Gestapo. They [went] to our gymnasium director, [claiming] that we had attacked the Germans… You know, during wartime, that was very serious… more so since we had taken their knives. Though we didn’t keep a single one — we threw them all into the river. We were ordered to line up in the yard in front of the gymnasium, and those German boys, along with the Gestapo officer were walking around, looking at us. The Gestapo officer was in this cap with the dead man’s head. I remember that well, it was terrifying. They were supposed to identify the culprits. First, it had been a brawl — we had probably all gotten wet, and I think most of us were dressed differently than the day before. Second, maybe those boys didn’t even want to identify us. That’s a matter of boyish honor. You know, fighting is one thing, but ratting someone out to the police is another. In other words, no one was identified. And our gymnasium director convinced the Gestapo officer and that German Leiter that it couldn’t have been us. He said, "It’s impossible — our [students] were all in the gymnasium, so it’s impossible, our [students] couldn’t have been there." And so on. That it must have been some local hooligans, and they should look elsewhere. In other words, we got away with it, but that was quite a story for us.
Well, they were always trying to find something out, to pin something on me, claiming that I was [hanging out] with someone… And I kept telling them all… It all always started with a biography check: “So, what have you been…” One time, I arrived — they always told me to come at around eight or nine in the evening. They would keep me in some room for about an hour, not touching me, just letting me “ripen.” To let me “ripen.” Only then would they finally start talking. They always began the conversation with “You’re a smart person, you’re a good man,” “We value you,” “You’re an excellent specialist,” and so on. “But you must understand that such associations could ruin [your life], and we want… We want to help you. Let’s…” and so forth. Then, one of them would leave, another would come in and say that they can have me imprisoned and so on. You know, like… They kept it on for a while… Sometimes they would summon me to come in at nine o'clock, sometimes they would start the procedure around half past eleven, sometimes it would last until two in the morning. Then, a few days later, they’d summon me again, and the same would start over. By the third time — and I’ve described everything I [did] more than once — I finally snapped… I kept telling them that I was a doctor, that I had my own work, that I was a scientist, that I was working — whether I had already completed my doctoral dissertation or was still working on it, and so on, I don’t know — but that none of this interested me. I met with people because they reach out to me regarding their illnesses. I do not talk [with them] about any anti-Soviet activities. Then, they kept asking the same again. I told them, “I already answered this yesterday, why are you asking again?” Then, a third group came and repeated the same questions. Finally, I snapped, something inside me burst out, and I said: “Listen, let’s speak frankly. I’m a surgeon. Sometimes, a person dies on my operating table. And I have to take risks with the patient’s life in order to save them. Either way, I have to risk their life. I risk my own life, too, because I’m a mountain climber. There are also the rope, the rock face, the icefall, the rockslide, friends die. That means I can take risks with others, I can take risks with myself, and you want to scare me? You won’t have any luck! I am not anti-Soviet, I don’t care about any of that,” and so on.
I make the incision, reach the abdominal cavity, and the light goes out. No light. Now, I clearly wouldn’t even notice it. Because if the light went out, the emergency system would immediately switch on. That’s how it is for us. I wouldn’t even realize that the light had gone out. Maybe it would flicker. But back then — darkness. What to do? They bring some kind of lamp. Wait, the lamp is shining, but I can’t see deep inside. I need to see the inside. They get a flashlight. It doesn’t work. The most important thing — I could even do it by touch, but I need to find the appendix. The hardest part is locating it from such an incision… Now, it wouldn’t be a problem for me. I don’t know, but for young doctors, it’s a big problem. Now, I would go straight to the cecum, follow it, and reach the appendix. The appendix was retrocecal, meaning it was behind the intestine. Here’s the intestine, and the appendix is here. This is the norm. But if it’s like this, and I’m coming from here, I can’t see it, you know. And finding it — maybe it’s somewhere over here… Sometimes they search for an appendix for an hour and can’t find it. And on top of that, I have no light. And even worse — it’s my first surgery. There’s a nurse, she’ll spread gossip around the hospital. You know, it was a really tough situation for me. They ended up shining a flashlight for me. I finally found the appendix. And when I was already suturing the wound, the light came back on. But by then, I couldn’t have cared less. The lightbulb had just turned on.
Then the police appeared, and after one of the speeches, there was a great deal of applause, and some anti-Soviet shouts. They grabbed a few of the organizers and took them away. That’s when we arrived at the idea that we would go to the C[entral] C[ommittee] of the Party. The C[entral] C[ommittee] was on the… where the Presidential [Administration, now the Presidential Office] is now, on Bankova [Street]. Only back then, it wasn’t called Bankova — it was, I don’t know, Karl Marx, or Friedrich Engels, or some Rosa Luxemburg, or someone, I don’t remember anymore. But we went there. They wouldn’t let us in either. We shouted, we demanded, we chanted. The police came with a water cannon, tried to disperse us, and sprayed us with water, I got completely [soaked] too. But we didn’t leave, and finally, someone from the C[entral] C[ommittee] came out, and our guys were released. After that, I went to [Ivan] Drach’s place with my cousin, Yevhen Bilynskyy, who was also in Kyiv. <...> We went to [Drach’s] to dry off and so on.
