Volodymyr O. TYKHY: BEING THE SON OF A DISSIDENT

                                                                   BEING THE SON OF A DISSIDENT
I was born in 1952 in a family of Ukrainian teachers. We lived in a factory-town of Oleksievo- Druzhkivka in Donetsk region. My father, born in 1927, was arrested in 1957 and sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda", which included also protests against russification and suppression of Hungarian Uprising of 19565 by the Soviet Army. Father was sentenced to seven years in camps.

It's reasonable to say that my first acquaintance with my father's dissidence (I think the word "dissident" was not yet in use at that time) was when he was arrested, I have a mental picture in my head: I am standing in a crib, holding on to a wooden fence, my father lowers his head, passing through the low door, and raises his hand in farewell.

The text below is not my memories of my father and not an analysis of his dissident activities: the text is about events of MY LIFE, which were in one way or another connected with my father's dissidence (I do not touch on private matters and circumstances). The text is divided into three parts: from 1964-1976 (father's return from the camps and 12 years of free life); 1977-1984 (father's second arrest, trial, camps and death in a prison hospital); 1989 -2020 - from reburial at Baikovo cemetery in Kyiv.

Quite a lot of my father's writing, memoires about him and journalistic articles are available on Internet (in Ukrainian). Brief but very informative outline of his life and struggle was published in 1990 in the Soviet magazine "New Times", the author was father's friend from the camps O.I.Golub. My memoir would be better understood if the reader first read about my father, so Golub's article is attached.

P.S.

I re-read just-finished text (which is below) and realized that it is not a memoir, but rather an eyewitness account. That's exactly how it is, because in my memory events remain as "pictures" (sometimes - "videos"), and not as "stories". I very rarely remember my thoughts during events, and I consider it inappropriate to write my today thoughts in my memor.

Kyiv, February-March 2023

1964-1976
When my father returned in 1964, in the following years - until 1969 - only his trips to fellow campers reminded me of his dissidence (he listened to "enemy voices" like BBC and VOA and Svoboda, of course, and discussed some topics with me, but I don't remember the details). Father visited his friends several times a year, sometimes he took me with him - both for an excursion, and, probably, so that I could see what other people there were - in addition to those whom I met at home, at school or in small Ukrainian villages where in summer I often stayed with my grandparents. In 1966, the family broke up, father moved to the small village (khutir) Izhevka, where he lived with his mother, Maria Kindrativna. I lived with my mother in Oleksievo-Druzhkivka, but my father and I met quite often - Izhevka was about 6 kilometers away on foot.

In 1965, we went to Lviv and Zakarpatska oblast, stopped by for a couple of days to see Dr. Karhut, a doctor with whom my father was in the camp. It was hard to see that doctor Karhut, an elderly man and an asthmatic, had to live not with his family in the city of Kolomyia in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, but huddled in an shabby room in a poor house in the village. For him, who had a doctorate from the University of Vienna, there was no place in Kolomyia hospitals. I remember an episode from Dr. Karhut's visit: he asked me what I was reading. I remembered "Мальви (Mallows)" by Roman Ivanychuk, but I couldn't say what was the main, important thing in the book. Then the doctor outlined the main ideas and possible summary in a few phrases. I don't remember details, but the episode stuck in memory.

A trip with my father in January 1966 was very interesting: Grozny, Baku, Tbilisi, Batumi. In Grozny lived a my dad's "colleague" from the camps, the Chechen Seipi (I was surprised, I asked my father: "How will we find him?" Father answered: "Seipi said - go to any tea house, ask where to find Seipi - and they will show you ". We stayed at Seipi for two days: a big house, a big family, very hospitable. Many of Seipi's friends came to meet with a fellow camper of the owner of the house, and we, the children, were taken to a play in a puppet theater. A play about a folk hero , interesting puppets, energetic action - and a completely unfamiliar language.This, I think, was my first trip to the theater.

Two more times we two visited the city of Novomoskovsk, where another of my father's fellow camper, a teacher, lived. They lamented that their daughter had twice failed the Ukrainian philology entranse exams at Dnipropetrovsk University. They were sure that "they don't let her pass". This story caused concern, of course, but I obviously thought that the KGB restrictions did not affect "non-ideological" physics faculties.

I remember the trip to Kherson in the summer of 1968. Borys, a navigator with merchant fleet, lived in Kherson. The father said that Boris brought banned books from his sailing abroad, and for that he was imprisoned. We stayed with Boris for about two or three days - an intelligent family, intelligent friends of the family. After the picnic, they left me alone with books in their dacha in Dnieper reeds, and during the day and night I read Solzhenitsyn's "В круге первом (The First Cycle)" and flipped through a couple of similar books.

