Viacheslav Maksymovych Chornovil (; 24 December 1937 – 25 March 1999) was a Ukrainian

Soviet dissident Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union (USSR) in the period from the mid-1960s ...

, independence activist and politician who was the leader of the

People's Movement of Ukraine The People's Movement of Ukraine () is a Ukraine, Ukrainian political party and one of the first Opposition (politics), opposition parties in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine.The first officially registered opposition politica ...

from 1989 until his death in 1999. He spent fifteen years imprisoned by the Soviet government for his human rights activism, and was later a

People's Deputy of Ukraine A people's deputy of Ukraine (, ) is a member of parliament and legislator elected by Direct election, popular vote to the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine. They are often referred to simply as "deputies". Prior to 1991, the Verkhovna R ...

from 1990 to 1999, being among the first and most prominent anti-communists to hold public office in Ukraine. He twice ran for the presidency of Ukraine; the first time, in

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

, he was defeated by

Leonid Kravchuk Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk (, ; 10 January 1934 – 10 May 2022) was a Ukrainian politician and the first president of Ukraine, serving from 5 December 1991 until 19 July 1994. In 1992, he signed the Lisbon Protocol, undertaking to give up Ukrai ...

, while in

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

he died in a car crash under disputed circumstances. Chornovil was born in the village of Yerky, in central Ukraine, then under the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. A member of the

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

from his time in university, he was affiliated with the counter-cultural Sixtier movement, and was removed from the Komsomol after speaking out against communism. His samvydav, which investigated violations of intellectuals arrested during a 1965–1966 Soviet crackdown, earned him Western acclaim, as well as a three-year prison sentence in

Yakutia Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...

. Upon his release he returned to samvydav and began publishing '' The Ukrainian Herald'', a predecessor to the modern Ukrainian independent press. He was again arrested in another purge of intellectuals in January 1972 and sentenced to between six and twelve years in prison. Chornovil was described by fellow dissident Mikhail Kheifets as "general of the zeks" for his leadership of Ukrainian political prisoners, and recognised as a

prisoner of conscience A prisoner of conscience (POC) is anyone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or political views. The term also refers to those who have been imprisoned or persecuted for the nonviolent expression of their conscienti ...

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

. He was allowed to return to Ukraine in 1985 as part of ''

perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

''. Throughout the late 1980s he was active in organising a movement in opposition to Soviet rule over Ukraine. The movement later resulted in a popular revolution that toppled communism and led to Chornovil taking office as a member of Ukraine's parliament. He was one of the two main candidates in the

1991 Ukrainian presidential election Presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991,Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1976 the first direct presidential elections in the country's history. Leonid Kravchuk, the Chairman ...

, though he was defeated by former communist leader

, and he actively promoted Ukrainian membership in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and opposition to the emergence of the

Ukrainian oligarchs Ukrainian oligarchs () are business oligarchs who emerged on the economic and political scene of Ukraine after the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum. This period saw Ukraine transitioning to a market economy, with the rapid privatization of s ...

. Chornovil was a controversial figure in his lifetime, and the last months of his life were dominated by a split in his party, the

. His death in a car crash during the

1999 Ukrainian presidential election 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is lau ...

, during which he was a candidate in opposition to incumbent president

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (, ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine, serving from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. The only president of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by demo ...

, has led to conspiracy theories and several years of investigations and trials, which have neither confirmed nor eliminated assassination as a possibility. He is a popular figure in present-day Ukraine, where he has twice been placed among the top ten most popular Ukrainians and is a symbol of the country's democracy and human rights activism as well as

Pro-Europeanism Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).Krisztina Arató, Petr Kaniok (editors). ''Euroscepticism and European Integration''. Pol ...

Early life and education

Viacheslav Maksymovych Chornovil was born on 24 December 1937 in the village of Yerky, in what was then the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

, to a family of teachers. His father, Maksym Iosypovych Chornovil, was descended from Cossack nobility, while his mother was part of the aristocratic Tereshchenko family. In spite of the Soviet policy of state atheism and the Russification of Ukraine, the young Chornovil was raised in Ukrainian Christian traditions, with his family celebrating Ukrainian festivals in their home. Born and raised during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, Viacheslav's childhood was dominated by Soviet repressions; his paternal uncle, Petro Iosypovych, was executed, while his father lived as a fugitive. The family regularly moved from village to village in an effort by Maksym to evade arrest. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the German occupation of Ukraine the Chornovil family lived in the village of Husakove, where Viacheslav attended school. He later claimed in his autobiography that following the recapture of Husakove by the Soviet Union, his family was expelled from the village. They later lived in Vilkhovets, where they had lived prior to Husakove, and where Viacheslav later graduated from middle school with a gold medal in 1955. Chornovil enrolled at the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv the same year, studying to become a journalist. At this time he also joined the

, the youth division of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

. During his time in Kyiv Chornovil first acquired an interest in politics, becoming a strong believer in friendship of peoples and internationalism. The negative response by Kyiv's Russophone population to those who spoke the Ukrainian language disgruntled him and left him with an increased consciousness of his status as a Ukrainian. Like other young Soviet activists of the time, Chornovil was also influenced by the

20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union () was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's " Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictator ...

in 1956, in which

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

denounced the rule of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

. Chornovil's noncomformist views brought him into conflict with the faculty's newspaper, which condemned him for "nonstandard thinking" in 1957. As a result, he was forced to pause his studies and sent to work as an

udarnik In the terminology of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and other communist countries, an udarnik (, plural udarniks or udarniki; rus, уда́рник, p=ʊˈdarnʲɪk), also known in English as a shock worker or strike worker (collectively ...

constructing a blast furnace in the

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

city of Zhdanov (today known as Mariupol). He also worked as an itinerant editor for the ''Kyiv Komsomolets'' newspaper. After a year, he returned to his studies, graduating in 1960 with distinction. His diploma dissertation was on the publicist works of Borys Hrinchenko. The same year, he married his first wife, Iryna Brunevets. The two had one son,

Andriy Andriy or AndriiSuspilne Lviv) in July 1960, where he had previously worked as an assistant from January of the same year. During this time, he possibly met and interacted with

Zenovii Krasivskyi Zenovii Mykhailovych Krasivskyi (; 12 November 1929 – 20 September 1991), also spelled Zenovij Krasivskyj, was a Ukrainian poet, Soviet dissident, and human rights activist. He was a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and in the last ...

, who was studying television journalism at the

University of Lviv The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, ) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. The university is the oldest institution of highe ...

. Much like Chornovil, Krasivskyi would later become a leader of the dissident movement. Chornovil wrote scripts for the channel's broadcasts, primarily concerning the history of Ukrainian literature. At least three (on Mykhailo Stelmakh, Vasyl Chumak, and the Young Muse group) were broadcast in 1962. During this time, Chornovil also took up

literary criticism A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...

, focusing particularly on the works of Hrinchenko,

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (; ; 9 March 1814 – 10 March 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist, and ethnographer. He was a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts and a member of the Brotherhood o ...

, and Volodymyr Samiilenko. Chornovil left his job at Lviv Television in May 1963 to return to Kyiv. There, he was the Kyiv Komsomol secretary for the construction of Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant. He simultaneously worked as an editor for the Kyiv-based newspapers ''Young Guard'' and ''Second Reading'', and was part of the Artistic Youths' Club, an informal group of intellectuals affiliated with the counter-cultural Sixtier movement. In June 1963, Chornovil married his second wife, Olena Antoniv, and by 1964, Chornovil's second son, Taras, was born. Chornovil also passed exams for post-graduate courses at the Kyiv Paedagogical Institute in 1964, but he was denied the right to take courses on the basis of his political beliefs. In particular was his involvement in the Artistic Youths' Club. The Shevchenko Days on 9 March 1964 was marked by celebrations throughout the Soviet Union marking the 150th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko's birth. As part of the Shevchenko Days celebrations Chornovil gave a speech to the workers of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant. During his speech, he described Shevchenko as a uniquely Ukrainian hero, rejecting official interpretations, which emphasised Shevchenko's role in anti-serfdom activities. Tying Shevchenko's life to Ukrainians' history, Chornovil said, "Let's read ''

Kobzar A ''kobzar'' ( ; ) was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment, played on a multistringed kobza or bandura. Tradition The professional kobzar tradition was established during the Hetmanate Era around the sixteenth cen ...

