Friends!

Friends! Today is 86th Birthday of Ivan Dziuba - Ukrainian literary critic, dissident of Soviet times, public figure, Hero of Ukraine and academician.

Ivan Mikhailovich Dzyuba was born on July 26, 1931, on Donbass in the village of Nikolaevka, now - the Volnovaha district. His parents were ordinary peasants. One year after son's birth, the family was forced to move first to the village of Novotroitsk, and later to the Olenivsky Career, fleeing the Holodomor. There, Ivan Dzyuba graduated from high school # 1. He spoke Russian till the age of 17, entered the Donetsk Pedagogical Institute to study at a philologist faculty. After graduating from high school, he continued his studies at the post-graduate course of the Institute of Literature. T. Shevchenko.

In 1957, he became the editor of the criticism department in the journal "Motherland", two years later - a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine. In 1963-1964 pp. Dziuba was dismissed several times for "ideological mistakes".

At the same time, Ivan Mikhailovich began to participate in "unauthorized" events, in particular, in a creative evening in Pershotravnevy park of Kyiv dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the death of Lesya Ukrainka.

In the premiere of "The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" in 1965, Ivan Dzyuba, along with Vasyl Stus and Vyacheslav Chornovil, went on stage to the cinema "Ukraine" with the first in the Soviet Union publicly protest against the authorities' policy. They told everyone about the secret arrests of the Ukrainian creative intelligentsia. In that year, Dzyuba wrote his most famous work, "Internationalism or Russification?", which became a challenge to the totalitarian system. It was translated into English, Italian, French, Russian and Chinese. Interestingly, Ivan Mikhailovich personally sent his work to the leadership of the Ukrainian SSR, hoping that the national-cultural policy of the Soviet government in Ukraine would be revised. However, arrests only intensified.

Arrested all the friends of Dzyuba - Stus, Sverstiuk, Svetlychny, Igor and Irina Kalintsov. Dziuba was expelled from the Union of Writers of Ukraine and arrested. A year later, he was released, but for several years he was under official supervision and was deprived of the right to write and speak in a specialty.

In autumn 1989, Ivan Dzyuba was one of the co-founders of the People's Movement of Ukraine. Since 1991 - he has been the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Modernity", later - the chairman of the editorial board. In November 1992, he became the second Minister of Culture of Independent Ukraine (until 1994). He went to work on public transport, because he was ashamed to use an official car. It seems to me that this fact also successfully describes him as a human being.

You can count more regalia of this majestic and loyal Ukrainian nation. But I would like to share a quote from his work "Internationalism or Russification": "The national affair is the cause of all the people and the cause of every citizen; It is a radical interest of all people and citizenship, the conscience of each of us; It does not push away all other affairs, interests and ideals, but is inextricably linked with them, and no one has the right to remain silent when he sees something unnatural, just as no one has the right to silence his ears from disturbing voices. " Remember these words by Ivan Dziuba.

I sincerely congratulate Ivan Mikhailovich on his birthday! Strong health, strength and opportunity to share wisdom with all of us in the future.