Volodymyr Ivasiuk died in 1979 at thirty years old — his body found in a forest outside Lviv, officially ruled a suicide, almost certainly a KGB killing. He had written "Chervona Ruta" at nineteen, and it became one of the most widely sung Ukrainian-language songs of the Soviet period, which is precisely why the authorities found him dangerous. This coin was issued thirty years after his death, the same year Ukraine marked the anniversary with renewed public acknowledgment that the Soviet verdict on his death was a lie.
Volodymyr Ivasiuk died in 1979 at thirty years old — his body found in a forest outside Lviv, officially ruled a suicide, almost certainly a KGB killing. He had written "Chervona Ruta" at nineteen, and it became one of the most widely sung Ukrainian-language songs of the Soviet period, which is precisely why the authorities found him dangerous. This coin was issued thirty years after his death, the same year Ukraine marked the anniversary with renewed public acknowledgment that the Soviet verdict on his death was a lie.