Who was Ivan Honcharuk
Ivan Savych Honcharuk (codename “Lisovyi” — “Forest”) was born on 22 June 1925, in the village of Hrudky in Volyn, to a peasant family. He was the youngest of four children. He joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1944 and fought for Ukraine’s independence. In 1945, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years of hard labour, which he served in the brutal Kolyma camps of the GULAG.
After Stalin’s death, in 1956, he was released early — he had served about 11 years. Honcharuk endured the horrors of the Soviet repressive system, but survived, got married, and worked in the Far North. In 1975, he returned to Ukraine with his family and settled in the Kharkiv region. In 1987, at the age of 62, he was arrested again.
In 1987, amid loud slogans of “new thinking” and “glasnost”, the KGB staged a show trial filled with fabrications: “witnesses” he had never seen, and “crimes” he had already served time for.
On 12 July 1989, Ivan Honcharuk was executed by firing squad. His body was never returned to his family. The place of his burial remains unknown.
This execution became the last political execution in the USSR and it targeted a Ukrainian independence fighter. While the Western press wrote about liberalisation, and European politicians extended their hands to Moscow, the Soviet regime continued to kill Ukrainians. Executions, fabricated cases, a punitive state mindset — these were not Stalinist leftovers, but an inseparable part of the Russian imperial system.
Parallels with today
Now, voices are being heard about a “future democratic Russia”. But the story of Ivan Honcharuk shows that an empire cannot be turned into a democracy without first being dismantled as an empire. Without the disintegration of the russian federation and the emergence of new independent states, decolonisation is impossible — and thus, so is any genuine transformation. Reforming what was built on colonial violence only serves to preserve that violence in a softer form.
Nina Belyaeva
Do you want to find out more?
A large, detailed article about Ivan Gocharyuk on Radio Liberty – “ The last death penalty of a UPA soldier before the capture of Ukraine independence: what is known»
Documentary historical program: [ arve url = “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEHVbCF_qo4” /]
