Yevhen HRYTSIAK: “I measure all politicians by Gandhi’s yardstick”

He served two prison camp terms. He, first of all known to The Day’s readers as “Ukrainian Gandhi,” leader of the GULAG Norilsk prison camps uprising in 1953, a person of high moral authority and unique aspiration for self-education (he learned the English language and began to translate Indian Yoga literature in the camps). Yevhen Hrytsiak has repeatedly shared with The Day his reminiscences about the prison camp stage of his lifetime. What makes this interview, conducted the next day after the public hearings on the occasion of the Norilsk uprising’s 60th anniversary, valuable is, above all, the wise advice of a person with the unique experience of resisting the totalitarian system, a living eyewitness of important historic events, who never ceases to work on spiritual improvement and is closely watching the developments in this country.

Larysa IVSHYNA: “When Alla Makarova visited us, I said: it is a pity that all the people who were released from prison camps hoped there would be fast changes. Ms. Makarova replied: no, they did not hope. So, did they or did they not hope?”

Yevhen HRYTSIAK: “There were no grounds for hopes. Everything depends on the awareness of people, and awareness cannot turn over so fast.”

L.I.: “What were your most extreme idealistic hopes at the time? What did you pin them on? How long did you think these transformations would take?”

Ye.H.: “I thought Ukraine would become the world’s most democratic country. The Ukrainian people suffered from all kinds of oppression on the part of various countries, such as Russia, Poland, Rumania, and Hungary. We were oppressed from all sides, and the nation that experienced so much woe has an advantage over the others – it is very democratic. But it does not look democratic now.”

L.I.: “I can remember what I felt when I watched the USSR Congress [of People’s Deputies], where Andrei Sakharov, Yury Afanasiev, and others, spoke. I was deeply concerned over what I saw: the Baltic countries were literally ‘on the go.’ The impression was that, as the [iron] curtain was dropping, they were about to run to Europe and NATO. They suffered as much as we did, but why did those sufferings produce different results?”

Ye.H.: “Because the Baltic nations knew what they wanted, but we did not. I usually don’t like telling jokes, but I will still tell one just for illustration.

“During the war, I once met an older man. I was 18 and he was 52 – an unreachable height and authority for me. He was a Ukrainian born in Alma-Ata. He spoke Ukrainian very well. He was a sergeant, and I was a private. But I could feel that our viewpoints were very close. I ask him: ‘Could you tell me why are we serving in the army which we do not exactly love, to put it mildly? There are also Ukrainians on the other side, in the other armies. We are fighting for other nations but are afraid to do so for ourselves. What force dragged us to this army? Why are we fighting for the interests of a hostile country rather than for ourselves?’ And he answers: ‘Don’t you know? So listen. The First World War begins. Officers teach soldiers: don’t be afraid of death, for whoever is killed on the battlefield will go straight to heaven. So the first to die were an Englishman, a German, and a Ukrainian. They knock on the paradise door. St. Peter comes out with keys in hand, unlocks the door, and asks: ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ ‘We were all killed on the battlefield and want to go to paradise. We were told that such people are received without any questions,’ the soldiers answer. And St. Peter says: ‘Yes, we have this rule, but we admit only those who know what they fought for.’ He asks the Englishman: ‘What did you fight for?’ The guy answers: ‘For the Empire.’ ‘Well, come in.’ The German says: ‘For discipline!’ ‘OK, come in.’ And our guy says: ‘Well, I don’t know…, we were promised land, or something like that…’ ‘No, we don’t let such people into paradise,’ Peter said.

“This is our problem from a jocular angle.”

L.I.: “I have been to Japan. I was struck to hear them discuss so much the things that spoil the Japanese character. Accordingly, Den is also trying to discuss this, but we need some more recipes for self-improvement. For sound self-criticism is quiet self-criticism: if you know what you want to change, you will try to do this. In what way should we be changed, how should we help our people change their controversial national character?

