First acquiring attention as a creator of tapestries and kilim rugs, she later became a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and spent several years imprisoned on charges of anti-Soviet agitation.

[3] Her father, Mykhailo Hnatovych Shabatura, was a soldier in the Polish and Red armies,[2] dying during World War II.

[3] At this time, she became acquainted with other members of the growing Ukrainian dissident movement, such as Olena Antoniv and Bohdan Antkiv [uk].

[4] Shabatura was part of a group of Ukrainian intellectuals that participated in a Vertep ceremony on 12 January 1972 in protest against the Soviet government's religious policy.

She was arrested at the event, alongside Viacheslav Chornovil, Ivan Gel, Iryna Kalynets, Mykhaylo Osadchy and Yaroslav Dashkevych.

She was interned at the women's penal colony ZhKh-385/3-4 in Barashevo, Tengushevsky District [ru], in the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.