To Turn Ivan Bahrianyi into Ivan “Red”. The kgb’s Modus Operandi
9/17/2024
The archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine contain a lot of materials about how in the 1950s and 1960s of the 20th century the mgb/kgb of the ussr tried to persuade Ukrainian cultural, scientific and literary figures in exile to cooperate, abandon anti-soviet activities. But they did not always succeed. And then they developed measures to compromise and even liquidate those people.
Ivan Bahrianyi, a Ukrainian poet, novelist, playwright, publicist, journalist, and head of the UNRada, was one of those figures. No amount of “sophisticated” kgb measures, such as his son’s forced “call” to “repent” to the ussr and stop “shameful slander of the motherland” could make Bahrianyi stop criticizing the soviet system.
The fourth episode of the “Unvailed History” podcast is available here: