Please note: The English translation of Ukrainian names and placenames in declassified Russian-language material uses Russian spelling conventions rather than Ukrainian. This is not done with any intent to disrespect the Ukrainian language or people, but is merely a translation convention for historical documents of this sort.
The following background information was translated from the FOKUS.ua website.
On Foreign Intelligence Day, which was celebrated in Ukraine on January 24, stories of famous Ukrainians from declassified KGB archives were published in Ukrainskaya Pravda. Among the material is information about the family of Hnat Khotkevych, public figure, writer, composer,and ethnographer. Also included (and to be posted in the near future) is material about writer Ivan Bahrianyi, as well as about the persecution of Ukrainians even abroad, where they attempted to flee from Soviet authorities.
January 24 as Foreign Intelligence Day carries special significance for Ukraine: on this day in 1919, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Directorate of the Ukrainian People’s Republic [UNR] approved a temporary staff of the Political Department, and within it, a department of foreign information. This unit was the prototype of the current Foreign Intelligence Service (SZR), because its task was intelligence about the enemies of the UNR – the headquarters of the Red and Volunteer armies – and other countries as potential enemies and possible allies.
Hnat Khotkevych, after whom a street in Kyiv is named, was a public figure, writer, composer and ethnographer. He was arrested in February 1938 for “participation in counter-revolutionary activities and espionage for Germany,” forced into a false confession, and executed in October of that year.
At the time of his arrest, Khotkevych was married to his third wife, Platonida Skripko, 23 years his junior, with whom he had two children: Halina and Bohdan.
The NKVD opened a case against Platonida Khotkevych in 1946, when it became clear that she had previously been living in Nazi-occupied territory. Officially, they wanted to arrest Platonida for allegedly declaring her intention to go to America to publish an anti-Soviet book.
The woman was found in Prague, taken to Kyiv, and in April 1946 sentenced to 10 years in a forced labor camp with 5 years of restricted rights and confiscation of property.
Platonida knew nothing about her husband’s fate for many years. Only upon her return from exile was she told that Hnat Khotkevich had died in prison in 1942 and that they had lied, because in fact he had been shot back in 1938.
Platonida Khotkevych’s daughter Halina first left for Hungary, then for Germany, and later for France, but the woman knew nothing about this – contact with Halina was broken.
After her release, Platonida went to Lviv and Kryvorivnya, where she worked in the Franko Museum.
Meanwhile, the KGB learned that Platonida’s daughter had been found abroad. This is how it is written in one of the declassified documents: “Until 1956, Khotkevych knew nothing about her daughter. In 1956, an article about the rehabilitation of Khotkevych H. M. was published in the Literary Gazette, issue No. 38. Halina read this newspaper, after which she wrote a letter to the Writers’ Union in Kyiv, asking them to tell her where her mother, Khotkevych P. V., lived. This is how a connection was established between them.” The correspondence between mother and daughter was strictly monitored by the secret services. From these letters, Soviet agents learned that Halina’s husband, a geological engineer, was sent to work in Morocco. They wanted to recruit him and lure Halina back to the USSR. But the KGB failed. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Halina first came to Ukraine.
The following is a translation of the initial request came to the Ukrainian SSR NKGB from the Kharkiv Oblast Ukrainian NKGB for compromising information on Platonida and Bohdan, as well as information regarding their whereabouts and the possibility of having them arrested.
For more information on the Hnat Khotkevych case, please follow this link for an excellent English-language article on the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
______________________________________________________________
NKGB DIRECTORATE OF THE KHARKOV OBLAST
Kharkov, 27 February 1946
TOP SECRET
To the CHIEF OF THE 1st DIRECTORATE OF THE NKGB OF THE Ukrainian SSR
LT COLONEL POGREBNOY, KIEV
Per the direction of the NKGB of the USSR, we have been made aware that in the city of Prague / Czechoslovakia / the following are residing:
KHOTKEVICH Platonida Vladimirovna – Born 1901, native of the city of Dergachi, Kharkov Oblast. Ukrainian, non-party woman, secondary-level education, – and her son –
KHOTKEVICH Vladimir Ignatyevich, 19 years old, native of the city of Kharkov, Ukrainian, non-party man, and –
her daughter, named GALINA, 22-23 years old.
During the German occupation of Kharkov, KHOTKEVICH Platonida Vladimirovna was an active member of the “OUN,” deputy chair of the Kharkov PROSVITA [Enlightenment] Council, and one of the managers of the women’s nationalist organization “Ukrainian Women’s Union”. She often placed her anti-Soviet nationalist articles in the fascist newspaper “Nova Ukraine”.
Her son KHOTKEVICH V.I., at the start of the German occupation of Kharkov, worked as the secretary to the manager of the youth nationalist organization – BLOKHIN Yury Gavrilovich / whom we have declared as wanted across the Soviet Union / , and afterwards, liaison officer with OUN members under “OUN” leader DOLENKO Vladimir Andreyevich.
KHOTKEVICH P.V. and her son KHOTKEVICH V.I. are wanted, and therefore we ask you to report whether or not you have available any compromising material regarding the latter, and their activities abroad.
Because KHOTKEVICH Pletonida Vladimirovna declared her intentions to depart Prague for America to publish and release a book of anti-Soviet content, we request your assistance in establishing their present whereabouts and the possibility of arresting them.
<for the> CHIEF OF THE 2 DEPARTMENT OF THE UNKGB of the KHARKOV OBLAST COLONEL ISAYEV CHIEF OF THE 5 DIVISION OF THE 2 DEPARTMENT OF THE UNKGB of the KHARKOV OBLAST MAJOR SHKREBA
Translating History 