Oleksa Mykolajovych Hirnyk ( uk, Олекса Миколайович Гiрник, Oleksa Mykolajovyč Hirnyk; 28 March 1912 – 21 January 1978) was a Ukrainian

Soviet dissident Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until ...

, an engineer by profession, who burned himself to death as an act of protest against

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

suppression of the Ukrainian language ( russification), culture and history.Євген Гірник: КДБ казало, що батько загинув у ДТП ''Yevhen Hirnyk: KGB said that his father died in an accident''

BBC Ukrainian BBC News Ukrainian ( uk, BBC News Україна) is the Ukrainian service of the BBC which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Ukraine and the world. It started broadcasts in 1992.

(21 January 2013) The act was quickly covered up by the Soviet authorities and remained unknown to general populace for decades. He was convicted of treason by the Polish Republic and then by the Soviet Union.

Background

Hirnyk was born on 28 March 1912 in the town of Bohorodchany, then

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

-ruled Galicia, currently in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

) in western

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. He came from a family of

boyko The Boykos ( uk, Бойки, Boiky; pl, Bojkowie; sk, Pujďáci), or simply Highlanders (верховинці, ''verkhovyntsi''), are an ethnolinguistic sub-group of Ukrainians located in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, ...

s with a long background of preserving Ukrainian culture and heritage, his grandfather was the founder of the Prosvita Society in Bohorodchany, a society that promoted Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian language. After finishing secondary education, his parents wanted him to study at the seminary to become a priest. He, however, enrolled into a paramilitary organization "Sokil". When he was getting ready to study philosophy at the

University of Lviv The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

, he was conscripted into the Polish army. While serving, he protested the treatment of Ukrainian soldiers by the Polish officers. Because of statements against the Polish government and speaking about the independence of Ukraine, he was sentenced to five years in prison. When the Soviets took control of Ukraine in 1939, Hirnyk escaped from prison in Lviv. In that same year he persisted with his promotion of the Ukrainian language and of Ukrainian culture, and he did not hide his aspirations for independent Ukrainian statehood. He was arrested and sentenced to 8 years, which he spent in a

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to ...

in the

Ural Ural may refer to: *Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan * Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India *Ural Federal District, in Russia *Ural econ ...

region. After he was released in 1948 he returned to Ukraine, married Carolyna Petrash and worked in different jobs. Soon he became conscious of the dire state of the

Ukrainian language Ukrainian ( uk, украї́нська мо́ва, translit=ukrainska mova, label=native name, ) is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European language family. It is the native language of about 40 million people and the official state lan ...

in the country and witnessed that, due to the Soviet policies of Russification, Ukrainian language was no longer spoken, particularly in the eastern and central regions. In his house he began to produce handwritten leaflets (accompanied with quotes of Taras Shevchenko) — overall 1000 copies in 8 different versions.

Protest

The night of 21 January 1978, the eve of the sixtieth anniversary of Ukraine's declaration of independence by the

Tsentralna Rada The Central Council of Ukraine ( uk, Українська Центральна Рада, ) (also called the Tsentralna Rada or the Central Rada) was the All-Ukrainian council (soviet) that united deputies of soldiers, workers, and peasants deputie ...

government, Hirnyk doused himself with four liters of gasoline and burned himself to death on

Chernecha Hill Taras Hill or Chernecha Hora ( uk, Чернеча гора; literally, Monk's Hill) is a hill on the bank of the Dnieper near Kaniv in Ukraine and an important landmark of the Shevchenko National Preserve where the remains of the famous Ukrainian ...

, in

Kaniv Kaniv ( uk, Канів, ) city located in Cherkasy Raion, Cherkasy Oblast (province) in central Ukraine. The city rests on the Dnieper River, and is also one of the main inland river ports on the Dnieper. It hosts the administration of Kaniv urb ...

not far from

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ( uk, Тарас Григорович Шевченко , pronounced without the middle name; – ), also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar (a kobzar is a bard in Ukrainian culture), was a Ukrainian poet, wr ...

’s tomb. He had written close to a thousand leaflets containing quotes of Taras Shevchenko, protests against the russification of Ukraine, and calls for Ukrainian independence, and left them scattered on the hill. The

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

and local police quickly collected about 950 of them, however a few were hidden by the locals and even by some policemen. The man who discovered the body was arrested and coerced into silence. Hirnyk's wife was initially told that her husband died in a car accident and she was later forced to sign a written statement pledging not to tell anyone about the particulars of her husband's death. Hirnyk's son was 23 years old at the time of his father's death.

Commemoration

Unlike the

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

student Jan Palach, who also burned himself to death in protest of Soviet occupation of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, Hirnyk's sacrifice was not well known. However for years on the anniversary of his death, unknown people were putting on the place of his death a cluster of red

guelder-rose ''Viburnum opulus'', the guelder-rose or guelder rose () is a species of flowering plant in the family Adoxaceae (formerly Caprifoliaceae) native to Europe, northern Africa and central Asia. Description ''Viburnum opulus'' is a deciduous shr ...

fruits as a tribute. After Ukraine's independence, Hirnyk's story began to emerge from the archives and testimonies of the witnesses. In 1993 a street was named after him in Kalush, and a memorial plaque was put on his house. In 1999 the Hirnyk charitable fund was set up dedicated to the promotion of children's literature in Ukrainian. In 2000 a guelder-rose bush was planted on the place of his death. By decree of the

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...

of 18 January 2007, Oleksa Hirnyk was awarded the title of the

Hero of Ukraine Hero of Ukraine (HOU; uk, Герой України, ''Heroi Ukrainy'') is the highest national title that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the President of Ukraine. The title was created in 1998 by President Leonid Kuchma and as ...

posthumously and awarded the Order of the State.President.Gov.Ua

References

* Mariya Hantsyak,
Oleksa Hirnyk burned himself in protest against Russification of Ukraine
'' Welcome to Ukraine'', 2007/1 * М. Іщенко. ''Спалився за Україну : Художньо-біографічна повість''. Київ: Просвіта, 2004.
Museum of Dissident Movement
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirnyk, Oleksa 1912 births 1978 suicides People from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Ukrainian Austro-Hungarians Self-immolations in protest of the Eastern Bloc Ukrainian dissidents Suicides in the Soviet Union Suicides in Ukraine Recipients of the title of Hero of Ukraine Soviet dissidents Gulag detainees Inmates of Bereza Kartuska Prison Anti-Russification activists 1978 deaths

Background

Protest

Commemoration

See also

References