Ye.H.: “This should be done on an individual level. Everybody should improve themselves on their own. There are so many pretty girls who mingle with me here, and if I wanted to convince them in something, I would fail. Every person can get perfected by themselves. There are different methods. We receive information from all over the world now, and everybody can choose their own method. One should not consider himself the peak of perfection – nobody can reach the peak of perfection because our lifetime is too short.

“There are many things in Yoga, which people are afraid to do. For example, daring exercises. My brother once told me, when I was young, that I could bend like a straw rope. Far from everybody can bend like a straw rope. But there also are other methods, such as self-criticism and self-analysis. Suppose an individual is going to bed after a hard day and meditates: what good and bad have I done today? We must criticize ourselves the way we do the others – mercilessly – in order to purge ourselves of evil and always keep this evil at bay. If we criticize ourselves mercilessly, we will do very much. A book by the Indian Yogi Yogananda (I translated it and it may be printed as early as in the coming summer) says: “The people who like very much washing someone else’s dirty linen in public can only be called human vultures. There is already so much evil in this world, so do not think, say or do anything evil. It is better to be like a rose that diffuses its fragrance to all good and evil people.” This is his advice on what kind of a person a human being should be. If we reach a qualitatively higher level, we will have a high-quality society. For example, you won’t manage to build a skyscraper with adobe [a mixture of clay, straw, and sand, with which mud houses used to be built in Ukraine. – Ed.], you will need a high-quality material.”

L.I.: “In the early 1990s, when very many Ukrainians had been freed from prison camps, there were five candidates in the first presidential elections. Did you think about this? Were you advised to run?”

Ye.H.: “Let us take, for example, Levko Lukianenko and Viacheslav Chornovil, both of whom ran for the presidency. But neither of them wanted to make way for the other, and, as a result, they made way for a different person. For when two are fighting, a third is cashing in.”

L.I.: “But did you think of this in the very beginning?”

Ye.H.: “The Rukh invited me to run for the first-convocation Verkhovna Rada. ‘We want somebody from Stalinist camps,’ they said. But it was clear to me that I wouldn’t manage to do anything there and would only impair my health. I did not believe in this, and I was not mistaken.”

Alla DUBROVYK: “Mr. Hrytsiak, you said you had thought and perhaps dreamed that Ukraine would become the world’s most democratic country. But, unfortunately, this did not happen for certain reasons. We, the younger generation, are very keen on this. Why do you think we failed to become a democracy? Do we still have this chance? And what should the younger generation do for this?”

Ye.H.: “No country has yet become democratic owing to a revolution. So I was very much pleased to learn at the public hearings yesterday [the interview took place on May 22. – Ed.] that people were beginning to speak of nonviolent methods of struggle. This subject has remained untouched until now. Some are saying we must resort to force. It is good if this force exists, but what if it does not? Should we stop fighting?

“There are nonviolent methods of resistance, which were partially applied during the Norilsk, Vorkuta, and Kengir uprisings – partially because they were not exactly nonviolent.

“As for nonviolent struggle, the classic example of it is the activity of Mahatma Gandhi. I measure all politicians by Gandhi’s yardstick, but I can find no one comparable to this figure. Gandhi got higher education at Cambridge. He had four sons, but he did not get them to gain higher education. Why? People used to bring him money for nonviolent struggle. Gandhi did not want anybody to think that he paid this money for his children’s education. His sons and wife approved of this attitude. This is why people had absolute confidence in Gandhi. His wife was his treasurer. One day a public treasurer could not account for a disbursement of four rupees. Gandhi duly published an auditing in which he pointed out his wife’s four-rupee discrepancy. What is four rupees? When Paramahansa Yogananda told this to an American audience, a woman said: ‘If he were my husband, I would have given him a black eye for such an unnecessary public insult!’ Yogananda replied: ‘You don’t understand Indian women. After that incident, people began to bring him still more money because they believed that they were putting it in sure hands.’ Which of our compatriots can enjoy this kind of trust?”