'' together, and we shall see that in all the poet's work, from the first to the last line, a red thread passes through with trembling love for the disgraced and despised native land," and that Shevchenko's works themselves argued, "every system built on the oppression of man by man, on contempt for human dignity and inalienable human rights, on the suppression of free, human thoughts, on the oppression of one nation by another nation, and in whatever new form it may hide – it is against human nature, and must be destroyed." Historian Yaroslav Seko notes that Chornovil's speech placed him as a member of the Sixtiers. However, he also advises that the speech was far from the most important work of the Sixtier movement and that Chornovil's role was minimal in comparison to individuals such as Ivan Dziuba, writer of '' Internationalism or Russification?'', and Yevhen Sverstiuk. On 8 August 1965, during the opening of a monument to Shevchenko in the village of Sheshory, Chornovil gave a speech with strongly anti-communist overtones. As a result, he was fired from his Komsomol job. Following his firing, Chornovil wrote several letters to the leadership of the Komsomol in an effort to demonstrate his innocence.

Dissident and human rights activist

1965–1966 purge

The next year marked the beginning of a series of mass arrests of Sixtier intellectuals following Khrushchev's removal and replacement by

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

. In protest of the arrests, Chornovil, as well as Dziuba and student Vasyl Stus, held a protest inside the Kyiv film theatre during the 4 September premiere of

Sergei Parajanov Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. He is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Parajanov was born to ...

's '' Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors''. Dziuba said that the film's greatness was overshadowed by the ongoing purge, and, as he was being escorted off-stage, Stus called on those "against the revival of Stalinism" in the audience to stand up. The protest was one of the first open protests by Ukrainians against their status in the Soviet Union. On 31 September his Lviv flat was searched by the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

, and 190 books were confiscated. Included in the confiscated literature was the '' Galician–Volhynian Chronicle'', the Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People, and monographs and articles by authors Panteleimon Kulish, Volodymyr Antonovych, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Dmytro Doroshenko, Ivan Krypiakevych, and Volodymyr Vynnychenko, as well as history books about the First World War and

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

. Later that year, with the purges continuing, Chornovil was called upon to give evidence at the trials of Mykhaylo Osadchy, Bohdan and Mykhailo Horyn, and . Chornovil refused, and as a result was fired from his editor position at ''Second Reading''. He turned to samvydav, publishing ''Court of Law or a Return of the Terror?'' in May 1966. On 8 July he was charged under Article 179 of the criminal code of the Ukrainian SSR, and sentenced to three months of hard labour with 20% of salary withheld. In this period, he worked various jobs, including as a technician in expeditions of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine to the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

, as an advertiser for KyivKnyhTorh, and as a teacher at the Lviv Regional Centre for Protection of Nature. In 1967 Chornovil published his second work of samvydav. Known as ''Woe from Wit: Portraits of Twenty "Criminals"'', it included information on those arrested during the 1965–1966 crackdown. Chornovil sent the work to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Committee for State Security of Ukraine, the

Writers' Union of Ukraine The National Writers' Union of Ukraine () (''НСПУ'') is a voluntary social-creative association of professional writers, poets, prose writers, playwrights, critics, and translators. History The National Writers' Union of Ukraine was found ...

, and the Union of Artists of Ukraine. On 21 October 1967 it was read during a broadcast of

Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...

, and it was professionally printed by the end of the year. Chornovil's samvydav was published in the West in 1969 under the title of ''The Chornovil Papers'', drawing attention to the purge at a time when public consciousness was focused largely on the

Sinyavsky–Daniel trial The Sinyavsky–Daniel trial () was a show trial in the Soviet Union against the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel in February 1966. Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted of the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda in a Moscow c ...

. Chornovil's work established him as one of the leading figures among Ukrainian activists at the time, and, along with Dziuba's ''Internationalism or Russification?'', demonstrated to those in the rest of Europe that Ukrainians were not fully accepting of Soviet rule. In addition to ''Woe from Wit'' Chornovil also wrote letters to the head of the Ukrainian KGB and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine complaining that investigators had violated the laws during the arrests of Sixtiers. On 5 May 1967 he was summoned to the office of the deputy Prosecutor General of

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast in western Ukraine. The capital city, capital of the oblast is the city of Lviv. The current population is History Name The region is named ...

, E. Starykov, who informed him of the existence of article 187-1 of the criminal code of the Ukrainian SSR, which forbade defaming the Soviet system or government, including by writing letters complaining about actions committed by members of the government, under the threat of as much as three years' imprisonment. Although not a secret, the law had gone unpublished at the time, and it was only due to Starykov's informing him after the fact that Chornovil learned that his acts may have been illegal.

First arrest

Chornovil was arrested in August 1967 in response to ''Woe from Wit'' and charged under article 187-1. Another search of his flat resulted in the seizure of a copy of ''Woe from Wit'', as well as Valentyn Moroz's ''Report from the Beria Reserve'' samvydav, which served as the basis for the charges against him. Chornovil chose to forgo a lawyer, as the latter option at the time carried the risks of having one's arguments distorted and manipulated during interrogations. Chornovil argued his innocence, as well as that of those who had been arrested during the purge, saying, He also stated that the process, and the lack of Soviet authorities' action on his complaints, had significantly reduced his faith in the Soviet system. He continued to insist, however, that he had no ill-will towards the Soviet government, alleging that he was being targeted by certain officials who wished to illegally prevent him from informing high-ranking officials about the state of the country. Chornovil was convicted on 13 November 1967 and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. During this period, he lived in the village of Chappanda in the

Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (; ), also known as Soviet Sakha, Soviet Yakutia or the Yakut ASSR (, ''Yakutskaya ASSR''), was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union. History The Yakut ASSR was formed ...

. In 1969 Chornovil married fellow activist Atena Pashko, whom he had met at the home of Ivan Svitlychnyi. The two were formally wed in the town of Nyurba. As a result of Chornovil's exile, holding a traditional wedding ceremony was impossible. Pashko later recalled that, on the way back to Chappanda, Chornovil made an impromptu bouquet of

St. John's wort ''Hypericum perforatum'', commonly known as St. John's wort (sometimes perforate St. John's wort or common St. John's wort), is a flowering plant in the family Hypericaceae. It is a hairless, Perennial, perennial herb with woody Root, roots, y ...

, while Pashko herself made one from wild roses. The newlyweds chose to leave their wedding rings in a large tree rather than wear them, intending that they stay there forever.

Life between arrests (1969–1972)

Chornovil was released as part of a general amnesty in 1969. Struggling to get a job, between October 1969 and 1970 he variously worked at a weather station in

Zakarpattia Oblast Zakarpattia Oblast (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian: Закарпатська область), also referred to as simply Zakarpattia (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian: Закарпаття; Hungarian language, Hungarian: ''Kárpátalja'') or Transcar ...

, as an excavator during an archaeological expedition to

Odesa Oblast Odesa Oblast (), also referred to as Odeshchyna (Одещина), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administrative centre is the city of Ode ...

, and as an employee at . In September 1969 he also met Valentyn Moroz, another dissident who had been imprisoned as part of the 1965–1966 purge. The two quickly formed a friendship, as they both sought to strengthen the dissident movement and further confront government abuses. Moroz travelled to meet Chornovil no less than four times between his release on 31 September 1969 and his re-arrest on 1 June 1970, and Chornovil in turn visited Moroz's home in

Ivano-Frankivsk Ivano-Frankivsk (, ), formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislav and Stanisławów, is a city in western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as well as Ivano-Frankivsk Raion within the oblast. Ivano-Frankivsk also host ...

multiple times. During this time period, Chornovil, alongside Svitlychnyi and Sverstiuk, also led a donations campaign to prevent Moroz (unable to find employment due to his criminal record) from falling into poverty. The campaign collected 3,500 rubles. He organised further donation campaigns for other formerly-imprisoned dissidents, such as Sviatoslav Karavanskyi and Nina Strokata. In January 1970 Chornovil launched a new samvydav newspaper, known as '' The Ukrainian Herald''. The newspaper contained other samvydav publications, as well as information on human rights abuses by the Soviet government and police which Chornovil believed to be contrary to the

constitution of the Soviet Union During its existence, the Soviet Union had three different constitutions enforced individually at different times between 31 January 1924 to 26 December 1991. Chronology of Soviet constitutions These three constitutions were: * 1918 Constitutio ...

