The participation of dissident Hanna Mykhailenko in the ukrainian human rights movement in the 1970s

Abstract

The purpose of the article is a comprehensive and complex analysis of the participation of Hanna Mykhailenko in the human rights movement in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1970s. Methodology. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, continuity, and historicism. The work uses methods of analysis and synthesis, problem-chronological, retrospective, typology, and comparison and comparison of information from various sources. The scientific novelty is due to the introduction into scientific circulation of a complex of little-known documents of the State Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSA SBU) in the Odessa region, which allow us to reveal the key areas of human rights activity of H. Mykhailenko in the 1970s. The article is the first to carry out a comprehensive analysis of handwritten documents prepared by a dissident as part of her unofficial participation in the work of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (UHG). Conclusions. The repressive policy of the Soviet authorities towards Ukrainian dissidents, constant pressure from the KGB and the targeted violation of basic democratic rights and human freedoms in the Ukrainian SSR led to the involvement of H. Mykhailenko in the human rights movement in the South of Ukraine. Important areas of her activity in the 1970s were: consistent protection of the interests of convicted and persecuted Odessa dissidents; provision of material and financial assistance to prisoners of conscience who were in places of deprivation of liberty; preparation of human rights materials for the UHG, which were intended for illegal transfer abroad and publication in the magazine “Chronicle of Current Events”. An important role in the life of H. Mykhailenko was played by her acquaintance with the Kyiv dissident Oksana Meshko. On her initiative, the human rights activist prepared at least nineteen handwritten documents (seven of which she wrote independently), which played a significant role in recording the crimes of the Soviet authorities against the participants of the resistance movement, highlighting the issues of human rights violations, oppression and repression. The active human rights activities of H. Mykhailenko, her close contacts with the dissident environment and members of the UHG, and systematic participation in the preparation of materials exposing human rights violations in the Ukrainian SSR couldn`t go unnoticed by the Soviet punitive authorities. As a result, the nationally expressed patriotic position of the dissident led to her arrest in early 1980 and subsequent confinement to a psychiatric hospital.