Mykola Rudenko
Encyclopedia
Mykola Danylovych Rudenko ' onMouseout='HidePop("30605")' href="/topics/Luhansk_Oblast">Luhansk oblast
– 1 April 2004, Kiev
) was a Ukrainian
poet
, writer
, philosopher, Soviet dissident and human rights
activist. He was the founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki group
, and was twice arrested for his dissident activities.
, and remarked that it remained with him his entire life. He began to write as a child, and had some of his poems published by the local newspapers. His writing earned him a scholarship to Kiev State University in 1939. He only studied for two months until he was called in to the Red Army
.
During the war Rudenko sustained serious injuries. On 4 October 1941 near Leningrad
he was wounded by an exploding bullet, which shattered bones of the pelvis and entered his spine. He spent over a year in the hospital. However, he was able to walk again. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star
, of the Great Patriotic War 1st class, and six other medals.
In 1946 Rudenko left the army, but did not return to university. He did continue to write, and his first collection of poems was published in 1947
, and he worked a variety of jobs for various publishing companies. He wrote a wide variety of poetry and novels, some of his most famous being: The Last Sabre (1959), The Magic boomerang (1966), The Eagle’s Ravine (1970), and the collection of poems about Holodomor
The Cross in 1976.
He also wrote works of philosophy. In the The Energy of Progress (1974) he argues against the works of Karl Marx
. In 1972 his works stopped being published in the Soviet Union.
was not the answer, and that real problem was the Soviet ideology, not Joseph Stalin
. Rudenko began to petition all levels of the Party about the need for reform, even sending a letter to Nikita Khrushchev
in 1960. He was put under surveillance by the KGB
, and he began to meet more and more other members of the dissident movement. In 1974 he was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
for his views on Marxism
. He lost his job and had to take a position as a night watchman. In the 1970s he began to get involved with human rights. This led to his arrest on 18 April 1975. In 1976 he was forced to take a psychiatric exam. On 9 November 1976 he announced the formation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. The group began publishing information about violations of human rights in Ukraine, including details about Holodomor and other repressions and atrocities.
n prisoner camp, but then his wife was arrested and sent to the same camp. He was then transferred to a camp in the Perm
region. As an invalid
, he was not forced to do work at first. But, he took part in prisoner strikes and was later forced to do labor despite his injuries from the Great Patriotic War. On 5 March 1984 he was taken to the village of Mamai
, in the present day Altai Republic
, to serve his exile. Three years later, his wife Raisa Rudenko joined him, and they were released in 1987. Their residence had been confiscated, so they left for Germany
, and then the United States
. He worked in the US for Radio Svoboda and Voice of America
, while continuing work for the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. In 1988, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship. He returned to Kiev
in September 1990, and his citizenship was reinstated and he was fully rehabilitated
.
Luhansk Oblast
Luhansk Oblast ) is the easternmost oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Luhansk. The oblast was established in 1938 and bore the name Voroshilovgrad Oblast in honor of Kliment Voroshilov....
– 1 April 2004, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
) was a Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, philosopher, Soviet dissident and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
activist. He was the founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki group
Ukrainian Helsinki Group
The Ukrainian Helsinki Group was founded in November 1976 to monitor human rights in Ukraine. The group was active until 1981 when all members were jailed....
, and was twice arrested for his dissident activities.
Biography
Rudenko was seven years old when his father died in a mining accident. With his mother and two siblings, he worked on the family farm until they were forced to give their land during the process of collectivization. He was traumatized by the HolodomorHolodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
, and remarked that it remained with him his entire life. He began to write as a child, and had some of his poems published by the local newspapers. His writing earned him a scholarship to Kiev State University in 1939. He only studied for two months until he was called in to the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
.
During the war Rudenko sustained serious injuries. On 4 October 1941 near Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
he was wounded by an exploding bullet, which shattered bones of the pelvis and entered his spine. He spent over a year in the hospital. However, he was able to walk again. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star
Order of the Red Star
Established on 6 April 1930, the Order of the Red Star was an order of the Soviet Union, given to Red Army and Soviet Navy personnel for "exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union in both war and peace". It was established by Resolution of the Presidium of the CEC of the...