Great Russian chauvinism Great Russian chauvinism () is a term defined by the early Soviet government officials, most notably Vladimir Lenin, to describe an ideology of the "dominant exploiting classes of the nation, holding a dominant (sovereign) position in the state, de ...

and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and other information regarding the dissident movement in Ukraine. Chornovil was the chief editor of ''The Ukrainian Herald'', and one of its three editors (alongside Mykhailo Kosiv and Yaroslav Kendzior). ''The Ukrainian Herald'' maintained a large professional staff, with correspondents throughout Ukraine (ranging as far east as

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

petrovsk and

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

), and has been described by biographer V. I. Matiash as the forerunner to independent press in Ukraine. Fearing arrest, in June 1971 wrote a declaration to the

United Nations Human Rights Committee The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established by a 1966 human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per yea ...

, which he intended to be released in the event he was to be taken into custody. In the letter, he outlined examples of violations of the law by Soviet legal bodies, and argued that Soviet political prisoners lacked the right to defend themselves and were subject to a campaign of eavesdropping, surveillance, blackmail, and threats. He rejected the possibility of cooperating with investigators, writing, "I would rather die behind bars than give in to the aforementioned principles." At this time, Chornovil also departed from principles of

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...

, instead adopting a cautiously favourable view of

libertarian socialism Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other ...

as exemplified by

Mykhailo Drahomanov Mykhailo Petrovych Drahomanov (; 18 September 1841 – 2 July 1895) was a Ukrainian intellectual and public figure. As an academic, Drahomanov was an economist, historian, philosopher, and ethnographer, while as a public intellectual he was a ...

. In an October 1971 letter to Moroz Chornovil remarked that in his studies of anarchist revolutionaries

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...

and

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, s ...

he had come to reject unconditional support for Drahomanov's policies, but believed that the earlier intellectual's libertarian views on self-government were worth supporting. This attitude later informed his support for federalism. Chornovil established the Civic Committee for the Defence of Nina Strokata on 21 December 1971, following the eponymous activist's arrest. This marked a change in his attitude towards the formation of human rights organisations; he had previously rejected them in favour of petition campaigns, viewing the formation of an organisation as impossible due to the circumstances of Ukraine's status within the Soviet Union, but this position had come under increasing criticism from dissidents (notably Moroz) and the Ukrainian public, who viewed them as too slow and without significant results. The committee had its roots in public committees established for the legal defence of

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

, an American civil rights activist whose case was popular in the Soviet Union. Chornovil believed that by delivering information on the case to the U.N. Human Rights Committee Strokata could be freed, and additionally requested the support of Ivan Dziuba, Strokata's close friend Leonid Tymchuk, Moscow-based activists Pyotr Yakir and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, and Zynoviia Franko, granddaughter of the writer Ivan Franko. Dziuba and Franko both refused to take part in the committee. Franko believed that it should be subordinated to

Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Alt ...

's Committee on Human Rights in the USSR and felt that it was pointless to form a group to defend a single individual. Dziuba, on the other hand, refused to join forces with Sakharov's committee, believing that they were insufficiently attentive to repressive activities occurring in Ukraine, and further stated that he would issue a statement about Strokata when he believed the time was right. Other dissidents, such as Svitlychnyi, Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, and Hryhorii Kochur also refused to support the committee. These refusals impacted Chornovil, particularly that of Franko, whose familial ties he believed could help protect the committee from being attacked by the Soviet government. Tymchuk ultimately joined the committee, as did Vasyl Stus. The group based its reasoning on the Soviet constitution, the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...

, and the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom ...

. The committee's publications included, in a first for Soviet activists, the addresses of its members, where submissions for materials on Strokata's behalf were to be sent. It was the first human rights organisation in Ukraine's history, but it would be destroyed the next year after all but one of its members (Tymchuk) were arrested.

Second arrest (1972–1978)

Another wide-reaching crackdown on Ukrainian intelligentsia began in January 1972, sparked by the arrest of the Belgian-Ukrainian Yaroslav Dobosh, an

Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a Ukrainian nationalist organization established on February 2, 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups ...

member tasked with smuggling samvydav out of the Soviet Union. Chornovil was arrested on 12 January following a Vertep celebration at the Lviv flat of Olena Antoniv. He was charged under articles 62 (

anti-Soviet agitation Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) () was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. Initially, the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the October Revolution of 1917 ...

) and 187-1 (slander against the Soviet Union) of the criminal code of the Ukrainian SSR. The Vertep ceremony had been organised as a protest against Soviet cultural and religious policy, additionally serving as a fundraising effort for ''The Ukrainian Herald'' and for political prisoners and their families. It raised 250 rubles, which were used to assist those who had been arrested during the crackdown instead. Chornovil was imprisoned at the KGB pre-trial detention centre in Lviv, alongside Iryna Kalynets, Ivan Gel, Stefaniia Shabatura, Mykhaylo Osadchy and Yaroslav Dashkevych. Chornovil's trial took place behind closed doors. Prosecutors cited as justification for the charges the belief that he was responsible for the contents of ''The Ukrainian Herald'', which he denied. During the investigation, other dissident activists refused to give evidence of Chornovil's role in the paper; it relied on guesses from other individuals, such as Zynoviia Franko, for its arguments. Chornovil likewise refused to give evidence against fellow dissidents or cooperate with investigators, stating during a 2 February 1972 interrogation that he believed his trial to be illegal and unrelated to that of other dissidents. He was interrogated more than one hundred times during his trial, with 83 interrogations in 1972. Chornovil's employment of several different conflicting forms of writing and spelling formed a significant part of his defence, and he used it to argue that he had been blamed without linguistic analysis of the text. In the minutes of a 15 January 1973 court appearance Chornovil asserted, "Any investigation into my case does not exist, there is open preparation of a massacre against me, and no means are being spared. From this moment on, I refuse to participate in such an 'investigation'." Wiretapping of Chornovil's cell led KGB investigators to discover that Chornovil intended to declare a hunger strike if sent into exile outside of Ukraine, and that he desired to be allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Yugoslavia. The sentence given at the conclusion of Chornovil's trial has been disputed;

stated in 1977 that he had been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and five years' exile; ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in March 1973 claimed that he had been subject to twelve years' imprisonment and exile, without differentiating between the two; The

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

in 2015 asserted that he received a term of six years' imprisonment and three years' internal exile, which historians Bohdan Paska and Oleh Bazhan similarly professed. According to Bazhan, Chornovil was sentenced on 8 April 1973 by the Lviv Oblast Court, though Chornovil recollected in 1974 that he had been sentenced on 12 April. Chornovil made three appeals to higher courts regarding his case; the first two were rejected, while the third was formally accepted in part – although no changes were made to Chornovil's sentence. Following his trial Chornovil was sent to a corrective labour colony in the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. From 1973 to 1978 he was variously imprisoned at two camps; ZhKh-385/17-A and ZhKh-385/3. Despite his imprisonment, Chornovil continued to actively lead prisoners' protests, leading him to be nicknamed "General of the zeks" by author and dissident Mikhail Kheifets. He was placed in a after refusing to obey any of the rules which prisoners were meant to follow. B. Azernikov and L. Kaminskyi, two individuals who were imprisoned at the same camp as Chornovil, also described him as having "great authority among all political prisoners," and wrote an open letter to global society urging his release after they left the Soviet Union in 1975. Chornovil's activities continued to draw international attention during his imprisonment. He was recognised as a

by human rights group Amnesty International, and awarded the Nicholas Tomalin Prize for Journalism, recognising writers whose freedom of expression is threatened, in 1975. Around this time Chornovil also began to smuggle his writings out of prison, and used the opportunity as a means to continue to demonstrate Soviet human rights abuses. He wrote a letter to U.S. President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...

urging him to match the policy of

détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...

with increased attention towards human rights in the Soviet Union, alleging that the Soviet authorities had used détente as a means by which to suppress dissident voices. He further urged him to support the

Jackson–Vanik amendment The Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 is a 1974 provision in United States federal law intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies (originally, countries of the Soviet Bloc) that restrict freed ...

