Vasyl Barladianu | |
|---|---|
Василь Барладяну | |
| Born | (1942-08-23)23 August 1942 |
| Died | 3 December 2010(2010-12-03) (aged 68) Odesa, Ukraine |
| Alma mater | |
| Political party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union (until 1974) |
Vasyl Volodymyrovych Barladianu (Ukrainian:Васи́ль Володи́мирович Барладя́ну; 23 August 1942 – 3 December 2010) was a Ukrainian human rights activist, journalist, and poet.
Vasyl Volodymyrovych Barladianu was born on 23 August 1942 in the village ofȘipca, in the present-day region ofTransnistria. He was the grandson ofAndrii Hulyi-Hulenko [uk], a brigadier general of theUkrainian People's Army. His father, as the son of Hulyi-Hulenko, was deported to theMongolian People's Republic to work at a uranium mine, where he died in 1945.[1]
Barladianu studied Russian literature atOdesa University, later studying at the universities ofSofia andBucharest. He worked as an art historian at museums inMoscow,Leningrad,Prague, andwestern Ukraine throughout the mid-1960s. During the 1960s, Barladianu also began to publish poetry. He worked in the Russian language from 1960 to 1965, afterwards writing exclusively in Ukrainian.[1] This was accompanied by a more patriotic tone in his works.[2]
In the early 1970s, Barladianu became aSoviet dissident, publishingsamvydav under the pseudonym of Yan Dubrala. Barladianu's samvydav primarily concerned the rights of Ukrainians within theRussian Empire and theSoviet Union, as well as the arrests of other dissidents, such asNina Strokata Karavanska. In May 1972, Barladianu began being investigated by theKGB of Ukraine, and he was subject to interrogation on 28 January 1974 after being accused of nationalism. He was expelled from theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union on 11 March 1974, and removed from his position as an instructor at Odesa University on 5 May.[3]
Barladianu was arrested on 2 March 1977 by the Odesa Prosecutor's Office, and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for "slandering the Soviet state" on the basis of his poetry. He was imprisoned at Camp OP-318/76 in the village ofPolytsi, Rivne Oblast [uk], where he worked on a quarry. Barladianu spent a total of 13 months and 17 days of his three-year sentence engaging in varioushunger strikes. He continued to write while imprisoned, including a collection of poems (titledBetween Humanity and Loneliness), two series of short stories (The Magician's Tablets andLessons of History), and several articles condemning the Soviet government for its treatment of dissidents. The works were published inParis in 1979 as a singular book, titledWoe from Wit.[3]
On 29 February 1980, three days before his scheduled release, Barladianu was arrested while imprisoned.[4] He was sentenced to a further three years of imprisonment on 13 August 1980 for the same charges as his first sentence. He served this sentence at various prisons in Ukraine's easternDonetsk Oblast, before being released in 1983. Following his release, he returned to Odesa.[2]
AmidstPerestroika, Barladianu resumed his activities in the dissident movement. He began working forRadio Liberty, as well asThe Ukrainian Herald, in 1987,[4] and he was a co-founder of the Ukrainian Initiative Group for the Liberation of Prisoners of Conscience, alongsideMykhailo Horyn,Viacheslav Chornovil,Ivan Gel,Stepan Khmara, andZorian Popadiuk.[5]
Following the1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution, Barladianu returned to his job at Odesa University, and he additionally became a member of theNational Writers' Union of Ukraine. He was awarded theOrder of Merit on 25 November 2005 by President of UkraineViktor Yushchenko. Barladianu died on 3 December 2010 in Odesa.[3]