On another trip to Western Ukraine we went to the town of Perechyn near Mukachevo city in Zakarpatska oblast: somebody told father that the tank unit that took part in the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 would be returned there. I already fully understood what this occupation meant. With all peopple we stood on the town main square, listened to speeches. It was clear that people are

relieved and glad to see troops back, alive, but there was no euphoria among the younger officers we saw in city transport, one told his friends: "Many people spat on us, especially girls."

Now I think that my father at home (in Oleksievo-Druzhkivka and nearby cities) had no one to talk to, and there were no accessible telephones, let alone Facebook-telegrams, at that time. It was necessary either to meet in person, or to write letters - but my father already had a bad experience with letters: his letter to his cousin was recognized by the court in 1957 as "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda."

*     *     *

My father brought me books of poetry by Vasyl Simonenko, Mykola Vingranovsky, Vasyl Ellan and others, which began to appear in bookstores at that time. I read them a little, understood the patriotism and impulse of the poets, but they did not affect me much. After the eighth grade, I was practically not interested in anything except physics.

My father wanted me to enter the Kyiv University (because it was Ukrainian!), but I firmly decided to enter Moscow University, the best. However, we were poorly informed provincials: neither I nor my parents knew that the entrance exams at Moscow State University were not held in August, as in other universities, but in July. At the end of June 1969, I mailed my documents to Moscow State University, and as it turned out, they were received AFTER the first exam. I wasn't the only one like that - there were 20 people who mailed documents on time, but they came late, and a separate exam in written mathematics was organized for us. Maybe it was my luck and I was not "spotted" as the son of a dissident BEFORE the exams.

Already in September 69 I was summoned to the First Department of our Faculty: in all Soviet enterprises and organizations there were such departments, they were responsible for handling secret information and, apparently, loyalty of personnel. As a rule, retired KGB and military officers were the staff of the First Departments. I was sternly asked why I did not write in my autobiography that my father was convicted on a political charges? I evasively answered that I did not know that it was necessary to write about the parents in detail, and on which article of the Criminal Code - I also did not know, because he lived separately for a long time (since 1966, in fact) and we rarely see each other. I don't think they believed me, but there were no consequences, probably for a banal reason: blowing up the case in the first place would mean admitting that the "screening" of applicants was not carried out properly.

I must have been under surveillance at the university, and I can now guess who could have informed "authorities" about me - while at that time I never would thought of such a thing! In the fifth year, a new friend tried, it seems, to provoke me, proposing something like this: "Let's make a secret alliance, that we will prepare to fight the system, and we will come forward when we have already reached respectable heights in the profession and society." But I already understood such tricks: talks with tather, reading books (especially recent novel by Yuri Trifonof "Нетерпение (The Impetient ones)" about People's will organization) taght me a lesson, so I refused and stopped seeng him. He was a year younger, I met him by exchanging rock vinyls. He bought and sold them, this was qualified as a fartsovka (illegal trade in imported goods). Perhaps he was caught, forced to cooperate with KGB and sent to me.

Another characteristic episode: when I was going to the entrance exams, my father ordered me to apply for a simplified version of Russian language/literature exam - written reproduction instead of essay, which was reserved for pupils from "national" republics of the USSR. "Go to the admission commission,

tell them that you graduated from the national Ukrainian school and therefore have the right to write written reproduction. They must be reminded that Ukraine has its own language" - this was the key point.

I went to the commission. The Head of the commission was surprised: "But you speak Russian well! And how can I see that you studied at a national language school?" I didn't know "how he could see", but I firmly answered that it is clear from my graduation certificate. He flipped through my certificate, obviously, didn't see anything there (I looked later, too, and didn't see it either), but there was no reason to doubt my words - so, "Well, please..." I remember that among those writing written reproduction there really was an overwhelming majority with "non-Slavic appearance" (Georgians, Armenians, etc.), therefore, probably, my demand surprised the head of the commission. I think that at that time everyone from Ukraine went to the essay exam by default.

When I started studying at the university in Moscow (1969-1975), with my father we visited Professor

I.P. Sharapov, a geologist-mathematician, a scientist by calling, who was in the same camp with my father in early 60s. He questioned me about my university studies and reprimanded me for not being conscientious enough about science and study. There is a good wiki article about Sharapov.

We (my father and I) met, walked around the city and talked with O. I. Golub, biochemist-microbiologist. In Netherlands he asked in the beginning of 60s for political asylum, was granted it, but his wife lured him back to USSR and he was duly sentenced and served his term in the same camp with my father. He spoke beautiful Ukrainian, he was from Chernihiv region, extremely erudite (I could already understand this). He could not get a job in his specialty (of course), so he earned a living by reviewing articles for reference journals.

The dad's "farewell" visit to Volodya Tolts, who was leaving for emigration (later Volodya became a host with Radio Liberty), turned out to be interesting. While my father was talking about something with Volodya, I became a participant in the general conversation of Volodya's wife and other guests. She was a theater reviewer, but as the wife of a dissident, she was not allowed to defend her thesis and publish in professional magazins. She earned a living by writing dissertations for others, she told us that she was finishing her third one. That's how I first heard about this fairly common practice, and it struck me, because it contrasted greatly with what I heard from Professor Sharapov and O.I. Golub, and it was not, of course, what I saw at the university. Later in life, however, I saw similar cases.