, which sanctioned the Soviet Union in an effort to allow for freedom of migration from the country. Alongside Boris Penson, he wrote the samvydav booklet "Daily Life in the Mordovian Camps", which was smuggled to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and published in Russian before being translated into Ukrainian in the

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

-based '' Suchasnist'' journal the next year. The

Helsinki Accords The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...

were signed between 30 July and 1 August 1975. The signatory nations comprised all of Europe (aside from

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

), the Soviet Union, the United States, and Canada. In the Soviet Union, the Helsinki Accords were seen as marking a new beginning for dissidents, who found that they had a means to reveal Soviet human rights abuses. Referring to themselves as "Helsinki monitors", they found support from the United States Congress, which established the

Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was a key element of the détente process during the Cold War. Although it did not have the force of a treaty, it recognized the boundaries of postwar Europe and established a mechanism ...

in July 1976 to organise responses to human rights violations. Mykola Rudenko, a dissident living in the Kyiv neighbourhood of Koncha-Zaspa, declared the formation of the

Ukrainian Helsinki Group The Ukrainian Helsinki Group () was founded on November 9, 1976, as the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights () to monitor human rights in Ukraine. The group was active until 1981 when all ...

on 9 November 1975 in an effort to highlight abuses. Chornovil was imprisoned at the time of the group's founding, and would not be able to become a member until he was released from prison in 1979. Along with Moroz and other political prisoners, Chornovil's resistance activities continued after the establishment of the UHG. The duo took part in a 12 January 1977 hunger strike in which they called for an end to persecution on the basis of national beliefs. At this time, however, a split was forming among Ukrainian political prisoners over whether it was better to actively resist the Soviet prison system (as represented by Moroz, Karavanskyi, and Ivan Gel) and those who favoured self-preservation above all else (as represented by

refusenik Refusenik (, ; alternatively spelled refusnik) was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authorities of the Soviet Union and oth ...

Eduard Kuznetsov, Oleksii Murzhenko, and Danylo Shumuk). With influence from the KGB, the two factions began to clash openly. Chornovil, imprisoned in a different camp from Moroz and Shumuk, refused to take a side in the conflict and served as a mediator. In early 1977, during a meeting with Shumuk at a hospital, Chornovil accused the former of artificially intensifying his conflict with Moroz, and compared letters by Shumuk to Canadian family members (in which he disparaged Moroz) as being equivalent to police complaints. Following his release from prison, Chornovil accused Shumuk and Moroz of being equally responsible for the feud as a result of their egocentric attitudes.

Second exile (1978–1980)

Chornovil was released from prison and again sent to Chappanda in early 1978. There, he continued to write about the status of political prisoners and human rights within the Soviet Union. He also continued to get involved in the conflict between Moroz and Shumuk; in a letter to Moroz's wife Raisa, he called for a public "boycott" of Shumuk, while arguing that Moroz was being inflexible. Moroz's nine-year imprisonment had seriously impacted his mental and emotional state; Chornovil characterised him as self-aggrandising and narcissistic. During his exile, Chornovil's friendship with Moroz came to an end as the former sought to distance himself from the latter, owing to the conflict with Shumuk. During his exile, Chornovil continued to send letters to the Soviet authorities. In a 10 April 1978 letter to the

Procurator General of the Soviet Union The Procurator General of the USSR () was the highest functionary of the Office of the Public Procurator of the USSR, responsible for the whole system of offices of public procurators and supervision of their activities on the territory of the ...

, he criticised the fact that the theoretically wide-reaching rights granted by the Soviet constitution were absent in reality, asking "Why do Soviet laws exist?". He also wrote a samvydav pamphlet, entitled "Only One Year", and was admitted to

PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide professional association, association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association ...

that year. At the time, he was working as a labourer on a

sovkhoz A sovkhoz ( rus, совхо́з, p=sɐfˈxos, a=ru-sovkhoz.ogg, syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated from , ''sovetskoye khozyaystvo''; ) was a form of state-owned farm or agricultural enterprise in the Soviet Union. It is usually contrasted w ...

farm in Nyurba, where he had been sent in October 1979. As previously, much of Chornovil's samvydav works served to illustrate human rights abuses and the conditions faced by prisoners of conscience. Chornovil joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group from exile on 22 May 1979. From November 1979 to March 1980 he was placed under constant surveillance by the KGB, which recorded that he established contacts with dissidents Mykhailo Horyn, Oksana Meshko, and Ivan Sokulskyi. He also made contact with several other individuals who wished to establish chapters of the UHG in the

oblasts of Ukraine An oblast (, ; ), sometimes translated as region or province, is the main type of first-level administrative divisions of Ukraine, administrative division of Ukraine. The country's territory is divided into 24 oblasts, as well as one Autonomous ...

. Unbeknownest to Chornovil, Meshko, at the time leader of the UHG, had also fallen under heavy KGB surveillance, and had ceased to admit individuals in order to prevent their arrests. Zenovii Krasivskyi, a leading UHG member, dispatched Petro Rozumnyi to visit imprisoned and exiled dissidents. Among them was Chornovil, who was asked to replace Meshko as head of the UHG.

Third arrest (1980–1983)

Chornovil was arrested yet again on 8, 9, or 15 April 1980 on charges of attempted rape. The charges are frequently described in Ukrainian historiography as a total fabrication, and were likewise referred to as such by the American ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine. The charges of attempted rape reflected similar such accusations against several other leading dissidents at the time, such as Mykola Horbal, Yaroslav Lesiv, and Yosyf Zisels. Myroslav Marynovych, a member of the UHG, later accused the KGB of outright falsifying information which led to Chornovil's arrest, quoting a KGB officer as stating that "we will not make any more martyrs" by arresting individuals exclusively on political charges. Chornovil's arrest, as well as those of several other dissidents from Ukraine and throughout the Soviet Union, took place amidst a meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, and ''Time'' stated that some observers believed the arrests were done to demonstrate Soviet umbrage towards the Helsinki Accords. Following his arrest, Chornovil declared a hunger strike, characterising his arrest and those of others as contrary to Leninist ideals and an effort to stifle dissent in the leadup to the

1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad () and officially branded as Moscow 1980 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russ ...

. He was moved to a prison camp in Tabaga, Yakutia, where he was placed into a cell smeared with vomit and feces. At one point, he was transferred to a "recreation room", where he had no access to water. Lacking strength as a result of his hunger strike, Chornovil crawled on all fours to reach the prison's toilet, which was one storey below his cell and across the prison yard. Several times, he passed out from exhaustion, and was awoken by being doused in water by guards. During an epidemic of dysentery at the camp, Chornovil was infected, and he promptly ended his hunger strike after doctors stated that they would refuse to treat him if he did not end his hunger strike. Chornovil was later held in solitary confinement from 5 to 21 November 1980 as a response to the hunger strike. He was found guilty by a closed court in the city of Mirny and sentenced to five years imprisonment. Chornovil continued to write in prison, including a February 1981 open letter to the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in which he accused General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...

of orchestrating massive purges against the UHG. He also wrote to his wife, urging "no compromises" in dissidents' reactions to the congress. He wrote another letter on 9 April 1981, this time to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Amnesty International, the

Committee for the Free World The Committee for the Free World was a neoconservative anti-Communist think tank in the United States.John Ehrman, ''The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1994'', Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 139-14/ref> Overview ...

, and the Helsinki Committees for Human Rights urging increased attention towards Soviet persecution of the UHG in formulating their diplomatic policies towards the Soviet Union. Chornovil was released in 1983, but was barred from returning to Ukraine. He remained in the town of Pokrovsk, working as a fire stoker. On 15 April 1985 he was given permission to return to Ukraine by Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

as part of his

. Chornovil spent a total of 15 years imprisoned by the Soviet government.

Return to Ukraine

By the time Chornovil returned to Ukraine, the country had changed dramatically since his 1972 arrest. First Secretary

Petro Shelest Petro Yukhymovych Shelest ( – 22 January 1996) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party from 1965 until his removal in 1972. Ideologically a social moderate and a national communist, he ...

had himself been removed and replaced by

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky Volodymyr Vasyliovych Shcherbytsky (17 February 1918 – 16 February 1990) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party from 1972 to 1989. A close ally of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Sh ...

