Main points
- Volodymyr Ivasyuk was found hanged in the forest, the investigation claimed it was a suicide, but the family blamed the KGB.
- A re-investigation revealed traces of violence, and in 2015 the Lviv Prosecutor's Office announced the involvement of Soviet special services in his murder.
Volodymyr Ivasyuk / Photo from open sources
Volodymyr Ivasyuk is a brilliant composer, from whose pen many legendary songs were published: “Chervona Ruta”, “Pisnya bude pomіzh nas”, “Vodohray”, etc. It is still hard to imagine that this outstanding person has been gone from this world for 47 years, and the topic of his death still remains a mystery.
- 1 The disappearance of Ivasyuk and the body in the forest
- 2 Funeral of Volodymyr Ivasyuk
- 3 Versions of death of the modern investigation
Ivasyuk told relatives and friends that the KGB was watching him. For strange reasons, Volodymyr did not receive any prizes or awards, and a few months before his death, the composer seemed to have a premonition that something bad would happen and spoke openly about it, writes 24 Kanal.
The disappearance of Ivasyuk and the body in the forest
On April 24, 1979, Vladimir answered the call, gathered himself, and went to the conservatory to resolve personal issues related to attendance. According to some students, the composer then allegedly got into a Moskvich and never returned home.
Relatives raised the alarm, but, according to them, they were not in a hurry to look for Ivasyuk at the time and even refused to place a missing person's notice on television.
Announcement of the disappearance of Volodymyr Ivasyuk / Photo ivasyuk.org.ua
Almost a month after his disappearance, on May 18, Volodymyr Ivasyuk's body was found on the territory of a military unit in Bryukhovytskyi Forest. The composer had been hanged from a belt attached to his own cloak. At the time, investigators claimed that the performer had committed suicide because he had not recovered from treatment in a psychiatric hospital, but his family blamed the KGB for the tragedy.
The investigation's version of Ivasyuk's death / Photo by the Chernivtsi Regional Memorial Museum of Volodymyr Ivasyuk
Funeral of Volodymyr Ivasyuk
Newspapers were banned from publishing obituaries about the composer, and students and employees of some enterprises were also banned from attending Ivasyuk's funeral.
Despite the ban, several thousand people came to say goodbye to the performer. The road to the Lychakiv Cemetery was strewn with fresh flowers, and politicians feared that the funeral would turn into a riot.
Funeral of Volodymyr Ivasyuk / Photo by Lubomyr Krysa
Funeral of Volodymyr Ivasyuk / Photo by Lubomyr Krysa
Such defiance of the Soviet authorities did not go unnoticed. Some were fired from their jobs, others were put behind bars, and at the cemetery, KGB officers monitored who came to the composer's grave and wrote down their names.
The case of Ivasyuk's death was closed a month later, and only in 2009 was the investigation resumed.
Versions of death of a modern investigation
It seemed that since the case was re-examined and investigated, the result would be different from the Soviet investigation. But for some reason, the case was closed again, and the materials were sent to the archive.
In 2014, the Lviv Prosecutor's Office conducted a pre-trial investigation into the fact of the intentional murder of Volodymyr Ivasyuk by a group of individuals. Five years later, the Kyiv Research Institute of Forensic Expertise conducted four experiments, which established that in the case of suicide, traces of wood should have remained on Ivasyuk's clothes and body, but this was not detected at the time.
In 2021, Mykola Golomsha, who served as First Deputy Prosecutor General in 2014, stated that: Volodymyr Ivasyuk was not suicidal .
Even the falsification of evidence of treatment (Ivasyuk in a psychiatric clinic – Channel 24) was quite obscene. The symptoms were one, the medication was different,
– he said.
It is also worth noting that the composer had a disfigured face, broken fingers, and torn buttons on his jacket.
Golomsha emphasized that the re-investigation established the true circumstances of the composer's death: “He was hanged dead.”
The place where Volodymyr Ivasyuk's body was found / Photo by Bryukhovychi Blog
Recall that in 2015, the Lviv Prosecutor's Office stated that they had irrefutable evidence of involvement in the murder of the composer by Soviet secret services. And in 2019, it became known that an examination of the circumstances of Volodymyr Ivasyuk's death proved that he simply physically could not have committed suicide.
Despite all this, the topic of the death of the outstanding composer has not yet exhausted itself, because if it was a premeditated murder, then there are no names of the culprits who did this to Ivasyuk. And if it was suicide, then what were the performer's motives for such an act?
We should also add that the exact date of death is unknown. The network notes that it could be April 24, 25, 26, or 27.