*     *     *

On February 15, 1972, 8 years passed after the end of father's first 7-year term and the criminal record became "expired". Father began writing articles on various education-related themes and letters to the authorities on ongoing Russification of Donbas. Unfortunately, on one of the first manuscripts: "Reflections about Ukrainian language and culture in the Donetsk region" - he put the date 01/02/1972. This draft was recognized as anti-Soviet by the court, so it was a crime committed before 8 years after the first term "expired", so father was considered recidivist. This allowed judges to use more severe punishment: sentence was 10 years in "special regime camp", instead of maximum 7 years in "severe regime camp" for non-recidivist…

When I came home from Moscow for holidays or vacations, we usually discussed my father's articles and his numerous meetings with representatives of the authorities regarding those articles (none of which were published in the USSR in father's lifetime). My father listened to my comments, although I often saw the surrounding life in a less dramatic light. A couple of times I met Hryhoriy Hrebenyuk, an engineer from Kramatorsk, at the father's home in a small village (hutir) where he lived with his mother.

Father and Hrebeniuk talked about something, but I don't know about what, they went out into the garden to talk. It is interesting that Hrebenyuk was not present at the open part of the court proceedings as a witness and I do not know whether he was questioned at the closed part.

In March 1975, after graduating from the university, I was sent to Kyiv (Institute of Nuclear Research of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR) and lived in the dormitory of the Academy of Sciences on Nauky Avenue. Several times my father came to Kyiv for two or three days. He met with his friends, I was at such meetings a couple of times, friendly conversations, but there are no memories. I only remember the meeting with Oles Berdnyk, near the Kyiv post office - he was easy to remember: a living classic, his fantasy novels were very popular. In addition, he was a man about two meters tall, his palm like a shovel, and he looked at you from a height like Maharishi Yogi. Berdnyk was also a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, in 1979 he was sentenced to 6 years of strict regime, pardoned in 1984 after the publication of a "repentant" letter in "Literary Ukraine". There is an article on human rights Ukrainian Helsinki group in wiki.

My father's main work, which lasted until his arrest, was compiling the book of quotations "Мова-народ" (Language-people, people - singular) - sayings of prominent people and various documents and writings about the role of language in the life of a people and every person. Regarding the manuscript of the book " Language-people ", the father had, as he told me, interesting discussions with representatives of Donetsk oblast Department staff of the Department of education and the staff of the Donetsk University Chair of Ukrainian Philology. At least two of them later testified for the prosecution in court.

At the end of 1976, I was at my father's home, we were sorting out typewritten pages of the "Language - People" manuscript, and talked. Father told me about his last detention my militia-KGB and several days spent in the Druzhkivka pre-trial detention center. He said that he was offered: "Tikhii, marry a Jewish woman and emigrate! You can even not marry, write application for emigration - we will not object." I thought he should emigrate, but my father didn't want to: "What am I going to do there? Wash plates in restaurants? This is my country, here with my struggle I am doing something useful. In the documents of the Helsinki Group, we write about the persecution of people for their political and religious views.

Many of them are in the camps, they are my friends and like-minded people - I must speak about them " This was our last meeting with him being free.

1977-1988
I learned about the February 4, 1977 arrest from the programs of enemy "voices". Later, I received information from Raisa Rudenko: her husband, Mykola Rudenko, was arrested on next day after my father. My father was kept in a pre-trial detention center in Donetsk, I went there three times, but I was not allowed to see him. Once they took the food parcel (before that, father was on hunger strike for weeks, so they might think it good for him and for them). He continued to insist on obeying the law even in the Donetsk pre-trial detention center, as the warden complained to me (with sympathy for him, it seemed to me): "He doesn't want to talk to us, he demands that we speak to him in Ukrainian, but how could we learn it? We never needed it".

In mid-August 1977 there was a trial, I described it earlier (the article, In Ukrainian, could be found in archive of "Україна молода" newspaper, №84б 12.07.2017). Here I will add two details that I remember:

I came to the court room only on fourth day, because only on the THIRD day of the trial father's "advocate" Koretsky sent a telegram to my Grandma, the father's mother, with a request "please inform his sons and sisters." To a 70-year-old semi-literate woman, to a village where there was not even a post office, and postman had to walk 5 km to deliver a telegram...

After the trial, I thought about filing an appeal (although I didn't believe I would succeed), but I needed a copy of the verdict to do so. I went to Donetsk, to the regional court, and wrote a reqest. The deputy chairman of the regional court, judge Zinchenko, the same one who presided over the court, refused (scan of the copy of my request with the resolution by the Judge "1-st dept. To refuse" in the right corner).

