Yuriy Sheveliov. What Was Not and Could Not Be Included in the Book of Memoirs?

Why did it take Yurii Sheveliov so long to respond to Pavlo Zahrebelnyi’s invitation to visit the ussr, and what warning did he receive from a US congressman because of this? Why did Oles Honchar not want to go to New York and persuade his former teacher to return to his homeland? Why did the kgb leadership, which had been monitoring his activities for several decades, not rest easy when a prominent Ukrainian linguist criticized the concept of the “common russian language”? What questions was the kgb’s residentura in the USA tasked to raise during meetings with him, and did the target of the operational cultivation himself realize who he was dealing with? All of this is in declassified documents from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

“He - him – to him... (and around)”

Yurii Sheveliov's memoirs entitled “I - me – to me... (and around)", published in the early 2000s, shed light on hitherto unknown pages of the life and work of the prominent philologist, Slavic linguist, literary critic, professor at a number of prestigious universities, long-term President of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences and by that time already a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine (2000). In them, he frankly described the dramatic vicissitudes of his life. Even those that others would have preferred to remain silent about.

When asked in one of his interviews at the time whether any topics, pages, or nuances of his life remained closed to public discussion to this day, he replied: “No. I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I have never betrayed anyone. This is absolutely sincere and unequivocal. My conscience is clear. Of course, over the years I have changed some of my views, and I write about them in my books... Besides, there are (and I hope there will be) critics, polemicists, and historians in the world. We need to leave something for them to consider, discover, and expose”.

It is no coincidence that the world-renowned linguist chose such a meaningful title for his book of memoirs. It would have been quite suitable for the name of the case of the intelligence cultivation that was opened against him in the mgb of the Ukrainian ssr. Except in a slightly modified form – “He - him – to him... (and around)”. Instead, the case was given the codename “Shevchenko”. Yurii chose this pseudonym for further secret meetings with the chekist, who summoned him for interrogation on September 18, 1941, in Kharkiv. It was a farce and a mockery of those who tried to persuade him to cooperate. After all, further meetings were to take place on a bench near the monument to Taras Shevchenko. He told about this years later. Because he really had no reason to hide this, as well as his literary, scientific, and public activities during the Second World War under Nazi occupation in Kharkiv and Lviv, and soon in Europe and the United States.

Why did he become the object of the then nkvd of the soviet Ukraine’s operational attention, why was he not left alone after the war, and why did all these efforts fail? The answers to these questions are provided by declassified archival documents.

The case was opened on October 18, 1950. It stated that “Yurii Sheveliov, literary pseudonym Yurii Sherekh, is abroad and conducts active nationalist activities, cooperating with the emigrant Ukrainian nationalist press”. A dossier was collected on him, which fragmentarily reflected almost all of his previous life. It was noted that he was the son of a nobleman, a colonel of the old army. In fact, his father was a major general in the russian imperial army. But the chekists were not too interested in such details. They took his word for it and did not check it.

As for his education, it was reported that he graduated from the first Kharkiv Trade and Industrial Vocational School, and in 1931 – from the Literary and Linguistic Department of the Kharkiv Institute of Public Education. He worked as a teacher of the Ukrainian language, later as the head of a course in Ukrainian and russian languages and literatures at a Newspaper College, and was also a teacher of the Ukrainian language at the Ukrainian Communist Institute of Journalism. In 1938, he began teaching at the Gorky Kharkiv State University. In 1939, he defended his dissertation and received the title of Associate Professor and the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. In September 1941, he worked at the University as the head of the Department of Linguistics.

It was then, even before the occupation of Kharkiv by Nazi troops, that Sheveliov drew the nkvd’s attention. Later he mockingly called that epic “28 days of special service to the socialist motherland”. The chekists found those pre-war materials and attached them to the new case. Among them was a report, the content of which makes it clear why they were interested in him. Earlier, some publications stated that he was allegedly reported to the kgb by a teacher at the Institute of Journalism and a neighbor in the house, Mykhailo (in other references – Moisei) Faybishenko. In reality, the report states that “Sheveliov has ties and is in good relations with Tsybenko, Bulakhovskyi and Biletskyi, who are being cultivated by us, plus, he has ties with other employees of Kharkiv State University and other scientific institutions... and can be used to cultivate persons from this environment who are of interest to us” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11890. - P. 28). In other words, he himself was not the object of interest, but he was to be used against others.

