Friends!

On this day in 1978, the Ukrainian dissident Olexa Hirnyk committed self-immolation. He was 66 years old. He burned himself in a symbolic place - the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kaniv, in protest against Russification.

Olexa Hirnyk was born on the 28th of March, 1912 in the Carpathian town Bogorodchany. His grandfather and father were educators, mother - a simple peasant.

Olexa studied at a Polish school and later in the Ukrainian Stanislavsky school. Parents wanted him to continue his studies at the seminary, but Hirnyk went the other way. He joined the "PLAST", "Enlightenment", other youth nationalist organizations. He wanted to study as the philosopher at Lviv University, but he was drafted to the Polish army. There he spoke only Ukrainian, read "Kobzar". According to statements against Polish authorities and calls for the independence of Ukraine he was sentenced to five years in prison. He was providing his arrest at the camps of Bereza Kartuska, Lviv, Krakow, Tarnow. Two years later, during the German invasion of Poland, Olexa escaped from prison.

But he was imprisoned again soon. Because of his character (he loved truth a lot), he stood up for Polish, which workers of NKVD sent into wagons to expulsion. He was convicted again - now "for treason" into concentration camps for 8 years. This time Hirnyk was sent to Norilsk and Magadan.

He returned from exile and married a girl named Carolina. They had two sons: Markiyan and Eugene. Family lived in Kalush, Olexa worked as an engineer at the brick factory. He was very concerned about the fate of Ukraine, its culture and language. He secretly prepared leaflets against Russification.

On that day he told his family he was going to Lviv, and he went to Kyiv, and then - to Kaniv. He prepared bag with two canisters of gasoline. He chose the place on the northern slope of Mount Chernecha. First, put there leaflets. At the 3 pm the night poured gasoline on himself and set the clothes on fire. "I was walking upright thorny. Not erred, not erred. My objection is that the truth is itself, not Moscow lies from beginning to end. My protest is the experiences, torture Ukrainian nation. My protest is that Prometheus act, the rebellion against violence and oppression. My protest -is the words of Shevchenko, and I am his only student and performer "- wrote Olexa Hirnyk.

His lifeless body was found in the morning. Police took leaflets, tried to convince the family that Olexa was killed in a car accident. And they felt that the truth was different, because the house searches began. Later the doctor of the ambulance told Carolina the truth.

Despite the ban, every year on the 21th of January someone put red viburnum to the place of Olexa’s death. This way people supported his protest against the destruction of the Moscow communist invaders. Years passed, and now this act of Olexa is the extraordinary expression of patriotism and self-sacrifice on the background of despair. He inspire never to leave hope and fight for your country to the last.