LETT.POEM.POLI.1974.18'.MORO
Introduction by Paul L. Gersper, edited by Yaroslav Bihun, Smolskyp Publishers, 1974
* 1939, Volyn Region, Ukraine (Soviet Union)
Charge: Anti-Soviet Agitation
From
"Valentin Moroz: A Biographical Outline"
pp. xvi-xxii
He was born on April 15, 1936 in the Volyn region, the son of peasants. From secondary school he entered Lviv University where he was an active member of the history club and often delivered research papers. After completing graduate studies in history in 1958, Moroz was director of studies in a secondary school and a teacher of history and geography in a school for working youth in his native district in Volyn region. From February, 1964 he taught modern history at the Lesya Ukrayinka Pedagogical Institute in Ivano-Frankivsk. He also delivered papers at pedagogical conferences and read lectures on history to village audiences in his district. Simultaneously he worked on his thesis for the candidate degree (Ph.D.) on the subject: 'The Lutsk Trial in 1934 as an Example of Revolutionary Collaboration of the Polish and Ukrainian Peoples in Their Joint Struggle Against the Fascist Regime in Bourgois Poland.'
He completed the thesis but was not able to defend it.
First Imprisonment (3 years):
On September 1, 1965 he was arrested in Ivano- Frankivsk and charged under Article 62, Section 1 of the Criminal Code of the USSR with "anti-Soviet agitation and propoganda designed to undermine or weaken Soviet power". Specifically the charge was concerned with agitation for the secession of Ukraine from the USSR.
[...]
The court sentenced him to four and D. Ivashchenko to two years, in a labour camp with a strict regime. Moroz was sent to Mordovia and lodged first in camp No.1 near the village of Sosnivka and then in camp No.11 at Yavas. In December, 1966 he was sentenced to six months solitary confinement in the camp prison for written protests against his sentence and against the prison abuses.
In the camp he studies German and possibly English. He read Cicero, Hobbes, Kant, Bertrand Russell and Alberto Moravia, became interested in philosophical problems and formulated his views on individuality and spirituality. [...]
In the autumn of 1967, he was transferred to the central KGB prison in Kiev as a witness in the Chornovil case, and for questioning regarding the writing and disseminating of the Report .... Moroz refused to testify in the Chornovil case and boycotted the investigation regarding the authorship of the Report .... At the beginning of 1969 the investigation was terminated due to lack of evidence and Moroz was transferred to Vladimir prison, the most notorious of all Soviet penal institutions, to complete his sentence.
After his release on September 1, 1969 he was denied suitable employment. ...
Second Imprisonment (5 years):
After his release Moroz was under constant surveillance. On April 26, 1970 an attempt was made by local authorieties to arrest him outside the church in the village of Kosmach, while he was recording the Easter service, but the attempts was frustrated by people present. On April 29, shortly after he arrived home, his quarters were searched (see pages 131-132) and on June 1, 1970, exactly nine months after his release, Moroz was again arrested an charged under Article 62 of the Criminal Cod of the SSR specifically for the writing and disseminating of his essays. On November 17-18, 1970, in spite of the refusal of witnesses to testify against him, Moroz was sentenced to six years in prison n strict isolation, plus three years in a prison camp with a strict regime and five years exile (see Appendix III). [...].
On July 1, 1974, at Vladimir Prison, he declared a hunger strike. As western media made the strike known, students, activists and grass-roots committees began organizing solidarity hunger strikes, contacting the local press and elected officials, asking them to publicize Mr. Moroz's cause.
Mr. Moroz, who was ultimately force-fed, kept his for 145 days. In the end, the KGB yielded and eased the conditions under which he was held, defusing the issue, at least for a while. Then, five years later, in 1979 a spectacular exchange of five political prisoners for two Soviet spies, Mr. Moroz was released.
Further links:
http://khpg.org/archive/en/index.php?id=1113917733
http://www.osa.ceu.hu/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/66-3-81.shtml