*     *     *

The first year after the trial was relatively quiet. I wrote a couple of appelas to the prosecutor's office, but it was all in vain. The answer was always the same: "He was convicted correctly, there is no reason to review the sentence."

In the late 70s, when my father was still in the camp in Sosnovka, Mordovian ASSR, two polite KGB operatives "worked" with me (they spoke Ukrainian without any strain). They tried to convince me that my father behaves wrongly, and I should incline him to the right behavior. "Go to Moscow, find out who is inciting your father. Go to the camp, convince him to give up his views". They promised all kinds of support in everyday life, in a scientific career, including foreign internships. After my evasive answers I was brought before the eyes of a KGB colonel (at KGB Headquarters in Kyiv, Volodymyrska Street, 35). Without beating the bushes he demanded my cooperation, and when I refused, he told me something like this: "You are a young specialist, you have registration in Kyiv for three years, which will soon expire. You may be dismissed from the institute, you will have to leave Kyiv and you will not be able to get a job anywhere. Think about it." I said I had already thought about it, I will not cooperate. He answered - "Go, you know what we can do", I answered that I know. The meeting ended, I left. The KGB did not contact me again, but I was not fired from my job.

Sometimes about end of the summer of 1978, myself and Kolya (my father's son from the first marriage, a Muscovite) were given a "long-term visitation with the prisoner", two days. It was in Sosnovka, a village halfway between Potma and Yavas railway stations. At that time in Sosnovka was a camp "for especially dangerous state criminals." The camp was a two-story building behind a fence about three meters high with barbed wire on top. Father told us about his fellow inmates - in addition to the "political" ones like himself, about half of 35 prisoners were former nazi collaborators and former fighters of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), who were serving their 25-year terms.

I took a carefully hidden note out of the visitation room. I don't know what was in it, my father asked me to take it to Academician Sakharov in Moscow, which I did. Sakharov lived somewhere on the Sadovoye koltso street, I went in, there were other people there, but he came out to meet me - I recognized him, I saw photographs - after all, he was (as me) a graduate of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, a Nobel Peace Prise laureate (and a laureate of the Stalin and Lenin prizes, and three times "Hero of Socialist Labor" for creating a thermonuclear bomb). I was struck by the dryness of the meeting: "Ah, they asked you to pass it on, okay, thank you." I thought - great people have great things

to do, not talking to some curriers brining notes from Sosnovka. I remember that the above-mentioned professor I.P. Sharapov was not a "fan" of Sakharov and directly said about it: "When the title of Hero and awards were given for a bomb - he made a bomb, and when they began giving prises for peace - he began fighting for peace " (this, of course, is not a exactly Sharapov's words, but close in meaning).

* * *

On April 27, 1979, I heard on the "Voice of America" that Eduard Kuznetsov, who was also inmate in Sosnovka and who was exchanged and was flawn to the United States, declared at a press conference: "I don't know if Oleksiy Tikhii is still alive. When I was excorted out of the barrack for exchange, I heard his screams of pain from the cell. Knowing Tikhii's endurance, this indicates a very difficult condition" (here I convey the meaning of what was said). A couple of days later, by telegram, or maybe through my "superviser" at the institute, deputy director for regime (he was a KGB colonel in reserve and obviously did not lose contact with the service), I was informed that camp authorities would allow me to visit father. In Moscow, Kolya already knew that father had a surgery and was in serious condition (some of the "political" inmates in Sosnovka were Muscovites, information from them reached their relatives, and Olga Alekseevna, Kolya's mother, maintained contact with them). I went to Moscow, where we collected with the help of friends necessary medicines and food stuff that we might provide for father, and we set off for Potma. We traveled to Potma and farther to Barashevo together with the wife of Yuri Fedorov, who also served his term in Sosnovka camp. Fedorov was a friend of the above-mentioned Eduard Kuznetsov and one of the participants of the "Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair" (wiki). She was a valuable adviser for me and Kolya - where to go, what words to say to whom.

Camp administration did allow us a visitation, for about an hour in the hospital ward (and the patient couldn't talk more). That was in Barashevo prison hospital wich served all camps in the area (Barashevo - one of the villages of Mordovia camps area, with several camps and a hospital).

Father's condition was serious, but no longer critical. The surgeon who operated on my father said that he had a stomach ulcer rupture, that he was brought to the hospital late: custodians thought he was simulating and did not come to see him for a long time, and the road from Sosnovka to the hospital in Barashevo is not close, especially for transportation of a prisoner. The operation was difficult, after the operation (because there was a breakthrough) peritonitis developed. They performed a second surgery, for which they even called in the chief anesthesiologist of Mordovia. I was sure that such concern for the father was a result of considerable publicity: Amnesty International, other human rights organizations declared protests, and the authorities would not benefit if the prisoner died. I was even told at the hospital that if my father recovers, they will prepare documents for the "Akt" (terminally ill people could be released "according to the Akt" to die at home). Of course, the father was not released "according to the Akt", but was later sent back to Sosnovka, to the camp.

