CRIMINAL CASE OF 1939 VASYL VASYLOVYCHA POTYENKA

Abstract

The article analyzes the 1939 criminal case of Archdeacon V. V. Potienko. He was one of the bright, absolutely patriotic figures of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (hereinafter referred to as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church) since 1921. In the historical literature, it is believed that V. V. Potienko, as a representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the 1920s and 1930s, suffered repression and was arrested several times, and in 1934 he was sentenced to five years of exile. According to the materials of the criminal case of 1939, he was arrested for the last time in 1938, and investigative actions were carried out for almost a year. The aforementioned criminal case was investigated only in fragments, the case was not published in its entirety. Currently, the above-mentioned document is stored in the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the State Security Service of Ukraine). The novelty of our work is to establish the reasons for the arrest of V. V. Potienko in 1938, to determine the degree of truthfulness of his testimony, to test the hypothesis about his agent activity in 1939. To achieve the goal and objectives of the research, general scientific and special research methods were applied ( heuristic, historical-retrospective, biographical). To compare the facts and establish the protodeacon's agency affiliation with the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR (hereinafter – the NKVD), the method of comparative analysis was used. In order to fully disclose the issue, in addition to the criminal case of 1939, we used sources of personal origin, memories of the protodeacon, as well as denunciations. We came to the conclusion that the active activities of V. V. Potienko in the late 1930s in Kharkiv caused suspicion of anti-Soviet activities among NKVD employees, as indicated by the search of his apartment and provocative questions in the interrogation protocols. With the help of handwriting analysis, it was established that the protodeacon's answers during the interrogations were probably true. We also confirmed the hypothesis that VV Potienko was indeed an NKVD agent under the pseudonyms «Redaktor» and «Sorbonin».