Therefore, on September 18, 1941, he was summoned for interrogation. During the interrogation, he was asked questions about his social status and why he had been concealing information about his father. They also forced him to repent of his anti-soviet statements, in particular, regarding the introduction of tuition fees by the soviet government and the abolition of scholarships. They wanted to know his opinion about the situation at the front. In this regard, he remarked quite frankly and boldly, as for those times, that the red army would retreat, while Hitler's would advance.

At the end of the interrogation, he signed a pledge not to disclose the fact of his summons to the nkvd and the content of the issues discussed. “I have been warned”, the paper reads, “that in case of disclosure, I will be held responsible to the fullest extent of soviet martial law, as for the disclosure of military state secrets”. He remembered this phrase for the rest of his life and repeatedly mentioned it in other situations abroad. The next day, he received another call for a meeting and an insistent request to write another note of similar content, supplemented by phrases about his consent to assist in exposing the enemies of the soviet government.

The chekists hoped to immediately receive incriminating information on the targets of operational cultivation, with whom Yurii Sheveliov stayed in close contacts at work. Instead, what he wrote disappointed them. In particular, about Leonid Bulakhovskyi, he pointed out the following: “...academician, full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian ssr. I have known him since 1927, and got to know him better in 1936-1937 as my scientific advisor. In political terms, he seems to me to be a man of soviet views and, despite everything, completely devoid of the nationalist views that were attributed to him in the press in 1937”.

He reported about head of the Department of Linguistics Volodymyr Tsybenko: “...I have known him since 1937, closer – since 1939. He was always careful and avoided political statements. The main topics of our conversations were economic and scientific (I advised him on his dissertation)...”.

And about the already mentioned M. Faibishenko, he wrote that the latter “is now a volunteer in the army. He is a communist. I have known him since 1938-39. As my neighbor (living next door), he often visited me. He often spoke on political topics, always in a pointed, emphasized soviet way” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 11890. - P.11-12).

About others – the same. At the same time, he emphasized that he had not heard any anti-soviet statements from his colleagues and acquaintances. It is possible that he did not accidentally provide such characteristics, having sincere intentions to protect them from further persecution. In this regard, one of the references noted that the nkvd authorities counted on him as a person who “had close approaches to the objects of cultivation among the reactionary professors of Kharkiv University, but he gave them positive characteristics and was no longer used in the work” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11890. - P. 240).

That was the end of the “28 days of special service to the socialist motherland”. And this phrase from the document is decisive in that short-term epic of not very pleasant contacts with the nkvd. At the same time, all this is important for understanding the multifaceted figure of Yurii Sheveliov, his life path, and the decisions he had to make in the future.

During the Nazi occupation, Sheveliov lived in Kharkiv from October 1941 to February 1943. He did not cooperate with the Nazis because he had a negative attitude to both fascism and bolshevism. Nevertheless, during the soviet period, they tried to label him a collaborator. After the operational cultivation case was opened in 1950, the mgb tried to find at least some compromising material on him. But in vain.

According to one of the mgb's papers, dated December 1949, only the following information was collected: “While living in occupied Kharkiv, in 1942 he was the scientific secretary of the educational and methodological committee of the city government, and was also the literary editor of the “Ukrainskyi Posiv” magazine. While working at the above-mentioned job, Sheveliov compiled a Ukrainian language textbook for grades 6 and 7, which was accepted for publication by the propaganda department; on behalf of the propaganda department, he wrote annotations to recommended theater productions, made comments on the list of authors undesirable in libraries, he conducted research that was accepted for publication in the “Scientific Notes of the Historical and Philological Society” in Prague, systematically published articles in the newspaper “Nova Ukraina”, was a member of the commission for the compilation of a new Ukrainian spelling, and was a press advisor to the Kharkiv City Council. In January 1943, Sheveliov and his mother fled Kharkiv and in 1943 worked in Lviv in a Ukrainian Publishing House” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11890. - P. 91).

