Friends!

Today I want to remember with you remember a well-known artist and human rights activist Alla Horska.On this day in 1970, she was killed in Vasylkiv, Kyiv district. Officially she was killed by father in law, but in fact - it was a political killing under the auspices of the KGB.

This remarkable woman was born in the Crimea, Yalta, she was the son of Alexander Gorsky – well-known organizer of film production, one of the founders of Ukrainian cinema. Subsequently, the family had to live in Moscow and Leningrad, and in Alma-Ata. In late 1943 they moved to Kyiv.

Alla was extremely intelligent and talented, graduated from art school with honors and later joined the Kyiv Art Institute. There she met her love - artist Viktor Zaretsky, who was a few years older. He turned all her life upside down.

Alla’s husband led the Creative Youth Club, known as the October’s palace thirteenth room. It was a center of Ukrainian life in Kyiv. Creative company prompted Alla to radical changes - when she was 30, she decided to consciously learn Ukrainian. The teacher was a journalist Nadia Svetlichnaya. They wrote a lot, and more - studied the history of Ukraine. Since that times Horska has spoken only Ukrainian, but with an Leningrad emphasis.

She did a lot for Ukrainian culture - organized creative and artistic evenings, exhibitions, annual laying of flowers at the monument to Taras Shevchenko. But everything changed in one day. To their Club came the news: in the room №13 at the times of war was the tourture room of the NKVD. Nothing seemed so- where previously were cameras, now was the wardrobe. But it made Horska and her friends set up a committee to collect materials about the Stalinist repressions. Together with the poet Vasyl Symonenko and director Les Tanyuk they were its most active members, they spent days asking those, who were lucky enough to return from the Gulag.

So they came to Bykivnya - terrible place, where secretly were buried the victims of the communist regime, politically repressed Ukrainians, killed by the hands of the NKVD. Alla was stunned: "Imagine - showed toward the graves - we - there ... Well, we all - Creative Youth Club. We can all be there ...".

Unfortunately, Alla’s words came true. First died Vasyl Symonenko - after exposure of places of burial of murderedat the Lukyanovka cemetery he was detained by Cherkassy police. They repulsed his kidney. He didn’t live long.Someone started to threaten Alla. Creative Youth Club - had to close.

But Alla did not left people rights protect activities. She systematically and materially and morally supported the families of political prisoners, corresponded with them. Horska was spied. That’s why killers knew about her plan to take the sewing machine from her father in law. Together with her husband they wanted to go there, but suddenly appeared overnight guests who brought Daniel - Mordovia camp prisoner, who wanted to tell his story. Theylistened, and gatherings dragged late into the night - Alla went to bed, and her husband looked after the guests. So his wife went for the machine herself.

Victor found Alla on the third day - killed, she lay in the cellar of his father's house. Initially, investigators demanded from him a confession – they wanted Victor to confess that he killed his wife because of a mistress. And later theyfound the body of his father Victor on rails near Vasilkov. So he became responsible for the murder.

Unfortunately, the details of this terrible tragedy are unknown until now – all the evidences of a murder weredestroyed. All friends of Horska, who participated in the mourning ceremony, namely Eugene Sverstyuk, Vasyl Stus, Olesya Sergienko - soon were arrested.

Friends, I am sure that the history of people like Alla Horska, has to be remembered by everyone. She left a lot of great art masterpieces, but the greatest thing she did to truth and justice – she gave her life. Doing something for a better life and enlightenment of people, knowing that you can die for it, is extremely difficult. But there are people willing to go for it. They need to be respected through the centuries.