Authors of Ukrainian Travel Essays of 1920s – 1930s as Secret Agents and Spies

Abstract

The article deals with the engagement of the Ukrainian authors of travel essays about foreign life to the intelligence and spy activities in different forms, usually for performing the special tasks alongside with observation and making literary notes. Various textual ‘footprints’ in their travel writings prove this fact. In two interwar decades Ukrainian travel writings had a period of rise and rapid development; they were generously financed by publishing houses, editorial boards of the magazines, different state institutions and labor unions. Numerous books by amateur and experienced professional writers, predominantly about their trips around Ukrainian and other Soviet lands, were published in large numbers. Very often the travelers were professional military men, secret agents or followed out the instructions of the special service, openly recognizing it in their books.
 Not so many, but still a lot of travel writings described what had been seen, heard and read abroad. Crossing the border of the USSR required essential expenses in foreign currency and special permissions; therefore only selected representatives of literature could visit European and Asian countries. This fact makes one suspect them of cooperation with different intelligence institutions. The textual analysis of the books written by S. Holovanivskyi, O. Dosvitnii, K. Kotko, L. Nedolia, V. Polishchuk and others proves that these suspicions are well-grounded. It is evidenced by numerous slips, omissions, reports on rather strange travel routes, repeated meetings abroad with Soviet consular and embassy employees, political emigrants, illegal immigrants and left-wing artists. It is obvious that the essayists were the transmitters of secret information in oral form addressed both abroad and backwards, so that it could not be found by any customs officers or counterintelligence agents. It seems that such a secret mission influenced the texts of travel writings, intensifying their anti-Western, ‘anti-capitalist’ orientation and class bias.