Святослав Васильчук Sviatoslav Vasylchuk

When we are discussing like this, a guy I know shows up. And when I speak so passionately in favor of Shevchenko, against the Muscovites, he says, “Listen, I'll give you something interesting to read.” And he pulls out a little book, as they say, a little zakhaliavna book [to be carried secretly in the leg of the boot], in a wrapper like this. And it says, “Don't waste your strength, dear friend,” and then someone [does] something, ”go down to the bottom." I took it, came home, unwrapped it, and it said, “National Policy of the USSR,” in Ukrainian and published in the United States. Diaspora. And this was anti-Soviet literature. I read this book, and I was like, “How could it be?” Oh, and there was already information about the Holodomor, about the execution of Polish officers, about how the UNR [Ukrainian People's Republic] was destroyed. I mean, about the repressions [against] the population of the western regions. And I wanted, as they say, to open the eyes of some other blind people.

I came to the editorial office and was like this... I walk into the department, and they're sitting there — there were three of us, the head of the department and another one, both of them were communists, I wasn't — and they're looking at me strangely. I said, “What's wrong?”. I think maybe I got dirt somewhere on me or something. “What's wrong?” — "Go to the second floor, look at the bulletin board," he says. I went there, and there was an order from the editor that read something like this, “Sviatoslav Vasylchuk is reprimanded for deceiving the editorial board, for not informing them that his father was an avid OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] member, a reprimand.” At that time, just imagine, it was... This is a bomb! Probably like a GAB [guided aerial bomb] like now, a guided bomb, two or three thousand kilograms, which would have exploded at this rally with 50 thousand people. What a shock. I'm leaving. I don't say anything to them anymore, and they don't ask me anything. Somehow… Well, I get that, but what does a reprimand have to do with it? What does it have to do with it? There was a lawyer's office there. I go to that office. There was an older man sitting there, probably nearing retirement age. I tell him, “This and that, I’m a correspondent of Vinnytska Pravda, and here,” I say, “I got a reprimand.” He thinks about that and says, “Obviously, this reprimand, it has nothing to do with it, it doesn’t have legal power. What does this fact have to do with the editorial office? They can punish you for violating labor discipline, for failing to complete a task. So,” he says, “assume that you don’t have this reprimand.” What do you mean I don’t have it? I do have it. And I come to work the next day, [after] telling about this at home, and I get shunned. No one says hello, they avoid me and hurry to run away. It was like that for several days. I don’t get any tasks. I sit there from morning to lunchtime, go home for lunch, I used to take the tram, I come home, and somehow… And then they see that I’m not going to [do] anything [about this]. Obviously, they must have consulted [lawyers and knew] that his reprimand held no legal power. But the bomb has exploded, with all its fragments and so on. Afterward, they had to catch me violating labor discipline.

I am already a deputy of the regional council. Flags are already being raised over cities here, in Western Ukraine. And I told my Rukh [Movement] members, “Let's write an appeal from the Rukh to install a blue and yellow flag over the city council.” We write this appeal, and I go to Mayor Melnychuk and tell him, "Vitaliy, listen. We need to set up a blue and yellow flag.” It was somehow very spontaneous and dynamic. And so we put it up between June 13 and 14. Why did this date emerge? On June 14, the regional council was meeting. And I decided to do it, as they say, to slap the Communists in the face. “And we need to do it tonight, in the dark,” I said. And he said, “Well, that's a good thing to do!” And before that, on our suggestion, we, the Rukh members, had already brought a blue and yellow flag to the city hall. I wrote about the blue and yellow flag there. I have the “Origin of National Symbols” [book], 500 copies of which were distributed to the deputies, and so on. And the session decided to use the national symbols in Zhytomyr. It was already in May. That is, there was already a legal basis. So. We're making arrangements. We had a powerful machine tool factory, and we had a strong cell there. Specialists. They were making, I told them, "Guys!" They were making a metal mast with a lace, not a lace, but a cord, to hoist it. A trident, very powerful, bronze polished like gold. They bring it to me. I said, “The meeting point is here." They take a metal hammer, a bolt, and cement. And what happened? We made an agreement with the mayor. He said, "Just don't film this official, guys, just stay close by." "Yes, okay, we'll be close by." That is so that we don't violate [the law]. And it was about eleven o'clock in the morning, there were about five or six of us, that's it. I lead them up to the attic. Through the attic, we come out in a place... Have you been to the [city] center? It's like above the clock, the city council. And there's that window, and we go up there and start punching a hole with these bolts, setting up a mast, filling it with this very liquid [cement]. We attach it, and I took the flag, of course, and put it up. And it was already about twelve o'clock, but it was not yet the 14th. And the next morning I went to the session, and I was standing there, where the monument to Korolev is, a little further away. Well, these communist deputies are already going to the session. They were walking, and there were already two flags hanging, and one of them was blue and yellow. I saw one of them, and I said, there were several of them walking, "Look at this," — "How, where, what for?", and so on. I mean, the effect was tremendous!

We were in the village of Kapulivka, where the grave of Ivan Sirko, a Kish otaman [chief officer of the Kish (central body of government) of the Zaporizhian Host], is located. And there was a general [meeting] in Zaporizhzhia. A column lined up, somewhere up to ten kilometers long. It was huge! There were probably half a million people, some say a million, participating. And I remember this. The Zhytomyr delegation had a banner called “Zhytomyr Regional People's Movement” with large letters made by our own artists. And we carried it in front. And I was carrying a loudspeaker. And here we are, walking through Zaporizhzhia. [Chanting] there, “Long live the Ukrainian independent united state.” It was still [19]90! And we are agitating, agitating. I did this: there was a column, and I made sure that the distance between our delegation and the banner of the Kraiovyi Rukh [Regional Movement] was about three or four meters. And it turned out that the column further behind me was the Zhytomyr Regional Movement! And I remember a man coming up to me and saying, “Tell me, are you all from Zhytomyr?” I said, “Yes, of course,” because why would I disappoint him? “How did you get here? There are so many of you!” He asked how we got there. I said, “We hired ten trains.” — “Yeah? Wow... You know, they told us here that there would be a miserable bunch of outcasts, but here is half of Ukraine! It turns out that they were lying, the communists."