Plakhotniuk, Mykola

Plakhotniuk, Mykola [Плахотнюк, Микола; Plaxotnjuk], b 8 May 1936 in Fosforit, Shchigry raion, Kursk oblast, d 5 February 2015 in Kyiv. Dissident. A physician working near Kyiv, he published an article in the samvydav journal Ukraïns’kyi visnyk (no. 2, 1970) defending several political prisoners and analyzing Russification in Dnipropetrovsk. For this he lost his position at the Kyiv Medical Institute. He was arrested in January 1972 for his involvement in Ukraïns’kyi visnyk and sentenced in November to an indefinite term in special psychiatric hospitals in Dnipropetrovsk, Kazan, and Smila. After being released in March 1981, he was rearrested in September and sentenced in 1982 to four years in labor camps. He was released soon afterward. From 1999 Plakhotniuk headed the‘Muzei Shistdesiatnytstva’ Community Association.

[This article was updated in 2015.]