, a hardliner and a member of Brezhnev's Dnipropetrovsk Mafia. Shcherbytsky had dramatically escalated Russification policies and a crackdown on Ukrainian culture during his rule. Partially as a result of Shcherbytsky's policies, by the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982, less books had been published in Ukrainian than during the rule of Joseph Stalin. On 26 April 1986 an explosion occurred at the No. 4 reactor of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The explosion resulted in the discharge of radiation across northern Ukraine, as well as western Russia and most of Belarus. The disaster's consequences (including the evacuation of thousands of individuals), as well as the early inaction of the Ukrainian communist government, significantly worsened public attitudes towards Shcherbytsky's government. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, the Communist Party of Ukraine experienced a crisis of public confidence, which led Chornovil and other Ukrainian dissidents to begin the process of building a unified group in opposition to communist rule. Chornovil formally re-launched ''The Ukrainian Herald'' on 21 August 1987. The first issue of the renewed newspaper was dedicated to Vasyl Stus, who had died in prison in 1985. The new editorial board comprised Chornovil, Ivan Gel, Mykhailo Horyn, and Pavlo Skochok, and several leading Ukrainian intellectuals contributed essays. The editorial board was based in Chornovil's home, and the ''Herald'' became part of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. In the summer of the same year, Chornovil was visited by Martha Kolomiyets, an American journalist for Ukrainianian diaspora newspaper ''

The Ukrainian Weekly ''The Ukrainian Weekly'' is the oldest English-language newspaper of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, and North America. Founded by the Ukrainian National Association, and published continuously since October 6, 1933, archived copie ...

''. Kolomiyets interviewed Chornovil in a video that was subsequently broadcast on television in Lviv, Kyiv, and Moscow as part of an effort by the Soviet government to create a poor impression of Chornovil. On the contrary, the interview, during which he was allowed to freely articulate the dissident movement's attitude towards religion and Ukrainian culture, only boosted Chornovil's image and that of the dissident movement. Kolomiyets was later arrested as an "American saboteur", but by then the interview had already been widely-publicised and shared. Human rights activities continued to be a significant focus for Chornovil's efforts following his release. On 24 February 1987 he travelled to the

Lubyanka Building Lubyanka (, ) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alex ...

, the KGB's headquarters in Moscow, where he spoke to employees and demanded the release of all political prisoners, the clearing of their sentences, and the return of objects seized from them during searches. While at Lubyanka, he announced that, in response to official celebrations of the 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus', the dissident movement would launch a campaign to reverse the decision of the 1946 Synod of Lviv that merged the

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a Major archiepiscopal church, major archiepiscopal ''sui iuris'' ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Cathol ...

into the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

. Chornovil was one of the founding members of the Ukrainian Initiative Group for the Liberation of Prisoners of Conscience, led by Mykhailo Horyn. The two joined Vasyl Barladianu, Gel, Zorian Popadiuk, and Stepan Khmara in advocating for the removal of anti-Soviet agitation from the criminal code and the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners. Despite Gorbachev's reforms, the Soviet government continued to intervene against Chornovil and other dissidents. In one instance, Chornovil was blocked from attending a planned December 1987 seminar on the rights of non-Russian nations within the Soviet Union by being called to a "preventive" interview in Lviv, where he was warned against involvement in "anti-social" activities. Meanwhile, Shcherbytsky was facing internal revolt over his policies of Russification. The Writers' Union of Ukraine, the state organ of writers, held a plenum titled "Ukrainian Soviet literature in the patriotic and international education of working people" in June 1987. The meeting was dedicated to the preservation and strengthening of the Ukrainian language. In Moscow, Gorbachev was putting increasing pressure on Shcherbytsky, by then the leading conservative member of the Central Committee, to resign from his positions. In response, the Soviet Ukrainian leader launched a public relations campaign against Chornovil and other dissidents, accusing the ''Herald''s editorial board of being supported by "foreign subversive services". A press release was issued by Shcherbytsky's office on 22 December 1987 pledging to increase KGB surveillance of dissidents, particularly Chornovil. Newspapers throughout the country, including ', '' Evening Kyiv'', and '' Lviv Pravda'' were mobilised to attack the dissident movement, as were radio and television stations. Chornovil responded with a letter upbraiding the writers of one such article in the Lviv newspaper ', saying that the treatment of himself and Horyn was comparable to that of

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

15 years prior. On 11 March 1988 Chornovil formally re-established the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in a letter co-signed by Mykhailo Horyn and Krasivskyi, although the group had already resumed activity in the summer of the previous year. By this time, several independent organisations existed, such as the Lion's Society, '' Spadshchyna'', and the Ukrainian Culturological Club. The fragmented nature of the dissident movement (now united under the label of

National Democracy National Democracy may refer to: * National democratic state, a state formation conceived by the Soviet concept of national democracy * National Democracy (Czech Republic) * National Democracy (Italy) * National Democracy (Philippines) * National De ...

) led Chornovil to begin the process of bringing the organisations together into one unified structure in April 1988. Further attention was brought to the idea of unifying independent groups in June, after thousands of people attended protests commemorating the Chernobyl disaster in Lviv. Those present called for a popular front of independent organisations, in line with similar proposals in the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

at the time. Chornovil created the Ukrainian Helsinki Union (, abbreviated UHS) on 7 June 1988. Contrary to its name, the new structure was a political party, though it was not referred to as such in order to avoid giving the Soviet government justification to crack down on activists. It was the first independent political party in Soviet Ukraine. During the founding meeting of the UHS on 7 July 1988, Chornovil presented the party's programme, co-written by him and Bohdan and Mykhailo Horyn. It called for Ukrainian independence, which was described as being beneficial to both Ukrainians and Ukrainian minorities, as well as a confederation between the countries of the Soviet Union. The latter position was one of pragmatism, taken in order to prevent the UHS from being banned. Chornovil's activities during this time period were not limited to Ukraine; he maintained extensive contacts with other dissidents, particularly those from the Baltic states, Armenia, and Georgia. A 8 September 1988 internal notice of the Ukrainian KGB informed employees that an organisation known as the International Committee for the Protection of Political Prisoners, established by Chornovil and Armenian dissident Paruyr Hayrikyan in January 1988, was actively involved in efforts to repeal articles on anti-Soviet agitation, to close prison camps and

psikhushka Psikhushka (; ) is a Russian ironic diminutive for psychiatric hospital. In Russia, the word entered everyday vocabulary. This word has been occasionally used in English, since the Soviet dissident movement and diaspora community in the West use ...

s, and to solidify cooperation between the nationalist movements of Ukraine and other countries within the Soviet Union. At a 24–25 September conference of dissident groups in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, Chornovil (along with Oles Shevchenko and Khmara) represented the UHS. Chornovil wrote the conference's concluding statement, which read, "Hearing the report about the situation in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldavia, Estonia, that the Crimean Tatar movement has, in Georgia ..We call on the participants of the National-Democratic movements of the peoples of the USSR to join us, rallying under the slogan that has always united the peoples of the world who suffered internal or external violence:

For our freedom and yours For our freedom and yours ( or ) is one of the unofficial mottos of Poland. It is commonly associated with the times when Polish soldiers, exiled from the partitioned Poland, fought in various independence movements all over the world.Lonnie R ...

Revolution

The

Revolutions of 1989 The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Communist state, Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts ...

sweeping Central and Eastern Europe throughout 1988 and 1989 greatly interested Chornovil, particularly in their adherence to non-violence. Their success later in the latter year would lead Chornovil to abandon his public support for Marxism–Leninism in favour of anti-communism, which he had supported in private since the mid-1960s but avoided publicly stating in an effort to appear as moderate. Other Ukrainian intellectuals, too, began to back anti-communism, and the Writers' Union of Ukraine began to develop a popular front in late 1988, justifying it as encouraging the populace to become more active in local government and take a greater interest in economic concerns. The Writers' Union published a draft programme for its proposed group in ''Literary Ukraine'' on 16 February 1989, in which it called for the establishment of Ukrainian as the state language of the Ukrainian SSR, a national and cultural revival, and Ukrainian self-government, as well as the strengthening of linguistic rights for minorities within Ukraine. Chornovil additionally supported the spread of

Memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

, a human rights movement in the Soviet Union, to Ukraine, writing a positive letter to the presidium of the group's Ukrainian chapter upon its founding in March 1989. On 18 July 1989, coal miners in the city of

Makiivka Makiivka (, ), formerly Dmytriivsk () until 1931, is an industrial city in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, located east from Donetsk. The two cities are practically a conurbation. It has a population of It hosts the administration of Makiivka ...

