Abstract
The author offers the reader a document - a unique monument of the political thought of the Ukrainian Resistance movement to the communist regime of the 1960-1980s. The eleven-page manuscript "Ostanne slovo Niny Strokatoi na protsesi v Odeskomu oblasnomu sudi 17 travnia 1972" reveals the opposition's view on the "freedom of speech" in the USSR, the reasons for samizdat (self-publishing), stigmatizing nationalism, and the government's disregard for Ukraine's right to secede from Russia declared by Lenin. The document focused on the need to hand over "senseless censorship" to justice, to stop ignoring the principles of democracy, which "opens the way to tyranny." It emphasizes the urgent need for a critical estimate of imperfections and social distortions, the use of the constitutional right to receive and disseminate information, and the recognition of the indivisibility of freedom and the finality of the realization of the national idea. At the same time, the source shows the way to solve the problem of publicity through the adoption of the law on the press and information, which would specify the constitutionally guaranteed "freedom of speech in general and freedom of the printed word in particular." It meant the transfer of declared guarantees in the field of specific social practice. In response to the charge of acquainting with the work of samizdat stated, "the natural right of intellectuals and scholars to read and preserve any literature." Ukrainian patriotism is characterized as the natural essence of the Ukrainian, "which is inherited, becomes a moral asset, and does not allow to become a bastard, a fatherless, a janissary." Against the background of modern flirting between Western Europe and the Moscow aggressor, N. Strokata's reminder that "hordes of Batu Khan, khans and sultans stopped with Ukrainian blood" is relevant – this allowed European nations to rise so high. She not only convicted the anti-democratic communist dictatorship but also expressed confidence that "better times are already within us." Keywords: independence, nationalism, national idea, samizdat, freedom of speech, censorship, human rights.
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