Background
Mykola Horbal was born on September 10, 1940, in the village of Volovets in the Lemkivshchyna region, then administered as part of the General Government (German-occupied Poland), now in Gorlice County, Poland.
Mykola Horbal was born on September 10, 1940, in the village of Volovets in the Lemkivshchyna region, then administered as part of the General Government (German-occupied Poland), now in Gorlice County, Poland.
In 1947, his family was moved to Ukraine, and they settled in the village of Letyache (Ternopil Oblast). From 1963 to 1970, Horbal worked as a music teacher. During this period, he first started creating poetry.
On November 24, 1970, Horbal was arrested by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) and charged with Anti Soviet Agitation and Propaganda.
He was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and 2 years exile in Siberia. On release from prison and return to Ukraine, Horbal settled in Kiev, where he joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group which had formed in 1976.
In 1984, having completed the 5-year term, Horbal was not released from incarceration, but was immediately sentenced to another term of 8 years of hard labour and 3 years in exile. However, this sentence was terminated in 1988 during the Perestroika.
Upon release, Horbal immediately became active in Ukrainian politics.
He served as a representative to the Kiev City Council from 1990 to 1994.
All of the members of the group were arrested, and on October 23, 1979, Horbal was arrested and sentenced to 5 years hard labour. He has served as a member of Parliament of Ukraine from 1994 till 1998.