, in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, began striking. The strikes, part of a broader, union-wide wave of mining strikes, was primarily motivated by declining social conditions in the region and both Ukraine and the Soviet Union as a whole. Promises made by the Twelfth Five-Year Plan had gone unfulfilled, and severe shortages in basic goods, such as soap, infuriated miners. Soviet leaders, Gorbachev among them, sought to implement

Stakhanovite The Stakhanovite movement was a Mass movement (politics), mass cultural movement for Workforce, workers established by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party in the 1930s Soviet Union. Its promoters encouraged Rationalization (e ...

policies, and worker safety was sacrificed as a result. The striking miners of the Donbas first demanded increased social protections and wages. From the outset, however, several miners had also viewed the Ukrainian independence movement with sympathy as a potential path to self-governance. Chornovil supported the strikes from their early days, issuing a statement on 21 July 1989 in part saying, On the contrary, Shcherbytsky reacted harshly to the strikes. He again mobilised the government against the perceived threat, disparaging the miners in state media and preventing communications between strike committees in various cities. This radicalised the miners, who soon began to call for the resignations of Shcherbytsky and Valentyna Shevchenko, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine. While the strikes were unfolding, Chornovil continued to be active in other political sectors. He published a pre-election programme for himself in August 1989, ahead of the March 1990 Supreme Soviet election, in which he called for "statehood, democracy, and self-government", cooperation with non-ethnic Ukrainians, and federalism. Chornovil's concept of a federal Ukraine was based on twelve "lands" (), with internal borders being roughly defined by the governorates of the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

plus a separate land for the Donbas. Crimea was to exist as either an independent state or an autonomous republic of Ukraine, and the Central Rada was to be reestablished as a bicameral body including deputies elected in equal numbers by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

and from the lands. According to Vasyl Derevinskyi, a biographer of Chornovil, at this time he was also one of the primary individuals pushing for the adoption of pro-independence positions within the UHS at this time, proposing that the question of independence be proposed in the party's programme. On 8 September 1989, the

(, abbreviated as "''Rukh''") was established on the basis of the programme of the Writers' Union. Fully named as the "People's Movement of Ukraine for Perestroika", its first leader was poet Ivan Drach. Despite this, however, Chornovil was the ''de facto'' leader of the party and organised its establishment, according to historian . ''Rukhs founding meeting was the largest gathering of Ukrainian anti-communists ever, comprising around 1,100 delegates, 130 journalists, representatives of the Polish government and the

Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

trade union, members of the Ukrainian diaspora in Latvia and Lithuania, and a select few members of the Communist Party (among them

, Chornovil's future political rival). Coincidentally, Shcherbytsky was forced to resign the same month, a combination of pressure from the miners' strikes and from Gorbachev, whose reforms were at odds with Shcherbytsky's status as one of the few remaining conservatives to hold high office. Late 1989 and 1990 were marked by the consolidation of anti-communist groups as part of the electoral campaign, with the opposition disseminating information via leaflets and amateur newspapers. This was a reaction to the Communist Party's domination of most channels of information, and proved largely successful, forming the basis for Ukraine's later independent media. Another noteworthy part of the anti-communist campaign in 1990 was a human chain from Lviv to Kyiv commemorating the anniversary of the Unification Act, signed on 22 January 1919. Around three million people participated in the chain in what was at that point the largest protest undertaken by ''Rukh''. Chornovil played a significant role in the event being realised, having pushed for the Unification Act's anniversary to be recognised as a holiday. Chornovil, along with other dissidents and the Writer's Union, also pursued a strategy of strengthening ''Rukhs position in rural Ukraine.

Chornovil in government

The Supreme Soviet election, the first multi-party vote in Soviet Ukraine's history, was held on 4 March 1990. It was marked by high turnout, with 85% of registered voters participating. In most of Ukraine, the result was beneficial for the communists, with 90% of previously-elected deputies being re-elected and 373 of 450 deputies belonging to the Communist Party. In all three Galician oblasts, however, the Democratic Bloc, a ''Rukh''-led coalition, won the majority of seats. Ivan Plyushch, who was elected as Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, wrote in 2010 that the communist majority was unable to command the same influence at a parliamentary level as the Democratic Bloc was. Chornovil was elected as a Democratic Bloc deputy from the city of Lviv's Shevchenkivskyi District by an absolute majority, winning 68.60% of all votes against seven other candidates. Within the Supreme Soviet Chornovil was among the leaders of the Democratic Bloc's radical wing. Chornovil was also elected Chairman of the Lviv Oblast Council in April 1990, making him the first non-communist head of government of Lviv Oblast. He quickly adapted from life as a dissident to politics, moving to the right and becoming one of the first Ukrainian politicians to explicitly endorse an anti-communist revolution. In the economic sector, he launched land reforms by abolishing collective farms and redistributing the lands to peasants, privatised the housing market and light industry. Socially, he actively supported Ukraine's cultural and national revival; Ukrainian, rather than Soviet symbols were used by his government, soldiers of the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the S ...

were recognised as veterans, the ban on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church imposed by the Synod of Lviv was repealed and religious holidays were recognised as public holidays. Statues of Vladimir Lenin were

demolished Demolition (also known as razing and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apa ...

for the first time under Chornovil's government, with the statue in Chervonohrad (now Sheptytskyi) being toppled on 1 July 1990. This launched a wave of demolitions of Lenin monuments in Galicia throughout 1990 and 1991. Chornovil's policies were directly at odds with the laws of the Ukrainian SSR and the Soviet Union at the time, and his government was castigated in Ukrainian and Union-wide pro-government media. Despite this, the other Galician oblasts, which had come under the control of ''Rukh'', soon followed Chornovil's example in pursuing reforms. The Soviet government imposed a blockade of Galicia in response, leading to the formation of the Galician Assembly by the oblasts in an effort to strengthen economic ties amongst one another. Chornovil was appointed as head of the Galician Assembly upon its formation. As a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, Chornovil devoted himself to increasing Ukraine's sovereignty within the Soviet Union with the eventual aim of independence, as well as land reform, environmental conservation, minority and religious rights, federalism and the enshrining of Ukrainian as the sole language of government. He was nominated as the Democratic Bloc's candidate for Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, though he refused the nomination and endorsed the coalition's leader, Ihor Yukhnovskyi. Ultimately, neither were elected, as the communists pushed through

Vladimir Ivashko Vladimir Antonovich Ivashko (; , ''Volodymyr Antonovych Ivashko''; 28 October 1932 – 13 November 1994) was a Soviet Ukrainian politician, briefly acting as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the perio ...

. During voting, Chornovil openly called for Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union, arguing it was the only possible way to end what he referred to as the "economic, environmental and spiritual catastrophe" facing Ukraine at the time. Chornovil continued to advocate for federalism, saying in a May 1990 press conference that "Kyivan centralism" would lead to the emergence of Russian nationalism in the Donbas and a Rusyn identity in Zakarpattia Oblast. Historian Stepan Kobuta has argued that the rejection of Soviet laws by Galicia was an expression of Chornovil's federalist beliefs. The same month, as conflicts between rural Greek Catholics and Orthodox Christians broke out, the government of Lviv Oblast experimented with holding referendums in villages to determine which church would be given control of churches. As part of the system, which was conceived by Chornovil, after a decision was reached the majority sect would carry responsibility for building a church belonging to the minority's faith. This system successfully prevented a sectarian conflict from emerging in the region. On 12 June 1990, Russia declared sovereignty within the Soviet Union. This gave a boost to efforts by the Democratic Bloc to push for voting on the

Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine (, ) was adopted on July 16, 1990, by the recently elected parliament of Ukrainian SSR by a vote of 355 for and four against. The document decreed that Ukrainian SSR laws took precedence over the l ...

