Commentary

Mark Rachkevych,

Yana Mokhonchuk

A Kyiv court ruled in favor of pro-Russian politician and lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk in his lawsuit to halt the further sales of a book on Soviet dissident Vasyl Stus, a Vinnytsia Oblast native who grew up in Donetsk, without his permission.

Judge Maryna Zastavenko of the Darnytsky District Court on Oct. 19 presided over the libel case in which the author, Vakhtang Kipiani, publisher Vivat, and printing house Unisoft were the defendants. During the court hearing, about 20 citizens gathered near the court building to protest with posters with portraits of Medvedchuk and Stus, who died at age 47 on Sept. 4, 1985, in a Soviet labor camp in Perm, Russia, after 13 years of imprisonment.

The ruling stated that Kipiani, a history journalist, must pay Hr 768 ($27) in court fees and that certain passages must be removed from the book.

“My lawyer and I are not satisfied with the court’s decision. This trial should not take place because historical issues cannot be the subject of civil proceedings. Medvedchuk is not forbidden to write his own book and state everything he thinks about Stus and this court himself,” Kipiani told the Kyiv Post.

Vivat publishing house posted on its Facebook page: “This court is direct and obvious evidence that the case Stus fought for is unfinished. We were ready for such a decision because it would be naive to hope that in the fight against such an opponent, we will win immediately.” He has 30 days to appeal the case. The complete text of the judge’s ruling will be available within 10 days.

In fact, “until the court decision takes effect, we have the right to distribute this book and we will do so until the end of the appeal process,” he said. The immediate effect of the adverse ruling was to sell out the remaining copies of the book in stores from an original print run of nearly 20,000 copies. “Absolutely everywhere,” Kipiani said of the sales boost. Some booksellers even raised the price from $9 to $12, although Vivat asked retailers to hold the price at $9. The book is published in the Ukrainian language only.

The publishing house plans to print another 3,500 copies, but it will take several weeks. When the book is reprinted, it will be publicly available and can be pre-ordered from the publishing house.

Medvedchuk, who was the Ukrainian dissident’s Soviet-appointed public defender in 1980, was not present in the courtroom based on the four cameras that broadcasted the hearing online.

But the lawmaker’s press secretary, Oleh Babanin, said: “The court banned the distribution of the book before the specified fragments are removed from it. We plan to act in accordance with the law. The law is on our side. The court made a decision on the protection of the honor and dignity of the business reputation and this decision must be implemented. If it is not implemented, I think that we will find ways to call on people who break the law, there are such ways and they are well spelled out in the legislation.”

The first hearing in the civil lawsuit started in October 2019, five months after the book was published.

Medvedchuk took issue with nine phrases in the book under the chapter of “Did the lawyer Medvedchuk kill the poet Stus?” which he says were false and based on the “author’s subjective conclusion.” He sued the author for damaging his “honor, dignity and professional reputation.” In previous interviews, Kipiani has described the case as an attempt to muzzle freedom of speech rights and has said “it’s not illegal to like or dislike someone.”

Medvedchuk continued practicing law after Ukraine regained independence in 1991 and entered politics serving as a member of parliament, heading the presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma, and over time Russian President Vladimir Putin became the godfather of his daughter. He now heads a pro-Kremlin, 44-member faction of parliament — many of whose members were supporters of overthrown President Viktor Yanukovych. Medvedchuk has made regular visits to Moscow, most recently with Yuriy Boyko, the ex-energy minister

When Stus was being tried a second time in 1980 for “anti-Soviet agitation,” he rejected Medvechuk’s appointment to defend him in court. Instead, he asked for an international lawyer and when the judge denied the motion, he asked that international monitors be present during the trial, also receiving a denial. Kipiani and others have accused of Medvedchuk of violating legal ethics.

The lawmaker has rejected the allegations, including accusations that he enabled Stus’s conviction, saying previously that “I can look Stus in the eyes and say I am not guilty – on the outside and inside – and I never felt any sense of guilt.”

The poet was sent to a high-security prison in Perm, Russia, near the Ural Mountains where he died under mysterious circumstances on September 4, 1985. It was the last GULAG camp in operation, according to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. At the time of his death at age 47, Stus had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for the following year by an international committee of scholars, writers and poets. “This is a very sorrowful moment when the book aimed at honoring the civic feat of the poet Vasyl Stus is banned in a country that calls itself European,” Kipiani told the Kyiv Post.

Mark Rachkevych is a Kyiv-based journalist,  editor and translator and a former editor with the Kyiv Post.