*     *     *

Hospital wardens refused to take medicines and food for father - no permission from the camp administration. The camp administration also refused - according to the law, food parcells are allowed only after half of the term. I asked for an exception - indeed, this was the case of very serious condition of the patient. The answer was: "Well, it's not up to us to decide..." Kolya went back to Moscow, he had to go to work, and I stayed and began visiting authorities in Yavas village (the administration of the entire Mordovia zone was there). In the end, I managed to meet the head of the KGB of Zubovo- Polyansky district which supervised the zone. He made big eyes: "You know, we have nothing to do with this, the camp administration decides." I was angry after beeing kicked around for two days, and said to him: "You refuse to take medicines - it means murder. I go back to Moscow. People there are waiting for news". The answer was - "as you wish."

Later in the afternoon at the Yavas station I was waiting for the local train Barashevo-Potma. Around seven in the evening the train arrived, and father's surgeon came to the platform. He saw me: "Where are you going? We were given the command to prepare justification for the emergency parcel for your father. Tomorrow they will take it, wait".

I spent the night in Yavas and went to Barashevo with the morning train. To my surprise, I was met by an warden from the hospital security - she took all the medicines and products and told me not to worry, everything would be handed over to my father. She explained that she was ordered to meet me at the train so that I could return with the same train to Potma and back to Moscow.

It was very good for me, because my vacation days were almost over. Next day I was lucky too: in the morning my train Potma-Moscow, when approaching Bykovo station near Moscow, suddenly started slowing down. I grabbed my bag, ran into the vestibule, and when the train almost stopped, jumped off. I walked a few kilometers to the Bykovo airport, bought a ticket for afternoon flight and went to Moscow to tell the news. From Moscow, I phoned my institute in Kyiv and told colleagues that I would be there in the evening. Little after my call, the "authorities" asked my superiors where I was. They replied that I had returned from my short vacation, but was now on a local business trip. There were no disciplinary measures regarding my one-day absence from the workplace, my bossess covered me when possible - thanks to them!

When it became clear in the early 1980s that I could prepare a dissertation, the boss was excited and began to inquire. He was told (by whom - I don't know) that it is better not to talk about my dissertation now. But after a year or a year and a half, someone "gave the go-ahead": my boss was informed that there were no objections from the authorities. But that same someone advised that I should not defend my thesis in Ukraine: outside of Ukraine, there is less chance that one of KGB colonels will notice an attempt of defending thesis by the son of a "dissident-nationalist" and put an end to such an attempt. As a result, I looked for options in Dubna and Moscow, and finally, on the advice of my Head of Chair at Moscow State University, A.F. Tulinov, I found an academic council in Tashkent and defended my thesis there.

*     *     *

Some people in Europe and America were mailing postcards to me and grandmother Maria. It was very moving, I felt that father's struglle is known in the West and receives support.

I do not remember who handed me the brochure "Oleksiy Tykhy. Reflections", published by the Smoloskyp publishing house in 1982. It also contained my notes from the court hearing. The scan of one of the pages of my "minutes" (last word of O.Tykhyy) shows that it is damaged a little because I hid these notes in the basement of the particle accelerator where I worked. My "minutes" was transferred to the USA by Raisa Rudenko. She rewrote my notes with her own hand, and explained it like this: "I can't get away from the camp, and the fact that I hand over my notes from the trial of Rudenko and Tykhy to the West will not affect my sentence in any way. And your name at the same time will appear less in the KGB files." Thanks to her for that. In 1981, Raisa Rudenko, the Permanent Secretary of the UGG, was sentenced to 5 years in the camps.

At the beginning of 1980, the "special regime" camp in Sosnovka was closed, and prisoners were transferred to the camp in the village of Kuchino, Chusovskoy rayon of the Perm region. There were two camps with # 389/36: a bigger one - "strict regime"; and a smaller one for about 50 inmates with "special regime". The climate and everything else in Kuchino were not better than in Mordovska ASSR, but it was much more difficult to go there: first to Perm city, then to the town of Chusovoy, then by bus or hitchhiking to Kuchino. At that time, it was not easy to travel by Soviet trains, tickets were almost never available. I have experience travelling in baggage cars, in vestibules, on the third shelves in sleeping carriages and in conductors' compartments (when the "revision" came in - conductors piled up mattresses on me).

I traveled to Kuchino twice: father and administration informed me that I can receive a visitation, but at the last moment administration refused: "A.I.Tykhyy is deprived of a visitation due to violation of regime". There was nothing I could do…

I saw inside of the Kuchino camp only in 1996, when with my sons we went there for the opening of "Perm-36: Museum of Political Repressions". Vasyl Ovsienko, who served in the camp at the same time with my father, showed us the camp, cells, work zone and more. A strong impression on me made a "walking courtyard" - a wooden well about three by three meters in plan with walls of four meters high, covered by a metal mesh on top. There was a balcony along the top edge were the warden was walking.