, which had been blocked by communist deputies. During a 5 July debate on the declaration, Chornovil and fellow coalition member Mykhailo Batih accused the communists of being told how to vote by the Party. Chornovil subsequently revealed that several deputies had received instructions to amend the draft law on sovereignty in order to strip it of measures such as the establishment of an independent military or legal system. This revelation led acting Supreme Soviet chairman Ivan Plyushch to launch an investigation, which intensified after it was discovered that several deputies had quoted the instructions word-for-word. Chornovil and an unknown communist deputy then attempted to begin a vote on the declaration. Plyushch refused, noting that members of the

Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union () was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991. Background The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union was created as part of Mikhail Gorbachev ...

had not yet returned and that quorum was therefore impossible. In response, Chornovil moved to demand the immediate return of Soviet People's Deputies, which was then endorsed by pro-sovereignty communists and passed by a wide margin. Four days later, the deputies returned and debate on the Declaration of State Sovereignty resumed. The anti-declaration group was led by Stanislav Hurenko and Leonid Kravchuk, who claimed that the matter of sovereignty would be resolved in Moscow rather than Kyiv. Ivashko formally resigned from his Ukrainian government positions on 11 July to become deputy

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. was the Party leader, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, country's dissoluti ...

. This move came as a shock to the Ukrainian public, as the CPSU was perceived as collapsing, and Ivashko's resignation from Ukrainian positions to serve the party demonstrated apathy towards the Ukrainian population. Following Ivashko's resignation, the communists were left demoralised, allowing Chornovil to push the declaration through office. It was eventually passed on 16 July 1990, giving precedence to Ukrainian laws over the laws of the Soviet government. This was a major victory for Chornovil, who had privately sought a declaration of state sovereignty since July 1989. Ukrainian public sentiment continued to turn against the government through the remainder of 1990. A series of student protests, known as the Revolution on Granite, began in October after groups of students claimed that the government had manipulated the results in order to prevent the Democratic Bloc from achieving a majority. The students launched a hunger strike on October Revolution Square in Kyiv (now

Maidan Nezalezhnosti Maidan Nezalezhnosti (, ) or Independence Square is the central town square of Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. One of the city's main squares, it is located on Khreshchatyk Street in the Shevchenko Raion. The square contains the iconic Ind ...

), and were subsequently mocked by communist deputies. This insensitive attitude led almost all moderates and national communists to abandon the Communist Party, following the lead of writer

Oles Honchar Oleksandr "Oles" Terentiiovych Honchar (; []; 3 April 1918 – 14 July 1995) was a Soviet and Ukraine, Ukrainian writer and public figure. He also was a veteran of World War II and member of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian parliament. Biograp ...

. These individuals defected to the National-Democrats, further weakening the remaining communists. The

January Events The January Events () were a series of violent confrontations between the civilian population of Lithuania, supporting independence, and the Soviet Armed Forces. The events took place between 11 and 13 January 1991, after the Act of the Re-Esta ...

, in which the Soviet government deployed the military on 16 January 1991 in an attempt to prevent Lithuania from becoming independent, led Chornovil to temporarily reorient his policies towards the establishment of a Ukrainian military separate from the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

. In order to achieve this, he co-founded the Military Collegium of ''Rukh'' alongside Ihor Derkach, Mykola Porovskyi, Vitalii Lazorkin and Vilen Martyrosian, which was tasked with creating the

Armed Forces of Ukraine The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are the Military, military forces of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the president of Ukraine and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rad ...

and preventing the usage of Ukrainian troops in Soviet government crackdowns. Chornovil continued to advocate for integration of the Galician oblasts, particularly in expanding access to education and inter-oblast trade, at the second meeting of the Galician Assembly on 16 February 1991. Chornovil also oversaw a , in which the majority of the Galician oblasts voted for Ukraine to separate from the Soviet Union.

Declaration of independence and presidential election

The Supreme Soviet passed a law on 5 July 1991 establishing the office of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

, with its holder to be determined by

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

. Hardliners opposed to Gorbachev's leadership of the Soviet Union launched a coup d'état on 19 August 1991. At the time of the coup, Chornovil was in the city of

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

on a business trip. Upon learning that a putsch had occurred, he immediately returned to Kyiv and began calling for an emergency session of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR; he also banned the Communist Party's activities in Lviv Oblast. In the Supreme Soviet, the deputies of the Democratic Bloc began to advocate for Ukrainian independence, arguing that Ukraine was a part of Europe and not the Soviet Union. Following the failure of the coup, the Supreme Soviet adopted the

Declaration of Independence of Ukraine The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (''Verkhovna Rada'') on 24 August 1991.European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

and a hypothetical pan-European collective security organisation. Chornovil condemned Kravchuk as "a sly politician" who was "trying to get kraineback into the union," warning that he would re-establish political and economic ties with Russia. 1991 Ukrainian presidential election

Chornovil was initially unpopular due to decades of Soviet propaganda against his beliefs, which Kravchuk had previously directed. The inability of the National-Democrats to nominate a single candidate also contributed to the belief that the dissidents were unfit to rule in the public consciousness. Despite this, Chornovil's campaign gradually began to close the gap outside of Galicia in opinion polling; a poll from November 1991 showed Chornovil with 22% of the vote in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

compared to 28% for Kravchuk, with the number of undecided voters growing from a quarter to one-third of the local electorate. Northwestern Ukraine ( Khmelnytskyi,

Rivne Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast.

and Volyn oblasts) served as a significant battleground from October, as surveys initially forecasted a practical tie before later giving Chornovil a slight lead. Ukrainians voted in both the presidential election and a referendum confirming Ukraine's independence on 1 December 1991. 84.18% of the population participated in the referendum, with 90.32% voting in favour. Kravchuk won the presidential election, with 61.59% of the election. Chornovil placed a distant second with 23.27% of the vote, avoiding a runoff. In contrast to the prior predictions of a Chornovil victory in northwestern oblasts, he ultimately only won in Galicia, though he performed well in

Chernivtsi Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...

Cherkasy Cherkasy (, ) is a city in central Ukraine. Cherkasy serves as the administrative centre of Cherkasy Oblast as well as Cherkasy Raion within the oblast. The city has a population of Cherkasy is the cultural, educational and industrial centre ...

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, Rivne, Volyn and Zakarpattia oblasts, as well as the city of Kyiv. Chornovil accepted defeat on election day, saying "The pre-election campaign gave me the opportunity to travel all over Ukraine, to meet the people and to politicise the East." He later stated that another six months of campaigning, rather than the truncated campaign that occurred in 1991, would have allowed for a victory.

Independent Ukraine

Following the presidential election, fissures developed within ''Rukh'' over the future of the group. One faction, led by Drach and Mykhailo Horyn, sought to dissolve the organisation and support Kravchuk's

nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable. According to Harris Mylonas, ...

efforts, while Chornovil and his supporters sought to reformulate the organisation into a party to support Chornovil's future presidential ambitions. Tensions within ''Rukh'' had also been aggravated by the presidential election, in which several members threw their support behind Yukhnovskyi or Lukianenko, rejecting a ''Rukh'' resolution pledging support for Chornovil as purely recommendatory. At the on 28 February 1992, a split in the organisation was briefly averted. Drach, Horyn and Chornovil were elected as co-chairs of ''Rukh'' as a compromise between the two factions. Nonetheless, the Ukrainian Republican Party and the Democratic Party of Ukraine, which had formed out of ''Rukh'', decided to cooperate with Kravchuk. This unity was brought to an end at the in December 1992, when Chornovil's supporters reorganised ''Rukh'' into a centre-right political party under his leadership. Black Sea with the Crimea highlighted

Meanwhile, a crisis was brewing over the future of Crimea. Crimea's ethnically-Russian population now sought to break away from Ukraine and unify with Russia. On 5 May 1992, tensions came to a head as the local government of Crimea voted to declare its independence from Ukraine. The flag of Ukraine was replaced with the flag of Russia, and a wave of repressions against the indigenous Crimean Tatar population began. Chornovil, who had maintained an interest in Crimean Tatars since his imprisonment, called for the

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada ( ; VR), officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameralism, unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 Deputy (legislator), deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovn ...

