Стефан Терлецкий: Жизнь британского политика украинского происхождения

British politician (1927–2006)

Stefan Terlezki, (29 October 1927 – 21 February 2006) was a British Conservative politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff West from 1983 to 1987. Terlezki was born in Oleshiw, where his first teacher at the village school was the Ukrainian poet Mariyka Pidhiryanka. His father Oleksa Terletskyj was a peasant farmer who also worked at a brickworks, where he organised a sit in protest for shorter working hours. This led to a period of imprisonment by the Polish authorities.

Western Ukraine was occupied by Russian forces in 1939 and then annexed to the Soviet Union. One of Terlezki's uncles was classified as a kulak after paying some neighbours to help with the harvest. He was arrested and deported to Siberia, a fate also suffered by several of Terlezki's cousins, who were students suspected of Ukrainian nationalism. Oleksa Terletskyj had initially welcomed the Communists and become Antonivka's village chairman but he later resigned. After the German invasion in 1941, Stefan Terlezki was put to forced labour repairing a railway bridge over the river Dniester, damaged during the Red Army retreat. He also witnessed the murder of Jews thrown from the neighbouring road bridge by German soldiers. He stood for Parliament in the two General Elections of 1974, unsuccessfully challenging James Callaghan in Cardiff South East. Terlezki gained greater public prominence by serving as Chairman of his local football club, Cardiff City F. C., between 1975 and 1977. He attracted headlines by advocating the flogging of football hooligans, firmly establishing his reputation as a right wing Conservative. He refused to travel to the Soviet Union when Cardiff City played Dinamo Tbilisi in the European Cup Winners' Cup, he said he could not risk being sent to Siberia as a Red Army deserter. His father and sister were already in Siberia, sent there during Joseph Stalin's post war purge of western Ukraine, where nationalist guerrillas fought the reimposition of Russian rule. (Terlezki's mother, Olena, had died in 1943).

He became MP for Cardiff West in the Conservative landslide of 1983. As in other constituencies, his Labour Party opponent suffered a loss of votes to the breakaway Social Democratic Party. In Parliament, Terlezki remained true to his right wing reputation, introducing a bill to replace the May Day holiday with a day of celebration for Winston Churchill. However, he mostly concentrated on constituency work and secured an increase in his vote at the 1987 election (although a lower percentage). However, through the collapse in support for the Social Democrats, he lost his seat to Labour's Rhodri Morgan. At Westminster, Terlezki also had the chance to do something about his father's plight. He persuaded the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to raise the case with his Soviet counterpart, Andrei Gromyko. As a result, in October 1984, his father was flown to London for a monthlong reunion and subsequently allowed to return to Antonivka, where he died in 1986. Terlezki requested a visa to attend the funeral but it was not issued in time. However, he and his Welsh wife, Mary, together with their two daughters, later visited his home village as guests of the Soviet authorities.

In 1989, Terlezki was appointed as the British Government's representative on the Council of Europe's Human Rights Committee. This was condemned by some Labour opposition MPs because of his previous advocacy of flogging, a view he later renounced. The Conservatives argued that his wartime experiences made him well suited to the role, which involved inspecting prison conditions in different countries, later including former Communist states. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Terlezki became a critical supporter of newly independent Ukraine. He condemned the preservation of close ties with Russia, especially the leasing of military bases in Crimea and argued that more should be done to promote the Ukrainian language and to discourage the use of Russian. In 2003, he visited the European Parliament to press the case for eventual Ukrainian membership of the European Union. In 2002, Terlezki took part in a television documentary about his life story and returned to Voitsberg, where he was reunited with Hansel Böhmer's niece. He published his memoirs, From War to Westminster in 2005. He died on 21 February 2006, aged 78.