Kalynets, Iryna

Kalynets, Iryna [Калинець, Ірина; Kalynec’] (née Stasiv [Стасів]), b 6 December 1940 in Lviv, d 31 July 2012 in Lviv. Dissident; wife of Ihor Kalynets. A graduate of Lviv University, she taught Ukrainian language and literature at the Lviv Polytechnical Institute and published children's stories and verses. An active defender of Valentyn Moroz in 1970 and a founding member of the Committee in Defense of Nina Strokata in 1971, she was arrested in Lviv in January 1972 and sentenced in August for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda to six years in prison and three years of exile. In the labor camps of Mordovia, where she served her sentence, she joined protests against camp conditions and made demands for the recognition of political prisoners. After serving her term of exile in Chita oblast, she was released in 1981 and returned to Lviv. In the late 1980s she became an active campaigner for the restoration of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. In 1990 she was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. Also in 1990 she became head of the Lviv Oblast Education Administration and took an active part in the reforms of the Ukrainian education system.

[This article was updated in 2014.]