Vasyl Stus

Infobox Writer
name = Vasyl Semenovych Stus


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caption = Vasyl Stus on the cover of a book of his poetry "My people, I will return to you"
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birthname = Василь Семенович Стус
birthdate = January 8 1938
birthplace = Rakhnivka, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine
deathdate = September 4, 1985
deathplace = Kuchino, Perm Oblast, Russian SFSR.
occupation = poet
nationality = Ukrainian
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notableworks =
spouse = Valentyna Popeliukh
partner =
children = Dmytro
relatives =
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Vasyl Semenovych Stus ( _uk. Василь Семенович Стус; January 8, 1938 - September 4, 1985) was a Ukrainian poet and publicist, one of the most active members of Ukrainian dissident movement. For his political convictions, his works were banned by the Soviet regime and he spent 23 years (about a half of his life) in detention. On November 26, 2005 he was posthumously given the title Hero of Ukraine by order of the state. [ru icon [http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=1652%2F2005 Про присвоєння В. Стусу звання Герой України| вiд 26.11.2005 № 1652/2005 ] ]

Biography

Vasyl Stus was born on January 8, 1938 into a peasant family in the village of Rakhnivka, Vinnytsia Oblast (province), Ukraine. Next year, his parents Semen Demyanovych and Iryna Yakivna moved to the city of Stalino (presently Donetsk). Their children joined them one year later. Vasyl first encountered the Ukrainian language and poetry from his mother who sang him Ukrainian folk songs.

After the secondary school, Vasyl Stus entered the Department of history and literature of the Pedagogical Institute in Stalino (nowadays Donetsk University). In 1959 he graduated from the institute with honours. Following graduation, Stus briefly worked as a high school teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in Tauzhnia village of Kirovohrad Oblast, and then was conscripted to the Soviet Army for two years. During the study and military service in the Ural mountains he started to write poetry and translated into Ukrainian more than a hundred verses by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Rainer Maria Rilke. The original copies of his translations were later confiscated by KGB and they were lost.

After the military service, Vasyl Stus worked as an editor in the newspaper "Sotsialistychnyi Donbas" (Socialist Donbas) in 1960-1963. In 1963, he entered a Doctoral (PhD) program at the Shevchenko Institute of Literature of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev. At the same time he published his selected poetry.

In 1965 Stus has got married; his son, Dmytro was born in 1966.

On September 4, 1965 during the premiere of the "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" movie in Kiev's "Ukrayina" cinema, Vasyl Stus took part in a protest against arrests of Ukrainian intelligentsia. For the protest participation, on September 20 he was expelled from the Institute and later lost his job at the State Historical Archive. He then worked in a few places as a building constructor, a fireman, and an engineer, continuing his intensive work on poetry. In 1965 he submitted his first book "Circulation" (Круговерть) for publishing, but it was rejected due to discrepancy with Soviet ideology and artistic style. His next poetry book "Winter Trees" (Зимові дерева) was also rejected, regardless of positive reviews from a poet Іvan Drach and a critic Eugen Adelgejt. The book was published in 1970 in Belgium.

On September 7, 1972, Stus was arrested for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda". He served a 5 year sentence in a labor camp, and two more in exile in the Magadan Oblast.

In August 1979, having finished his sentence, he returned to Kiev and worked in a foundry. He spoke out in defense of members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group (UHG. Stus himself joined the UHG in October 1979.

“In Kiev I learned that people close to the Helsinki Group were being repressed in the most flagrant manner. This at least had been the case in the trials of Ovsiyenko, Horbal, Lytvyn, and they were soon to deal similarly with Chornovil and Rozumny. I didn’t want that kind of Kiev. Seeing that the Group had been left rudderless, I joined it because I couldn’t do otherwise … When life is taken away, I had no need of pitiful crumbs. Psychologically I understood that the prison gates had already opened for me and that any day now they would close behind me – and close for a long time. But what was I supposed to do? Ukrainians were not able to leave the country, and anyway I didn’t particularly want to go beyond those borders since who then, here, in Great Ukraine, would become the voice of indignation and protest? This was my fate, and you don’t choose your fate. You accept it, whatever that fate may be. And when you don’t accept it, it takes you by force … However I had no intention of bowing my head down, whatever happened. Behind me was Ukraine, my oppressed people, whose honour I had to defend or perish”. (“Z tabornoho zoshyta” [“From the camp notebook”] , 1983).

In 1980 he received a 10 year sentence for "anti-Soviet activity". Vasyl Stus died of beating on September 4, 1985 in a Soviet forced labor camp for political prisoners [http://www.perm36.ru/eng/ Perm-36] near the village of Kuchino, Perm Oblast, Russian SFSR. In 1985, an international committee of scholars, writers, and poets nominated him as a candidate for the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, but he died before the nomination materialized [ [http://www.ualberta.ca/~ulec/stus/timeline-01.html Vasyl Stus - His Life ] ] .

References

* Vasyl Stus: Zhyttia yak Tvorchist (Vasyl Stus: Life as Creation), by Dmytro Stus. Kyiv: Fakt, second edition, 2005. 368 pp. -- A biography of political prisoner and writer Vasyl Stus by his son.
* Kostash, Myrna. "Inside the Copper Mountain" The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir. Edmonton: New West Press, 1998. pp 34-70.

External links

*Vasys Ovsienko. "The death of Vasyl Stus" in "Zerkalo Nedeli", September 7-13, 2002. Available in [http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/nn/show/409/36011/ Russian] and [http://www.zn.kiev.ua/ie/show/409/36011/ Ukrainian] .
* [http://www.ualberta.ca/~ulec/stus/ Vasyl Stus -- A Life Remembered]
* [http://www.lib.proza.com.ua/author/313/ Selected collection of poems by Vasyl Stus] uk icon
* [http://olexa.org.ua/ukr/persons/v_stus.htm Vasyl Stus Biography] uk icon
* [http://www.perm36.ru/eng/ The GULAG Museus at Perm-36] (a special labor camp for political prisoners where Vasyl Stus was retained)
* Вахтанг Кіпіані, [http://pravda.com.ua/news/2006/7/21/44914.htm Стус і Нобель. Демістифікація міфу] , Ukrayinska Pravda, July 22, 2006 uk icon