After the war, all of his publications in those newspapers were found by the mgb and examined under a microscope. They tried to find some glorification of the Hitler regime and its leadership. But they did not find any offense in the articles, because they were purely scientific and journalistic in nature and dealt with linguistic and historical topics. And yet he was not left alone.

Personal and Impersonal Contacts

At that time, the mgb found out through foreign sources that Yuri Sheveliov lived in Germany. They learned that in 1944-1945 he worked for the magazine “Dosvillia” and then for the Ukrainian newspaper “Chas” in Fürth, Bavaria. Soon after, he moved to Munich, became a Professor at the Free Ukrainian University, and defended his doctoral degree. Along with his teaching and research activities, as noted in archival documents, he initiated the creation of an association of Ukrainian writers called the Artistic Ukrainian Movement (MUR). After the leader of the MUR Ulas Samchuk left for Canada in 1948, Sheveliov became the head of the association. He allegedly did not belong to any political parties or organizations, but at the same time maintained normal relations with representatives of various currents of Ukrainian emigration, such as Ivan Vovchuk, Yaroslav Stetsko, Ivan Bahrianyi, and others.

All of this was of great interest to the mgb, which decided to search for Yuriy Sheveliov and once again try to persuade him to cooperate while living abroad. This task was entrusted to an agent of the mgb, who appears in the case file under the codename “Aleks”. He was supposed to use forged documents to get to Munich, come to Sheveliov's home and tell him that soviet authorities knew everything about his past activities under occupation, but that he “could atone for his guilt  if he worked honestly for the soviet union and could return to his motherland in the future if he wanted to”.

But while they were developing appropriate measures and making plans, Yu Sheveliov left Germany. So “Aleks” did not find him in Munich and returned empty-handed. Soon after, information was received that Yurii had left for Sweden and was allegedly lecturing at the University of Lund. In 1954, the kgb residentura in Stockholm received instructions from moscow to find Yurii Sheveliov and collect information on him. However, they could not fulfill the task because the object of interest was not found anywhere. Therefore, in May 1957, the Frst Main Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the kgb of the ussr issued a resolution to file the case in the archives due to the inability to establish his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Yurii Sheveliov had been living in the United States for five years, since 1952. First, for two years in Harvard, then in New York. His academic career reached its peak at Columbia University in New York. There, he became a Professor of Slavic philology, wrote the most respected scientific works, and was recognized as the most famous Slavic scholar in the West. The study of the origins of the Ukrainian language became central to his scholarly work. With his thorough works, he refuted the official soviet doctrine of the existence of East Slavic unity, the “fraternal cradle of three languages: russian, belarusian, and Ukrainian”. Sheveliov proved that in prehistoric times, neither eastern, nor western, nor southern Slavic ethnic groups formed a single common nation, and their language was dialectally differentiated from time immemorial. In other words, there are no three fraternal languages that derive from one Old russian language, and, accordingly, there is no cradle of three fraternal peoples.

He managed to scientifically prove that the Ukrainian language dates back to the seventh century and completed its formation in the sixteenth century. This was a serious blow to the concept of a “common russian language” and to the ideologically nurtured theory that had been defended and propagated in every possible way for decades and centuries on the kremlin’s instructions. This is what made the kgb in the 1960s return to Yurii Sheveliov.

First of all, they tried to find approaches to him through former colleagues in Kharkiv. Thus, according to archival documents, in 1961, they tracked down Moisei Faibishenko, a former teacher at the Institute of Journalism and a neighbor with whom he had previously been on friendly terms. M. Faibishenko confessed to the chekists that he had not maintained any contact with Yurii Sheveliov. At the same time, he heard from academician Leonid Bulakhovskyi that after Sweden, Sheveliov allegedly left for the United States and lectured at American universities there. “The latter repeatedly mentioned Sheveliov in his conversations, expressing the opinion that the soviet linguistic science would benefit greatly if Sheveliov could be returned to the soviet union”, M. Faibishenko's words are quoted in a report.

