Petro Hryhorenko commemorated in Aqmescit (PHOTOS)

Society - 22 February 2012, Wednesday 13:38

AQMESCIT/ SIMFEROPIL (QHA) - A rally timed to the 25th anniversary of death of Gen. Petro Hryhorenko, who contributed to the development of the Crimean Tatar national movement, has been held in Aqmescit/ Simferopil on February 21.
Participating in the event were members of the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people, the Head of the Crimean Republican Committee on Interethnic Relations and Problems of Formerly Deported Citizens Edem Dudaq, his deputy Emine Avamil, veterans of the national movement, the Head of the Crimean branch of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists Vasyl Ovcharuk, the Head of the Crimean krai organization of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) Leonid Pilunskyi and many others.
Vasyl Ovcharuk said that it is impossible to overestimate Petro Hryhorenko’s role in the history of the Crimean Tatar people. “His contribution to the interethnic relations in Ukraine is also great, because being the son of the Ukrainian people he took all the pain and horrible tragedy of the Crimean Tatars,” he stressed.
“In his mind, heart and soul he could not bear the humiliation of humans, their rights and freedoms. When he learnt about the Crimean Tatars, he started to defend the rights of these people. He took it as his own life and rose against the terrible system that could break down a human, his rights, life, health, everything. They had everything to destroy a person, but he was not afraid of it,” Mr. Ovcharuk added.
During the meeting, its participants laid flowers at the Monument to Petro Hryhorenko installed yet in 1999 at the Milli Majlis’s initiative.
As QHA reported, on February 21, a memorial service dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Petro Hryhorenko’s death has been held at the Cathedral of St. Vladimir and Olga (Aqmescit).

Reference: Petro Hryhorenko (October 16, 1907 – February 21, 1987) was a high-ranked Soviet Army commander of Ukrainian descent, later a prominent Soviet human rights activist, dissident and writer.
In 1961 Hryhorenko criticized Nikita Khrushchev's policies and was transferred to Russian Far East as punishment. In 1963 he created the Union of Struggle for the Restoration of Leninism. In the 1970s Hryhorenko became a member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group. The authorities sent him to a psychiatric imprisonment from 1964–1965, and he was stripped of his military rank, medals, and retirement benefits.
After his release, Hryhorenko actively participated in the struggle for the Crimean Tatar autonomy, and demonstrated against the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and became a leading figure in Soviet human rights movement along with his fellow celebrated dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky, Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Yesenin-Volpin and others.
Hryhorenko was one of the first who questioned the official Soviet version of World War II history. He pointed out that just prior to the German attack on June 22, 1941, vast Soviet troops were concentrated in the area west of Białystok, deep in occupied Poland, getting ready for a surprise offensive, which made them vulnerable to be encircled in case of surprise German attack. His ideas were later advanced by Victor Suvorov.
In 1981, Pyotr Grigorenko told about his psychiatric examinations, hospitalizations, life, and views in his memoirs V Podpolye Mozhno Vstretit Tolko Krys (In Underground One Can Meet Only Rats). In 1982, the book was translated into English under the title Memoirs.
Only in 1992, the official post-mortem forensic psychiatric commission of experts met at Hryhorenko’s homeland removed the stigma of mental patient from him and confirmed that the debilitating treatment he underwent in high security psychiatric hospitals for many years was groundless.

Niâra Nurmambet – Aliye Bekir



 
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