Suddenly, I get a call as a member of the leadership [of the People’s Movement of Ukraine for Perestroika], and it’s already late — I remember that my wife and I had already had dinner, it was around eleven: "Come to the Powder Tower immediately." Something had happened, I don’t remember, in Kyiv or somewhere else, and we needed to announce a strike in Lviv the next day. I thought to myself: we have to announce a strike, it’s already late, is that… But there was a Russian-speaking trade union member in our leadership, Furmanov. He was also anti-Soviet, but he was Russian. He said, "No problem, we’ll organize it." I also voted for the strike. Yet in the morning, as I was heading to work, I looked around, and there it was: trolleybuses stopped, trams stopped, the city was paralyzed. And I thought, “My God, what power we have gained.” We met in the dark in the evening and decided there would be a strike, and by morning, everything had already come to a halt.
So, for Shevchenko’s 150th anniversary, we held a Hoverliana [a climb to Mount Hoverla]. I [gave] you the photos — you have them. Promotion across universities. The number of people wanting to participate reached the hundreds. <…> I won’t [go into] the mountain climbing situations, because there’s no alpinism involved. It’s snow, walking in the snow. That’s all. Well, it’s tough, tough. For some, it’s tough; for others, not so much. But for us, the important thing… We dedicated it to Shevchenko’s 150th anniversary. Of course, it had to be held. We needed provisions. This was the Soviet Union — you had to put in the effort to get anything. If we were organizing something, we had to go to the wholesale trade department, get approval, and obtain butter, canned food, caviar. All that was possible, but only with proper paperwork… And it was only possible if [the event] was official. We needed some kind of funding for it. And the Komsomol committee, the regional Komsomol committee, said… It turned out that it wasn’t just Shevchenko’s 150th anniversary. What year was it since… Shevchenko was born in [18]14, so fourteen plus fifty makes [19]64. And 1964, if you count from [19]39, makes it 25 years of the "Golden September" [September campaign of the Red Army against Poland], the reunification. So [they said], let’s make it [about] Shevchenko and the reunification. Well, "There’s no other way possible.” Fine, let it be. So we would celebrate Shevchenko, but the official title would be "Shevchenko and the Reunification." Let it be the reunification. Fine. Filed it. We moved forward. Filed it. Imagine — this was the Soviet Union; everything had to be approved. Then the regional party committee said: "Don’t. No Shevchenko. Just for the 25th anniversary of the reunification. That’s enough." In our regional sports [administration]… there were some Jews there, and they didn’t really understand all of this. They just knew that we, as mountaineers, were organizing something. We had already printed Shevchenko-themed announcements — Shevchenko’s portrait, mountains, Hoverliana, what we needed, when, and the schedule. The regional committee said, "No Shevchenko." So we, the guys… I was there, Kitsera, I think Bazylevych too, and we decided: “No, it won’t be otherwise.” And at night, in the evening… By morning, the whole city was covered with our posters.
Borys Bilynskyy is a professor, oncological surgeon, mountain climber, and civic and political activist. He represents the renowned and respected Halychyna family of Bilynskyy-Korduba. His father, Taras Bilynskyy, and his mother, Stefaniya Korduba, were active participants in the region’s social and national life. He was born on July 16, 1933, in the city of Zbarazh, Ternopil region, which was then part of Poland. After graduating from Lviv Secondary School No. 8 with a silver medal, he entered the Lviv State Medical Institute. Since the mid-1950s, he has been a practicing physician. He began working as a surgeon and later worked as an oncologist at the Boryslav City Hospital. He subsequently headed the surgical department in the city of Horodok and worked as a senior surgeon in the First Surgical Department of the Lviv Regional Clinical Hospital. From 1963 to 1966, he was a research associate at the Lviv Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion. In 1966, he began his teaching career at the Lviv Medical Institute (now Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University), where he continues to work as a professor. He defended his candidate dissertation in 1963 and his doctoral dissertation in 1972, earning the title of professor in 1979. An experienced mountaineer, he holds the title of mountaineering instructor and has conquered 30 peaks. He took an active part in the founding of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) and was a member of its leadership. He has been awarded numerous honors, prizes, and distinctions, including the title of Honored Scientist and Engineer of Ukraine (1994) and the Order of Merit, 3rd Class (1999). As of 2025, Borys Bilynskyy continues to live in Lviv, where he teaches and writes books.
