“Being a Soviet citizen means being a slave. I am not suited to such a role.” (V. Stus)
From 1961 to 1963, he was a teacher at school No. 23 in Horlivka, Donetsk region.
He translated from German, English, Italian, Spanish, French and Slavic languages.
The Ukrainian diaspora tried to nominate Vasyl Stus for the Nobel Prize in Literature but did not have time to complete all the procedures.
He spoke only Ukrainian. Stus’s contemporaries recall that once Vasyl was reprimanded in the university canteen for speaking a normal language. A fight broke out between Stus and the offender.
He was imprisoned twice for anti-Soviet activities. In total, he was sentenced to 23 years of forced labour, imprisonment and exile for both cases.
Stus was wounded in his cell and could have died earlier. During his imprisonment, he was wounded with a shiv. The circumstances of his death still raise questions. The official version is that he suffered a cardiac arrest, but there are suggestions that he was murdered. He was first buried in Russia, at the colony cemetery, then his body was transported to Kyiv and buried at the Baikove cemetery.
The book with documents about the criminal case against him “The Case of Vasyl Stus” was banned at the request of Viktor Medvedchuk. The court decision can be read here.