L.I.: “We missed a lot of good opportunities to increase our level of trust. It is more difficult now to do so due to certain circumstances. One of the ‘Rubicons’ was the 1999 elections. I once said that there was a president but there was no nation. There was a nation in 2004, but… That was an example of nonviolent resistance: a month out in the frost, and the entire world was spellbound.”

Ye.H.: “It was such a triumph of spirit, but it was wasted.”

L.I.: “The point is it was not yet a new wave – just a geyser: the best possible energy spurted from the inner midst of people under pressure. But this all needs instruments, a new quality, leadership, understanding of the modern world, and some preparatory work. We often recall in this context what Lina Kostenko said: ‘Do not sound the alarm with an uncast bell.’ But this is the way we do things, for, as you, Mr. Hrytsiak, said rightly, a revolution will not build a state. A revolution puts the finishing touch to something and assigns a different quality to it if the nation is prepared for this. Therefore, there is a lot of daily work for all of us to do. Even such forums as public hearings to mark the 60th anniversary of the Norilsk uprising, show a new dimension of the problems this country faces. Why do we recall so often the film Cold Summer of 1953? Prison camp revolts shook but not uprooted the Stalinist system. And now Russia is suffering from this deep-rooted abscess. We also have problems on the periphery, where these infections are being thrown out to. This degradation may take a long time if we do not take a normal counteraction.”

Ye.H.: “I have always said that everything depends on us alone. We must change qualitatively and spiritually. I am calling you to go to church. Everybody chooses a way of their own. Some materialists, who do not recognize church, still develop spiritually and have right attitudes and adhere to right principles. And, to have right principles, one must qualitatively raise his or her inner self. Do not be afraid to rise too high, for nobody has ever done so.”

Viktoria SKUBA: “Mr. Hrytsiak, when I read your reminiscences, the letter to Brezhnev struck me the most. For, being aware of the Soviet system’s hypocrisy and failure to work within the limits of written laws, you managed to find in your defense the words that appealed to the legality that existed on paper only and to find arguments within the limits of the system. It seems to me that we lack the ability to choose proper arguments today. If we watch rallies and their slogans, we will often hear ‘down with’ instead of some constructive proposals. How did you find an opportunity to speak with the authority in this way? How did you do this?”

Ye.H.: “Somebody even told me that my letter to Brezhnev was even worth being part of a journalism course.

“The main thing is not to hurt the person you criticize. No matter who is before you, you should not forget about human dignity. When I was in a Siberian punishment camp, a convict once came up to me in an attempt to pour his heart out. Then a Russian suddenly runs up and says: ‘Why are you speaking to him? He’s a criminal!’ But that man wanted to pour his heart out, so why should I deny him this? Maybe, I’ll tell him something useful.

“I talked many times to KGB officers who wanted to make an international spy out of me. They used to say: ‘You know some German and Polish officers and you used so much talent to harm the Soviet government, so let us now turn this in its favor.’ I answered them: ‘I was under German occupation for three years, but I was not acquainted even to one German soldier. I came to know them in your camps.’ But they say in turn: ‘It doesn’t matter to us in which way you did so. What really matters is the very fact of your acquaintance. So we want to use this for the Soviet government’s benefit.’ We always spoke on such acute subjects almost the way we are doing here now. I never blew up or called them names. There were prisoners who shouted at them: ‘I hate you!’ I never spoke like this. I just made it clear that I would not accept this. A KGB officer is also a human being. One should remember this. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery once cried out in despair, ‘Respect for man is in danger!’ We must respect a human. I cannot enumerate how many times I was called for interrogation – the subjects were often very acute, but I never abused them, and they did not abuse me verbally.”

L.I.: “I know that there were two lines of behavior in the camps at the time, which also applies to the Norilsk uprising. One called for more determination. The other called for forgiving the ‘oppressors.’ Many present-day people find it difficult to accept this. For them, it is a too idealistic line of behavior.”

