1. Agafya "Halyna" Andriivna Kuzmenko was a Ukrainian teacher and anarchist revolutionary.
17 Facts About Halyna Kuzmenko
1. 2.
In 1916, Halyna Kuzmenko graduated from the Women Teachers Seminary in Dobrovelychkivka and was appointed to a primary school in the small southern Ukrainian village of Huliaipole, where she taught the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language, as part of the newly-established Ukrainian State's curriculum.
3.
One of Halyna Kuzmenko's friend had warned her against going to Huliaipole, citing stories of a "bandit by the name of Makhno".
4.
Halyna Kuzmenko took part in the creation of the Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities and actively fought within the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine as a machine gun operator.
5.
Halyna Kuzmenko spearheaded the region's educational initiatives, which were inspired by the work of the Catalan pedagogue Francesc Ferrer.
6.
Halyna Kuzmenko led a small group of intellectuals in promoting the Ukrainization of the Makhnovshchina, working specifically to increase the use of the Ukrainian language in Makhnovist publications and attempting to influence the movement towards Ukrainian nationalism.
7.
Ukrainian cultural workers continued their activities within the Makhnovshchina, with Halyna Kuzmenko herself continuing her own Ukrainization efforts, but nationalist tendencies were decisively marginalized within the movement, as the anarchist theory of internationalism won out.
8.
On 13 August 1921, Halyna Kuzmenko joined her husband and 100 cavalry in a retreat towards Poland.
9.
Halyna Kuzmenko then met with representatives of Soviet Ukraine, with whom she discussed their plan for the Makhnovists to lead a separatist uprising in Galicia, asking in exchange for money and support for the disaffected Makhnovist internees.
10.
The trial of the Makhnovists eventually resulted in their acquittal, to which Halyna Kuzmenko responded with astonished excitement.
11.
On 3 December 1923, the Makhnovists were finally released from custody and issued with residence permits, granting Makhno and Halyna Kuzmenko leave to remain in Torun.
12.
In 1927, the couple finally divorced, with Halyna Kuzmenko leaving Paris to join an organization of pro-Soviet Ukrainian exiles, within which she made repeated unsuccessful attempts to return to Ukraine.
13.
Halyna Kuzmenko attended his funeral with their daughter, but she was reportedly too overcome with grief to speak.
14.
Halyna Kuzmenko took care of the manuscripts for the second and third volumes of Makho's memoirs, entrusting them to an aid committee which in turn passed them onto Volin for publication.
15.
Halyna Kuzmenko remained in France with her daughter until the outbreak of World War II, when they were captured by the Nazis and deported to Berlin, where they were used as forced labour.
16.
Halyna Kuzmenko clarified that she had begun keeping the diary, in a notebook she had been given by Feodora Gaenko, as her husband had wanted her to record a history of the Makhnovshchina.
17.
Sean Patterson disputed that Halyna Kuzmenko had any reason to lie, noting that Halyna Kuzmenko's account of the seizure of the diary differed drastically from that of Eidemanis, whom he accused of historical revisionism for the purpose of propaganda, detailing differences between the original text and the "falsified version" published by Eidemanis.