, of the Great Patriotic War 1st class, and six other medals.
In 1946 Rudenko left the army, but did not return to university. He did continue to write, and his first collection of poems was published in 1947
Works
Upon publishing his first collection From the march in 1947, he was accepted into the Union of Writers of Ukraine. Rudenko was a member of the Communist partyCommunist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, and he worked a variety of jobs for various publishing companies. He wrote a wide variety of poetry and novels, some of his most famous being: The Last Sabre (1959), The Magic boomerang (1966), The Eagle’s Ravine (1970), and the collection of poems about Holodomor
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
The Cross in 1976.
He also wrote works of philosophy. In the The Energy of Progress (1974) he argues against the works of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. In 1972 his works stopped being published in the Soviet Union.
Dissident activity
Rudenko stopped his cooperation with the Party in the late 1940s. He was convinced that De-StalinizationDe-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
was not the answer, and that real problem was the Soviet ideology, not Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. Rudenko began to petition all levels of the Party about the need for reform, even sending a letter to Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
in 1960. He was put under surveillance by the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, and he began to meet more and more other members of the dissident movement. In 1974 he was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
for his views on Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. He lost his job and had to take a position as a night watchman. In the 1970s he began to get involved with human rights. This led to his arrest on 18 April 1975. In 1976 he was forced to take a psychiatric exam. On 9 November 1976 he announced the formation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. The group began publishing information about violations of human rights in Ukraine, including details about Holodomor and other repressions and atrocities.
Arrest
On 5 February 1977 he was once again arrested. His trial took place between 23 June and 1 July 1977, and he was sentenced to 7 years in a labor camp and 5 years exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda". In 1978, all of his 17 works were removed from circulation. Rudenko was first taken to a MordoviaMordovia
The Republic of Mordovia , also known as Mordvinia, is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Saransk. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia...
n prisoner camp, but then his wife was arrested and sent to the same camp. He was then transferred to a camp in the Perm
Perm
Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....
region. As an invalid
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
, he was not forced to do work at first. But, he took part in prisoner strikes and was later forced to do labor despite his injuries from the Great Patriotic War. On 5 March 1984 he was taken to the village of Mamai
Mamai
Mamai of Borjigin kin, was a powerful military commander of the Blue Horde in the 1370s which is now the Southern Ukrainian Steppes and the Crimean Peninsula....
, in the present day Altai Republic
Altai Republic
Altai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the town of Gorno-Altaysk. The area of the republic is . Population: -Geography:...
, to serve his exile. Three years later, his wife Raisa Rudenko joined him, and they were released in 1987. Their residence had been confiscated, so they left for Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and then the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He worked in the US for Radio Svoboda and Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
, while continuing work for the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. In 1988, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship. He returned to Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
in September 1990, and his citizenship was reinstated and he was fully rehabilitated
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
.
Honors
Rudenko received various honors for his work. In 1988, the Philadelphia Educational and Scientific Center named him “Ukrainian of the year” for defending the national rights of the Ukrainian people and their culture. In 1990 he was elected a member of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences. In 1993 Rudenko was awarded the State Taras Shevchenko Prize for Literature. In 1998, his memoirs were published under the title "Найбільше диво - життя" (The Greatest Miracle is Life: Memoirs).Sources
- Lesya Verba, Bohdan Yasen. The Human Rights Movement in Ukraine. Smoloskyp Publishers (1980)
- Carynnyk, Marco. Ukraine and the Helsinki Accords: Soviet Violations of Human Rights, 1975-1980. World Congress of Free Ukrainians (1980)
- Monument of Dissident Movement
- Biography
- Subtelny, Orest. Ukraine: A History University of Toronto Press (2000)
- Swoboda Victor. The Evolution of Mykola Rudenko's Philosophy in His Poetry // Studia Ucrainica. – 1988. – № 4. – P. 76-84.