Under GPU Surveillance: Hryhorii Kosynka in the 1920s
Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to highlight the methods and results of the Bolshevik regime’s taking control of literary and artistic life in Soviet Ukraine in 1920, and the role of surveillance in the mentioned process on the example of the writer Hryhorii Kosynka.
The scientific novelty. The process of surveillance of Hryhorii Kosynka by the Soviet penal authorities is reconstructed and its consequences for the writer’s creative activity and biography are determined based on the writer’s case-forms. The methods of activity of the State Political Directorate (GPU) in the environment of writers and artists are shown.
Conclusions. Hryhorii Mykhailovych Kosynka (Strilets) is a Ukrainian writer whose talent was interrupted by the Bilshovyk regime at its peak. Preparations for the destruction of that bright representative of the Ukrainian revival began in 1920. The GPU picked up the evidence against H. Kosynka from 1922 as an ‘unreliable’ person, first for his participation in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood and membership in the Ukrainian Communist Party, and then as a writer, which had a noticeable impact on the literary and artistic environment of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Case forms were started against the writer three times – in 1924, 1926, and 1928. They preserved a wealth of material about creative life in Soviet Ukraine. The reports of the secret agents (seksots) not only describe the processes of confrontation within the intellectual environment but also the ways and methods of the GPU’s activities in reaching, controlling, and influencing writers and artists. It is uncovered that already in 1920, the penal authorities managed to induce the cooperation as secret agents, the members of the most notable literary groups and to establish total surveillance over their most important representatives. The materials of the case forms consolidated into a single case against H. Kosynka are verified by the facts stated in the memoirs and diaries written without Soviet censorship (in particular, by D. Humenna, O. Varavva, V. Vynnychenko, and S. Yefremov).
On the example of H. Kosynka, it is shown that the materials collected in 1920 resulted in his arrest and execution in 1934. Based on the studied material, the concept of a controlled revival of the 1920s during ‘Ukrainization’ instead of the ‘Red Renaissance’ or ‘Hungry Renaissance’ is proposed.
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