Ihor Shevchenko

Ilhor Shevchenko (b. 1926) was Ukrainan farmer and veteran of World War II. When World War III broke out in 1951, he and his wife Anya lived on a kolkohz (collective farm), designated 127, outside Kiev.

He and his family had survived Joseph Stalin's purges and collectivization of the Ukraine throughout the 1930s. When he was fifteen, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Unlike some of his neighbors, Shevchenko didn't quite accept the Germans with open arms. Once the Nazis showed their true colors, Shevchenko joined a partisan band operating outside of Kiev.

In 1943, Shevchenko was conscripted into the Red Army. He attained the rank of sergeant and a leg wound in Germany. He was allowed to return to his kolkhoz, where he married and settled down.

In January 1951, as tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union mounted over the Korean War, Shevchenko learned that the Kiev Military District was mobilized. Like many in the Soviet Union (and the world), Shevchenko watched anxiously as the Soviet Union and the United States traded atomic bomb attacks against in their respective spheres of influence. While Shevchenko had his doubts about the Soviet regime, he was careful to keep them to himself. Two days later, the Soviets and their allies invaded West Germany.

On February 24, the MGB came to the kolkohz to collect men for the infantry, ultimately taking four. Shevchenko was examined by an agent until that agent was satisfied that Shevchenko's old injury would not make him a good infantryman. After they left, Shevchenko and Anya were left to contemplate how the loss of the four men might impact the farm's quotas. The next day, Radio Moscow broadcast that the Soviets had plunged deep into German territory, and that the U.S. had attacked both Soviet cities and key cities of its allies with conventional ordinance. Among these was Leningrad. Radio Moscow claimed the night attack killed children playing a park. Shevchenko wondered what children were doing in a park during a nighttime raid, but kept it to himself.

The war continued on. On March 2, 1951, the Soviets launched an audacious bombing raid against the U.S., successfully destroying several cities in the western part of the country, as well as Bangor, Maine, and a location in Newfoundland in Canada. The kolkohz celebrated over the next days, although Shevchenko had his private doubts about the course the war was taking.

On Sunday, March 4, 1951, Anya was sick, and could not go to Kiev as she usually did. To avoid catching what she had, Shevchenko decided to walk in the woods. At one point, he saw three women on bicycle head for Kiev, and wondered if Anya had gone after all. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, he heard the sound of sirens, jets and guns in the distance. Then an atomic bomb exploded over Kiev. He was able to get home, and began praying, even though he was not supposed to, as he realized that if Anya had not been sick, she would have gone to Kiev, and most likely have died. As a consequence, Shevechenko felt his long dormant belief in God rekindling. He didn't make too much of a spectacle in public, and Anya discouraged him from being too loud even in private.

With Kiev gone, life on the kolkohz was rather uncertain. The MGB didn't come nearly as much during March. Shevchenko realized that the grain the farm harvested usually went to Kiev. Since Kiev no longer needed it, he wondered who'd get it.