This idea was immediately seized upon by the kgb and was subsequently considered as one of the main options for large-scale measures to persuade Yu. Sheveliov to give up his scientific conclusions, return him to the ussr, and create conditions for him to continue his research from positions approved by the kremlin leadership. To implement these plans, they decided to seek the assistance of well-known scholars and writers.

First, they asked for the opinion of L. Bulakhovskyi, a prominent Ukrainian linguist, Professor, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and Director of the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. “At a meeting on March 23, 1961”, one of the papers reads, “Academician Bulakhovskyi characterized Sheveliov as one of the most prominent linguists. “I”, Bulakhovskyi said, “have always considered Sheveliov to be my only successor, to whom I could bequeath my scientific heritage” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 11890. - P. 156).

With the help of L. Bulakhovskyi, the kgb intended to find Y. Sheveliov in the United States and get in touch with him. But this plan was never  implemented. Two weeks later, the academician passed away. After that, they had an opportunity to ask Oles Honchar, the then chairman of the Ukrainian Writers' Union, for help in resolving the issue. In June 1961, the New York residentura of the kgb reported that during the writer's stay in New York, Yu. Sheveliov himself wanted to meet with him, passed a note to him through his friends, but for some reason they could not meet. Besides, it was found out that O. Honchar studied at the Book and Newspaper College, and later at Kharkiv University, where Y. Sheveliov was teaching at the time, so they were old acquaintances.

According to the case file, the chief of the kgb of the Ukrainian ssr Vitaliy Nikitchenko personally talked to O. Honchar about this. They were both members of the central committee of the communist party of Ukraine, so it was not a problem. The writer agreed to help. In this matter, the leadership of the central committee of the communist party of Ukraine also agreed to carry out such activities. According to the resolution in the document, there were no objections.

An officer of the kgb was sent to O. Honchar to discuss the details of the case. When he outlined the whole plan, the writer began to refuse, recalling the circumstances of his trip to New York in 1960. He said that he had received a note from Yurii Sheveliov asking for a meeting. He immediately informed the staff of the Ukrainian ssr’s mission to the United Nations and asked for advice on how to proceed. They did not recommend going to such a meeting, as Yurii Sheveliov was allegedly negatively characterized as a person with anti-soviet views. There was another invitation to a meeting through a Professor at Columbia University, which O. Honchar also ignored.

Referring to those circumstances, his heavy organizational and creative workload, and the fact that “he and V. Nikitchenko did not quite understand each other”, O. Honchar eventually stated that he would be able to go to New York only in four years, in 1965, for the anniversary session of the UN General Assembly, and that even then he should not seek a meeting with Yu. Sheveliov himself, but should make sure that it happened naturally, "accidentally”.

After O. Honchar's refusal, the kgb decided to turn to Dmytro Pryliuk, a senior lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko State University in Kyiv, who was Yurii Sheveliov’s  post graduate student at the communist institute of journalism before the war. The linguist's positive comments about his talented student were found in an old agent file. After working out various scenarios, it was decided that the best option would be for an experienced kgb officer instead of D. Pryliuk to meet with Yurii Sheveliov in New York. After all, a serious conversation was planned, during which all the necessary issues were to be clarified, and on the spot, depending on the situation, a decision was to be made on what to do with him next: offer cooperation with the kgb or maintain further contacts on a neutral basis. As a pretext for the meeting, they decided to use Dmytro Pryliuk's book “A Village in Our Ukraine” with a dedication inscription and greetings from him. And so they did.

In October 1962, a kgb officer who was in New York under the guise of an employee of the Ukrainian SSR’s Mission to the United Nations and had the operational codename “Yurii” came to Columbia University and found the room where Yurii Sheveliov was taking an exam from students. He apologized, introduced himself, and gave him greetings and a book from D. Pryliuk. According to “Yurii”'s report, Sheveliov was touched by his visit. Leafing through the book with interest, he remarked that he “considered D. Pryliuk a capable student and wanted to make him a linguist, but he, as you see, became a writer”. After that, he postponed the exam and offered to have dinner together in the faculty cafe on the university campus.