After half the term, it was already possible to send parcels, but often "for the violation of the regime" father was deprived of the right to receive parcel.

We received significant financial assistance to pay for road expenditures in the form of parcels from Anna Tykha in London, Linden Gardens, 49, which were addressed to father's mother, Maria Tykha. Who was this Anna Tykha we did not know, but we received parcels and sold the clothes that were in them. It was not until 1992 that I went to Linden Gardens, 49 in London and found out that Ms. Lyuba Fastun, a library worker at the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain mailed the AUGB funded parcels as Anna Tykha. Many thanks to her and the Association!

The father had the right to send one letter a month, so he wrote a continuous text, but so that it was clear to whom what part was assigned. He sent letters to me or Olga Alekseevna, and we sent parts of them to others (grandmother Maria, father's sisters etc.) Sometimes letters - the father's and ours - were "lost" (confiscations also happened, but on such cases father was notified). Therefore, we had a rule: in each letter, briefly retell the content of the letter received.

Despite my father's opposition, grandma Maria, my father's mother, and I wrote a request for clemency, to the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, which was refused.

At the beginning of 1984, the father's health deteriorated greatly. In his letters, he wrote that he was put in a queue for visit to the district hospital and for an X-ray, but he got there only three months later: first X-ray machine broke down, then the only radiologist went for additional professional training. The X-ray showed stomach cancer, so father was admitted in a prison hospital in the city of Perm, and had a surgery there. In the end of April a visitation was allowed, we flew together with Olga Alekseevna (perhaps a visitation was allowed for only two persons). We talked through the glass for half an hour, it was clear that things were very bad, although the father tried to cheer up. He could not even sit, as he said - "only bones", he weighed forty something kilograms.

On May 7, I received a telegram that my father had died. I filed an application for vacation, and my deputy director for the regime advised me not to leave right away (he knew procedures well): "You will arrive in Perm at best in the second half of May 8, when everyone will be drinking in honor of the holiday. The ninth, a Victory Day, is day off. Go to be there on the morning of the tenth, you can't help your father anyway."

So I did. I was already in Moscow on the morning of the 9th, there was plenty of time before the evening train to Perm, and I went to the "Novodevichye (New Maiden)" cemetery. One day a year, on May 9, it was open for visits (on other days - only for relatives of the buried, or with a special pass). I walked for a long time, but of all I remember only the monument to Nikita Khrushchev: I remembered bread shortages and Cuba missile crisis - all connected to Khruschev, and I knew the name of the author of the monument, sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, a dissident and political emigrant.

In the Perm prison (the hospital was part of it), I spoke to deputy chief of the prison for regime. At my request, he called the prison warden who was the last to see my father. The warden told me that father asked for shower, washed himself and did some laundry, but he no longer had the strength to go back, so the two wardens almost carried him to his cell. It looked that he remembered my father with respect for his willpower and benevolence.

Deputy chief, in his turn, informed me that according to the existing rules a prisoner who died in a prison must be buried by this prison and be buried under prison's control until the end of term, and that everything was prepared: documents were drawn up and a place reserved at the city cemetery "Severnoe (Northern)", a coffin was made, a prisoner changed into neutral (not prison) clothes - everything ready for burial. I said that I will not bury in Perm, that want to take the body and bury it in my homeland. To which, naturally, the deputy said that he does not decide on such issues. So I said goodbye to him and went to the regional KGB offices. However, I did not find anyone there: "Come tomorrow morning, too late already."

I returned to the prison and waited at the exit to see the surgeon (civilian) who operated on my father. He said that during the operation they saw solid metastases. The metastases completely blocked the entrance to the stomach, food did not get in (the father wrote about this in his letters and Vasyl Ovsienko, who was in the same camp at the time, mentioned this in his memoirs). "If he had come to us two or three months earlier, we would have corrected something, maybe he would have had time to be released as terminally ill (on Akt), and he would have died at home. But as it was, we could not do anything. If we try cutting it out, we would have to remove the whole stomach".

"Tomorrow morning" the KGB received me, but they could not decide anything: the chief was in the hospital. I asked the staff to let him know that I was coming to see him and went to the hospital. We met in the hospital park - it was already warm enough. In simple words the chief explained me why he would not allow the body to be taken away: "Suppose I believe you, and you just want to bury your father next to his parents. But there may well be others there, in Ukraine, who want to organize a funeral as a political demonstration. Will you be able to stop them? - No. And we can't risk it."

