Každé impérium se dříve nebo později rozpadne
Every Empire Sooner or Later Falls Apart

Summary/Abstract: merging from memories of clandestine debates, samizdat circles, and relentless KGB pressure, Josyf Zisels retraces his path from a young student fascinated by forbidden ideas to a central figure of the Ukrainian dissident movement. His story unfolds through moments of moral defiance—defending Freud in a censored academic hall, supporting Jewish families seeking to emigrate, documenting psychiatric abuse, and ultimately joining the Ukrainian Helsinki Group despite explicit threats and inevitable imprisonment. Zisels reflects on the psychological and moral architecture of Soviet repression, from orchestrated antisemitism and fabricated diagnoses to the cruel logic of “psychiatric treatment” meant to silence dissenters without creating martyrs. His six years in Soviet prisons reveal a harsh but strangely ordered world shaped by unwritten inmate hierarchies, forced labor, and an economy where tea served as currency. After release, he re‑channeled his resolve into revitalizing Jewish civic life in Ukraine, rejecting collaboration with Communist elites and challenging attempts to manipulate Holocaust memory for Russian geopolitical narratives. Throughout the interview, Zisels argues that the Soviet and later Russian imperial mindset makes democracy structurally impossible, insisting that only fragmentation or collapse—however painful—can free the societies it dominates. His testimony paints a portrait of resistance rooted in stubborn integrity, cultural identity, and an unshakable conviction that every empire eventually decays from within.

• Details
• Contents