Badzyo was born into a peasant family of ten children[1] in the village of Kopynivtsi [uk], located in Ukraine's western Zakarpattia Oblast.
[4][5] On 4 September 1965, Badzyo participated in a protest against the arrests of political activists in Ukraine alongside Ivan Dziuba, Viacheslav Chornovil, Stus, Svitlana Kyrychenko, and others, at the premiere of Armenian director Sergei Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at a cinema in Kyiv.
Badzyo was subsequently dismissed from his position at the institute, expelled from the Communist Party of Ukraine, and gradually deprived of the opportunity of further work in the academic field.
Badzyo set about writing a new version and had completed 452 pages when Soviet authorities raided his apartment again in February 1979 and seized the second manuscript.
However, prisoners had to pledge to refrain from future "anti-Soviet authorities" or write letters requesting pardons in order to be released,[7][8] which Badzyo refused to do.
[11][12] During Ukraine's first presidential election held in 1991, Badzyo led the pro-Leonid Kravchuk national-democratic bloc against the candidacy of Rukh's leader, Viascheslav Chornovil.
Badzyo criticised them for prioritising "ideology" over "national liberation", arguing not only that it was impossible to construct a new state without the support of the nomenklatura, as they controlled Ukraine's political, economical, and social institutions, but that it was necessary in order to secure Ukrainian independence from the threat of anti-Ukrainian Russophilia.