Iryna Senyk

[4] She studied at a folk school and a private girls' gymnasium before entering University of Lviv in 1944.

She was sentenced in 1946 to ten years in concentration camps in Siberia (Ozerlag, Angarlag, and Irkutsk Oblast) and life in exile on charges of links with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

"I secretly composed my grief-stricken lines in my head, and in the morning I would recite them to my cellmates.... How was I to thank all those who saved my life, who gave me the gift of kind words every day?

While serving her sentence in a Mordovian camp, repressed for her beliefs,[5] she became an invalid, her arm broken during an accident at a rock quarry.

[4] In 1979, now in exile, she was a signatory to the "Members of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords", dated October 6, 1979.