I began to ask that the funeral in Perm be postponed, that maybe it would be possible to cremate the body and take away the urn, that maybe I can find an authority that would allow... - and then I received a second session of a cold shower: "There is no crematorium in Perm and Perm region, the closest one is in Sverdlovsk. To take the body out of the region requires an epidemiological analysis and a conclusion. At least two weeks are needed to prepare it. There are no morgues with refrigerators in Perm, you can imagine what will happen to the body - it is already mid-May. And it might happen that the "viral hepatitis" will appear in the conclusion, and then the issue of re-burial will be closed forever. And as it is now in the death certificate - "cancer with metastases", time will pass, and you will rebury your father in your homeland."

I went back to the prison, together with an orderly and an officer from the regime service, we took from the morgue the coffin with the body, went to the cemetery and carried the coffin to the grave on our shoulders. There was already a swamp under our feet, but we four had managed - father's body was not heavy. A local worker filled in the shallow grave, everyone left, and I found a piece of some sheet metal, cut pieces of sod in a nearby copse and lined the grave mound. I saw the grave again only in 1989, but Kolya and Olga Alekseevna visited, found the grave - my pieces of sod had taken root and were clearly visible, and put a granite tombstone instead of a wooden plank with the prisoner's number.

From 1984 to the beginning of 1989, there were few events related to my father. The only thing is that after the Chernobyl accident of 1986, I was not given permission (the so-called "Forma 2") to work with data on radioactive contamination - they were considered "secret". That is, I had the right to measure contamination in the 30-kilometer zone, and I measured it, but I did not have the right to see the data of other researchers. It was unpleasant, but nothing could be done about it.

1989 - 2020
In 1985, Gorbachev's "perestroika" began, and by 1989 it had already reached the point that Lithuanians (as far as I know, they were the first) began to go on expeditions, search for burials of compatriots deported in the 1940s and organize their reburials in Lithuania. I knew about it because as an active member of the environmental NGO "Green World" I was in contact with the Lithuanian "greens" and activists of Sąjūdis (. The idea that it is possible to rebury my father's remains in Ukraine did not occur to me, but the idea of reburying dead prisoners in Kopalno was put forward by the All-Ukrainian Society of the Repressed (apparently together with the Movement). I remember how I was invited to a meeting

- former political prisoners Mykhailo Horyn, Yevhen Pronyuk, Oksana Meshko and others were there, and I wrote a statement to authorities asking for permission to rebury. The society took on all the organizational problems (and there were many of them), my task was to go to Perm and, as the son of a buried person, take part in the exhumation.

The reburial of Vasyl Stus, Yuri Lytvyn and Oleksa Tykhyy in November 1989 is described in many memoirs by those who participated, like Vassyl Ovsienko and Volodymyr Shovkoshytny. I will describe only my part of the story.

I flew from Kyiv to Perm together with other participants of the expedition, which included the film crew of the film about Vasyl Stus, later released under the title "Просвітлої дороги свічка чорна (The Black Candle of the Enlighten Road)". In Perm, everyone, except me, went to Kopalno village in Chusovskoy rayon (where Vasyl Stus and Yuri Lytvyn were buried), while my half-brother Kolya from Moscow joined me and we went to the Perm cemetary service to fill in papers and arrange everything. We were quickly issued all the necessary permits for exhumation, and by the end of the working day we paid for the services of the cemetary, paid for and received from the warehouse a coffin, a galvanized iron sheet for its upholstery and wood boards for the box in which the galvanized coffin should be transported. We talked to the master worker who had to cover the coffin with sheet metal and then solder it. Everything went well!

The next morning, the situation changed dramatically. The master worker was not at work: we were told that he got drunk the night before, had a fight with someone and was now in hospital with concussion. Whether it did kappen in reality - who knows. His assistant was also absent - either he had day off or

simply no-show ... The head of the cemetary office was not at work too, and the secretary handed over his order: since there is no one to solder the coffin, he does not give permission for the exhumation.

We understood that the command passed to stop everything, but we decided to act anyway. In the workshop we had our materials, there were tools, and Kolya and I began to cover the lower part of the coffin with sheet metal, we had sufficient skills for this. From time to time I went to the office, and around lunch the secretary said that boss gave us "go ahead". We loaded the lower part of the coffin (already covered with sheet metal), into the truck, and I went to the cemetery with the grave digger, while Kolya continued work on the cofin lid.

On the spot, I negotiated with the digger that he would help me with everything, and not just dig up the grave (moving the remains into a new coffin was supposed to be our job with Kolya, but Kolya had to stay and make the lid). I feeled uneasy - if there is no one to solder the coffin - and the master received a special permit, and only if the coffin was soldered by the master the cemetary office would issue permit for transportation... However, we did everything at the cemetery and when we arrived "at the base", I was able to breathe a sigh of relief: there was already a guy at work in the shop - master's assistant. The coffin was soldered, the secretary took out of the drawer permit for transportation, obviously signed by her boss the day before, and we arrived at the airport an hour before the departure of the plane. The Kopalno group was already there. They had their share of obstacles (stops by traffic police, "lost" permits, absent police officers and even punctured tires), but they did their job.