During the conversation, “Yurii” learned from Sheveliov some details of his stay in occupied Kharkiv. In particular, he said that “with the front approaching, he tried to evacuate, left without permission in a train heading east, but got into encirclement and could not leave. Under the Germans, he did not engage in political activity, but he openly stated what he disagreed with under soviet rule”.

Then “Yurii” raised the question of the possibility of the scientist's return to his motherland.  He relied on L. Bulakhovskyi’s opinion that he could even head the Institute of Linguistics in the future. Y. Sheveliov seemed to be interested in this, but nevertheless pointed out that it was not very realistic. The time has not yet come for this, he said, and the changes taking place in the ussr are not yet sufficient to discuss this.  At the end of the conversation, “Yurii” suggested that the scholar at least visit Ukraine for a while, and that he, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, could help him with this. Sheveliov replied that he would think about it.

According to declassified documents, over the next ten years, the kgb had been sending its agents, as well as writers and scholars who traveled abroad on an official basis, to further study Yurii Sheveliov. They tried to track his political views, contacts, and attitude to the ussr. Some of those who met with him, such as Academician Ivan Bilodid, the then Director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian ssr, pointed out that he held anti-soviet positions and should not even be invited to international congresses of Slavic studies. Therefore, on his initiative, in 1963, the commission for convening such a congress in Sofia decided that it was inappropriate to invite him.

Instead, the writer Mykola Zarudnyi, according to documents, after meeting with Sheveliov in the United States, spoke favorably of him, sincerely trying to convince him of the need to return to his homeland, saying that it would only be beneficial. But Sheveliov stated that he could not return to Ukraine “if Bilodid is the head of all linguistics” and that he knew “how Bilodid spoke about him during the preparation for the Sofia Congress”.

Eventually, after a thorough study of all the collected materials, the kgb came to the following conclusion regarding the further agent-operational cultivation of Yurii Sheveliov: “The analysis of the available materials shows that “Shevchenko” cannot be used operationally. At present, he is of interest to us as an expert in the field of linguistics, and in this regard, his return to his motherland is desirable” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11890. - P. 218). That is, in this situation, ideological and propaganda motives prevailed. It was more important to immerse Y. Sheveliov in the soviet environment, to put him within the framework of scientific developments already developed and approved by the communist party leadership, and to gradually encourage, or even force him to give up his own conclusions and studies, in particular on the history of the Ukrainian language and criticism of the concept of the “common russian language”.

“A desired return to the motherland…” At some point, Yurii Sheveliov devoted a separate study for textbooks to such impersonal sentences. These are one-part sentences with the main member in the form of a predicate, which denotes a process, action, or state that has no performer or occurs independently of the performer. In this case, everything happened not according to the rules of linguistics. The performers  were kgb officers who acted according to their own rules. But not everything depended on them.

“Cultivation:  Impossible. To Finish”.

In September 1972, the New York residentura of the kgb received a message directly concerning Yurii Sheveliov. It was noted that he still had great authority among the Ukrainian emigration and that his candidacy could be nominated for the post of President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in the next elections of this organization instead of Lev Dobrianskyi. Although Yu. Sheveliov himself allegedly did not give his consent to this. Besides, it was reported that he and his environment claimed that Yuriy Sherekh (Sheveliov’s literary pseudonym), a Ukrainian nationalist, had died, and that today’s Yurii Sheveliov would not engage in activities against Ukraine.

In view of this, the residentura believed that in this situation it was necessary to try to persuade him to travel to the ussr, where they could exert appropriate influence on him. At the same time, one of the resolutions on the document stated that he would not come without a solid invitation. So the task was to figure out how to make him respond to such an invitation.

According to archival documents, soon a suitable opportunity arose. In December 1972, the writer Pavlo Zahrebelnyi visited the United States on a business trip. As in the case of Oles Honchar, he was asked to meet with Yurii Sheveliov and “accidentally” discuss the possibility of coming to the ussr. Such a meeting did indeed take place, even two. On the first day, they talked at Columbia University. They discussed various topics, including a possible visit. In the report compiled by P. Zahrebelnyi, Yurii Sheveliov's reaction is recounted as follows:

“I had to go to moscow to attend a congress of linguists”, Sheveliov said, “but my colleague from Washington (?!) found a clause in your Criminal Code under which I could be arrested and tried there. I did not go”.