Y.H.: “In 1993 I delivered an interesting lecture in Moscow. The newspaper Izvestiya carried a page-size review of my lecture on what can be achieved with nonviolent methods.

“I arrived in a ‘sizzling’ Moscow by train. The outside temperature was 35oC in the shadow. You can just imagine what a hell it was in the train car. The iron got so hot that it was unbearable even at night. So I came half-boiled, and the organizer, Semen Vilensky [Russian dissident and writer of Jewish origin, editor and publisher of many books by repressed authors. – Ed.], says: ‘Get ready to speak for 20 minutes. The subject is ‘Coming back from prison camps.’ I said: ‘Let me have at least a little nap – I am so pooped after the trip that I can’t think of what to say. I will speak in the morning if I think something up, but if I don’t, then excuse me.’ I went to the hotel and was soon sleeping like a log. I got up in the morning, took a notebook, and suddenly realized that I didn’t know what to write. I still began. The most important thing in a text – like in music – is to properly take the first chord. If you take a good start in the first sentence or paragraph, words will come running on their own. The result was quite unexpected. I described in that text the way we, former prisoners, and our tormentors lived at the moment, what perks they enjoyed and what we had. And, in conclusion, about what was to be done. I believed they were to be punished. Were they to be forgiven? No, this would have been amoral, for I knew what was on their conscience. But if they were to be punished, they would have turned from tormentors to martyrs, while we into tormentors. Nothing changes in society.

“One should not be afraid to forgive. We, martyrs, must be proud of setting the world straight, instead of being tormentors. If we begin to think that we are improving, we will no longer have a desire to punish somebody, for if there were no tormentors, there would be no martyrs and there would be no improvement of the world. It is the principle on which all the world’s main religions rest. Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest democrat on our planet, also adhered to this principle.

“During the break, an American female journalist sat down beside me and asked for an interview. She said she had expected to hear anything in Moscow but a reference to Gandhi.

“When I was sitting at the table during the break, a Lithuanian lady sat down in front of me and said: ‘I don’t agree with you. We cannot forgive them what they had done to us.’ Hearing this, another lady, a Muscovite, came up and said: ‘And I am very pleased with your lecture, I liked it very much.’ The Lithuanian said to her in reply: ‘If they had shot your father, you would not be speaking like this.’ To which the Muscovite said: ‘I am precisely the daughter of an executed enemy of the people.’ As you see, people tend to take different attitudes.”

L.I.: “There are many things that can be looked upon philosophically, but some cannot. The amount of violence that was poured on Ukraine and then spread around as evil prevents us from spiritually organizing the people.”

Ye.H.: “Let us imagine a situation. If democrats come to power now by way of revolution, they will cease to be democrats. Just fancy this: they have destroyed the old government and begun to cut up everybody they can get hold of: you did this, and you did that… And there will be so much slander, so many innocent people will suffer. And what has changed in society? There was and still is violence against people.”

L.I.: “Indeed, there are many calls to hold a lustration. But, firstly, we have already missed the right time and, secondly, we are not as small a country as the Baltic states are. And, thirdly, we should improve our world and ourselves.”

Ye.H.: “I heard in the camp that South Korea was liberated from Japan and the new leader was given the lists of all those who had collaborated with the Japanese. But he threw them into fire and said: ‘The enemies would wipe us out, so does this mean that we must begin to wipe out ourselves now?’”

L.I.: “What is your attitude to Gorbachev?”

Ye.H.: “I don’t know whether or not he did it deliberately. He seemed to be acting deliberately before the collapse. But if it just happened so because he wanted to show socialism with a human face, then he came unstuck.

“But his actions gave Ukraine a very serious chance. The Soviet Union’s cementing force broke down. It was so tough that nobody seemed able to break free from it. But when he dissolved the Central Committee, we took advantage of this – not to the end, though. We proclaimed independence, but we still remain dependent on Russia.”

L.I.: “What do we need?”

Ye.H.: “Time and self-improvement.”