We arrived at Boryspil airport already late in the evening, loaded the coffins into a truck together with those who met us and took them to the church in Kurenivka suburb in Kyiv, where the coffins were left overnight.

*     *     *

The reburial was a solemn procession, but my role was the same as the relatives of the deceased - I followed the coffin. On the morning of November 19, after the church service, a procession with banners, flags, and wreaths went through the whole city to the Baikove cemetery. Thousands of people joined by road. Stops were made on St.Sophia Square, near the university, and the procession passed between the KGB buildings on Volodymyrska Street: KGB did not allow coffins to be carried along "their" quarter, so coffins were transported in hearse buses. Impressive footage of the procession can be seen in the already mentioned film "The Black Candle of Enlightenment Path" (in Part 3, the ten-minute reburial episode begins at minute 34). Paradoxically - or maybe not - a portrait of a Russian poet, Boris Pasternak is posted on the YouTube screen saver for the entire film...

A rally was held at the cemetery near the burial site (which is at Plot #34). Speeches were given, poems were read. It was not without curiosity - as the coffins were lowered, someone shouted "Let's cover the graves of our brothers with our hands, according to the Cossack custom!" The diggers took their shovels and left, but it didn't work out well with the filling by hands: temperature was below zero, and it was difficult to take the hard soil. People dispersed little by little, in the end there were only about ten of us left. Someone ran to the cemetary office, borrowed shovels, and in half an hour we did everything right.

*     *     *

After the reburial and especially after Ukrainian independence, the dissidents, and the father as one of them, became a symbol of the struggle against the Soviet regime. Since I was not going to study my father's activities or analyze what he wrote (not my profile), I became a kind of a "wedding general" - I am invited to public events where dissidents are honored. I am writing statements, for example, that I am not opposed to streets in Kyiv, Druzhkivka, or Kramatorsk being named after Oleksa Tykhy.

I stay away from politics: the only time I was nominated by the "greens" as a candidate, I lost the election, but during the election campaign I realized that I have neither the desire nor the ability for politics. In 1994 I received a lesson that confirmed the correctness of my decision not to go into politics. My friend, who by his position had an invitation to the US Embassy to celebrate Independence Day, could not go to the reception, and gave the invitation ticket to me. Everything was, as always, nice (I have been to such receptions, including the celebration of the USA Independence Day in Kyiv in 1991 - first time ever, the reception was held at "Renaissance Foundation" garden, because the Embassy did not have its grounds yet).

In 1994 buffet tables were on the terrace of the ambassador's residence garden, behind one of them I saw Vyacheslav Chornovil and approached him. Chornovil was a famous dissident, also member of the Helsinki group and a leader of opposition is the Parliament. I introduced myself, said that I had experience of work in non-governmental organizations, knew languages, and asked if I could be of some use to him. When he heard this, he almost recoiled. He briefly said that no, that my services are not necessary, and ended the conversation. At first I was upset, but after thinking about it, I understood his logic. He, of course, knew that the KGB "worked" with children of the dissidents (I described my own experience above), and therefore he thought that the KGB had "recruited" me and was now sending me to him.

My father's works were published by the "Society of Oleksa Tykhy" (Yevgen Shapovalov, Yevhen Fialko and others), as well as by Lyudmyla Ogneva. Later all his works were published in the already mentioned two-volume book in 2012. As a son, in 2006 I received the order "For Courage of the First Degree" awarded to my father. I initiated the publication and was the co-editor of the book "Мова-народ" (K.Смолоскип, 2007) compiled by my father.

*     *     *

Of my "activities", I can mention the tours of Kyiv (including visits to the Baikovo cemetery), which I conducted for children - winners of "Олексиних читань (Oleksa's Readings)", a sort of little conferences dedicated to issues raised by my father - Ukrainian language, patriotism, civil rights). "Readings" in the cities of Donetsk region (Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Chasiv-Yar, etc.) were organized by the Oleksa Tykhy Society together with education departments. Very nice children, most of them high school students. The last such group came in 2019.

I attended several "Oleksa's readings", went to meetings at the Druzhkivka city museum, where there is a recreated father's room - as it was in his home in village (хутір). The presentation of the two-volume book "Oleksa Tykhyy" was very solemn, held at the Donetsk city Philharmonic in 2012 with the participation of people deputies, government officials, figures of science and culture. The printing of the book was, unusually, paid for from the regional budget. There was less than two years to the appearance of the Donetsk People's Republic...

The last event in which I participated was the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which took place at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. As Myroslav Marynovych, a member of the UHG and vice-rector of UCU, said at the opening, he wanted for the last time to bring together all participants of the events. There I saw and had the opportunity to talk a little with my father's brothers-in-arms.

Volodymyr O. Tykhy