- “I can give you a guarantee”, Zahrebelnyi said, “on behalf of the Writers' Union, to whose leadership I belong to some extent, that we will agree with our government on your complete safety. You will be a guest of the Writers' Union”.

The next day, Sheveliov invited the guest to his home. There they again discussed the topic of the future journey. P. Zahrebelnyi continued to insist and gave the following arguments:

“...true scientists, gifted people of Ukrainian descent should sooner or later come to their people. Such a trip could be the beginning of something very important for the best part of the emigration... I imagine your trip as a kind of solemn act. Let's say you are invited either by the Writers' Union of Ukraine, as an expert in the Ukrainian literary language, or by the Ukraine Society, you are offered a program, you discuss it with our comrades from our Mission to the UN” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 11890. - P. 267).

To put pressure on Sheveliov and eventually convince him of the need to go to the ussr, three months later “Yurii”, the kgb officer who had already met with Sheveliov ten years before under the guise of an employee of the Ukrainian ssr’s Mission to the UN, was sent to meet with him. The meeting did take place. During the conversation, among other things, the subject of a trip to his motherland came up again. The scholar pointed out that after communicating with P. Zahrebelnyi, he was inclined to make such a trip in 1973, but not as part of a tourist group, but by invitation. However, after publications in the journals “Movoznavstvo” (“Linguistics”- Transl.) and “Communist of Ukraine”, where he was again negatively mentioned, he decided to wait.

When asked what worried him the most, he replied that he feared reprisals from soviet authorities. He also said that he had specifically sought advice on this matter from a US congressman. He received a letter from him in which he suggested that he could be prosecuted even for leaving the ussr without proper permission. In response, “Yurii” said that Sheveliov had no reason to fear for his past, saying that there were amnesty decrees and authoritative people who would support him. But Sheveliov hesitated.

In his conclusions about that meeting, “Yuriy” wrote that, despite his apparent indifference to a trip to Ukraine, Sheveliov was still eager to do so and would like to be recognized as a scientist in his homeland. But any operational contacts with him are out of the question. After all, he is “a typical scientist by nature, unlikely to attend secret meetings, has no intelligence capabilities, and is of senior age”. At the same time, given his great authority and weight in the scientific world, “it is necessary to continue working with him from an official position, bring him closer to us, organize a trip to Ukraine and, taking into account his past ties with nationalists, use him for counter-propaganda purposes”. The report concludes as follows:  “Obviously, his work on the book “History of the Ukrainian Language” is also of some interest, since it would probably be beneficial for us to provide his research with the interpretation we need from our position” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11890. - P. 257).

However, despite all attempts, the kgb failed to persuade Y. Sheveliov to visit the ussr at that time, nor could it force him to give up his scientific conclusions about the origin of the Ukrainian language. And those attempts should rather be seen not as a gesture of goodwill to a prominent scholar, but as one of the next “active” measures of special services aimed at exerting the necessary influence on a person who is universally recognized and respected in the civilized world. Yurii Sheveliov withstood this “gentle” pressure with honor. As a result, the kgb was forced to finish the operational cultivation of the case against him and file it in the archives.

After Ukraine gained independence, Yurii Sheveliov visited different Ukrainian cities several times. He became a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, an honorary doctorate holder of Kharkiv University and Mohyla Academy, a holder of the Order of Merit of the third class, and a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine. He donated the money he received from the Shevchenko Prize to the development of Ukrainian Gymnasium No. 6 in Kharkiv. Streets in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Brovary were named in his honor. In Kharkiv, despite opposition in 2013 from anti-Ukrainian forces, the former city authorities and the regional state administration headed by Mykhailo Dobkin, in 2022, a memorial plaque in his honor was installed on the facade of the house where he lived for a long time.

Yurii Sheveliov passed away on April 12, 2002 in New York.