Political persecution of Ukrainian dissidents in the 1960s – 1980s in diaspora and foreign historiography

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of the article is to analyze the main approaches, concepts and interpretations of the political persecution of Ukrainian dissidents in the 1960s – 1980s, presented in diaspora and foreign historiography. Special attention is paid to the coverage of the repressive policy of the Soviet authorities towards the participants of the Ukrainian resistance movement in the works of representatives of the Ukrainian political emigration and Western researchers. The peculiarities of the formation of historiographic approaches in conditions of limited access to archival sources and the dominance of samizdat documents, memoirs and periodical materials are traced. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the implementation of a comprehensive analysis of the diaspora and foreign historiography of political persecution of Ukrainian dissidents in the 1960s – 1980s. For the first time, within the framework of one study, the main interpretations of the repressive policy of the Soviet government, presented in the works of Ukrainian émigré and Western authors from the 1970s to the present, have been systematized and compared. The originality of the work lies in the comparative consideration of two historiographical directions that were formed in similar socio-political and intellectual conditions. The article traces the evolution of scientific assessments of the activities of the KGB, waves of political arrests, punitive psychiatry, trials of dissidents and persecution of participants of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Special attention is paid to clarifying the influence of the source base on the nature of the researchers' interpretations and conclusions. Conclusions. It has been established that diasporic historiography, even during the existence of the USSR, formed an alternative vision of the political persecution of Ukrainian dissidents to the official Soviet science, interpreting them primarily as a component of the government's struggle against the Ukrainian national movement. Foreign researchers considered the problem in the broader context of Soviet and Eastern European dissidence, paying attention to the mechanisms of the functioning of the repressive system, the situation of political prisoners and the practice of punitive psychiatry. It has been found that despite a common understanding of the systemic nature of repression, diasporic authors focused more on the national dimension of persecution, while Western scholars sought to integrate the Ukrainian experience into the pan-European context. It has been determined that the opening of archives after Ukraine gained independence contributed to the emergence of new approaches and significantly expanded the possibilities of studying the problem.