He received first prize at the International Ex Libris Competition in Vilnius in 1989, and was a founder and the first chair of the graphic department at the Lviv National Academy of Art.

Soroka graduated from the Lviv National Academy of Arts in 1964[4] and associated himself with the dissident political and artistic movement of the 1960s, which blossomed in Ukraine after the death of Stalin.

[5] Nevertheless, he continued to work and create new prints in his small apartment in Lviv, where he resided with his grandmother, his wife Lyubov Soroka, and two daughters, Solomia and Ustyna.

During this time of artistic oppression, Soroka created many of his now-famous print series, including Slavic Mythology, emblems and Symbols, Angels and Musicians, The Four Seasons, Lviv Architecture and March of the Gnomes.

At that time he also gathered his collection, the largest in Ukraine, of Hutsulian trijci (wooden candelabras made by the Hutsuls, an ethnic group living in the Carpathian mountains).