(Ukraine's newly-independent parliament, replacing the Supreme Soviet) to cancel Crimea's declaration of independence and demand new elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea. Privately, Chornovil expressed a desire to deploy the Ukrainian military to Crimea, but he did not publicly state this as he felt that such a demand would go unfulfilled by Kravchuk or the rest of the government. As the crisis in Crimea continued, the Ukrainian economy collapsed, a result of the government's failure to adapt to changing economic realities within the former Soviet Union and its economy dominated by imports. Hyperinflation began and productivity rose. At one point, the Ukrainian government considered selling Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction, its nuclear arsenal in order to alleviate economic pressures. These political and economic crises led to fears among many deputies that Ukraine would soon lose its independence; Chornovil, on the contrary, believed that by securing Ukraine's sovereignty, it would lead to an improvement in political and economic conditions, and he continued to oppose Kravchuk, with whom he continued to maintain an acrimonious rivalry. Independent trade unions, incensed by the refusal of Kravchuk's government to guarantee workers' benefits and compensation, launched wide-reaching strikes on 2 September 1992. Like the strikes of 1989–1991 the strikers were largely coal miners, but in contrast to the previous strikes they failed to gain wide-reaching support, a fact that Lafayette College professor Stephen Crowley attributes to it having been called by a nation-wide union instead of by local, Donbas-based strike committees. The coal miners were joined by Kyiv's public transportation workers in February 1993, a measure that made the strike deeply unpopular among the public. Rather than endorsing the strikes, as they previously had, ''Rukh'' condemned them (as did almost all other parties) and called upon the government to "punish the real organisers of the strike". Chornovil in particular argued for the curtailing of political activity, especially strikes, in order to ensure stability. Russia waded into the Crimean crisis later in 1993. , deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, pledged to recognise Crimea if their independence was confirmed by referendum. In June, the city of Sevastopol additionally applied to join the Russian Federation. Pro-Russian activist Yuriy Meshkov became the impromptu leader of the movement for Crimea's annexation into Russia, forming an army comprising soldiers of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and seizing control of police and media buildings with supporters. The increasing perceived threat from Moscow over Crimea led the Ukrainian population to favour maintaining the nuclear weapons that had come under its control following the Soviet Union's dissolution. Chornovil was among the politicians who supported an independent nuclear arsenal, or alternatively membership in the NATO military alliance, which he felt was the only possible deterrent to Russian expansionism in the case that they were required to relenquish their weapons. Despite this, Chornovil insisted that war would not occur over Crimea in the immediate term; he believed that within half a year to a year Crimean separatism would lose popularity and that Russian actions would be limited to financing Crimean separatists and an information warfare campaign against Ukraine. Both of these predictions would eventually prove accurate. Kravchuk's government dissolved the Verkhovna Rada and called snap 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election, parliamentary and 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, presidential elections on 17 June 1993 in a bid to stem the miners' anger. Chornovil initially chose to contest a Kyiv seat in the parliamentary election, as he felt this would establish him as a national figure and give him the opportunity to tour all of Ukraine to spread his ideological vision. His close ally and friend was nominated by ''Rukh'' as the candidate for Lviv's Shevchenkivskyi District. At the time Boichyshyn was Chairman of the Secretariat of ''Rukh''. On 14 January 1994 Boichyshyn was abducted by armed individuals shortly after leaving ''Rukhs campaign headquarters in Kyiv. He has not been seen since, and he is believed to be dead. Boichyshyn's enforced disappearance was a watershed moment in Ukraine, being the first in a series of mysterious deaths of anti-communist politicians and journalists in Ukraine. At the time of Boichyshyn's abduction, Chornovil was campaigning in the southern Mykolaiv Oblast, and the two had spoken by phone shortly before Boichyshyn was "disappeared". Boichyshyn's disappearance had a significant effect on Chornovil. He later chose to instead contest the 357th electoral district (located in Ternopil Oblast) rather than a seat in Kyiv, and he was successfully elected with 62.5% of the vote against 14 opponents. The results of the parliamentary election boded poorly for Kravchuk's chances in the presidential election: 75% of the population turned out to vote, far exceeding expectations of low turnout and apathy. A split developed between eastern Ukraine, which elected candidates of the newly-reestablished Communist Party of Ukraine, and central and western Ukraine, where ''Rukh'' performed particularly well. ''

'' noted after the election that Chornovil was regarded as an expected competitor to Kravchuk, alongside former Prime Minister

and Ivan Plyushch, who both won by significant margins after being established as potential opponents of Kravchuk. In the aftermath of the election, Kravchuk argued in a 25 March 1994 address that the presidential election, scheduled for June 1994, would need to be cancelled and petitioned the Verkhovna Rada to grant him emergency powers to undertake economic reforms and fight organised crime. 120 deputies, largely belonging to the national-democratic opposition, lent their support to Kravchuk in his efforts to cancel the elections and obtain greater powers. ''Rukh'' gave a reluctant endorsement of Kravchuk's call to postpone the elections under the justification that not doing so without reform of electoral laws would lead to a political crisis, though Chornovil refused to back an expansion of his powers and argued that he would use it to empower former communist officials and agree to hand over both nuclear weapons and the Black Sea Fleet (the ownership of which was disputed) to Russia. Chornovil argued that to expand presidential powers would lead to the emergence of "a quiet dictatorship of the oligarchy". Ultimately, neither proposal was passed as communists took control of the Verkhovna Rada's leadership following the election and blocked any efforts to postpone or cancel the election. In spite of his electoral success in the parliamentary election, Chornovil decided not to run in the 1994 presidential election and instead endorsed economist Volodymyr Lanovyi, who had been removed from the government by Kravchuk after proposing reforms to end the economic crisis. Journalist Taras Zdorovylo has claimed that it is possible this decision was taken out of fear for his life and the future of ''Rukh''; according to Zdorovylo, Chornovil used his connections from his time in prison to secretly meet with leading Ukrainian mafia figures, who denied responsibility and claimed that the government had ordered Boichyshyn's abduction. Zdorovylo also notes that Kravchuk's government launched a politically-motivated investigation into the finances of ''Rukh'' during the election and placed both Chornovil and high-ranking party member Oleksandr Lavrynovych under a security escort, which monitored their conversations. Zernovol 2

Kuchma defeated Kravchuk in the election, becoming the second President of Ukraine. Kuchma's subsequent crackdown on independent media caused Chornovil to become one of the foremost critics of his government. Though power transitioned from one individual to another as a result of Kuchma's victory, the political situation did not significantly change; the country remained controlled by the post-communist ''nomenklatura'', which Chornovil would refer to as a "party of power" in 1996, and an emerging class of Ukrainian oligarchs, industrial oligarchs associated with them. The process of drafting and ratifying a Constitution of Ukraine, constitution for independent Ukraine began in 1995. Chornovil, like much of the rest of Ukraine's right-wing and centrist politicians, found himself aligned with Kuchma as the parliamentary left pushed for constitutional articles forbidding the sale and purchase of land and the preservation of Soviet-era local government bodies. Chornovil indicated on 25 March 1995 that he backed Kuchma's proposed constitution, though he expressed that ''Rukh'' had "eleven serious objections" to its adoption. Kuchma's proposed constitution was characterised by Oleksandr Moroz (leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party and then-Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada) as creating an overly-centralised state with strong powers for the executive and lacking an independent judiciary. He rejected Kuchma's constitution, and in June of that year created a second constitutional draft along with Kuchma and 38 other individuals as part of a "Constitutional Commission". This draft was in turn rejected by the right and centre as placing too much power in the president's hands and giving insufficient authority to the judiciary. Chornovil wrote in his ' newspaper on 24 November that the draft was "anti-parliamentary" and accusing the drafters of seeking to obstruct the Verkhovna Rada. A constitution was eventually adopted on 28 June 1996, though several provisions supported by ''Rukh'', such as private property rights, the affirmation of Ukraine as a unitary state and the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination, were not adopted. Aside from the constitution, Chornovil began working as president of the Vasyl Symonenko International Human Rights Foundation in 1994 and became chief editor of ''Chas-Time'' in January 1995. He was also appointed as among the first Ukrainian delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe the same year, and along with the Ukrainian Red Cross Society organised the donation of 50 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Chechen civilians during the First Chechen War. Newspaper ''Gazeta.ua'' wrote in 2017 that Chornovil was one of the supporters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate during the death and funeral of Patriarch Volodymyr of Kyiv, funeral of Patriarch Volodymyr, who he had been imprisoned alongside, as protesters attempted to bury him in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Saint Sophia Cathedral, though online news portal ''galinfo'' indicates that he instead sought to prevent violence and continue the burial. Chornovil praised Kuchma on a number of occasions during the early years of his presidency for his appointment of National-Democrats to governmental positions. Chornovil also paid a visit to

from 14–16 September 1994, where he hosted a conference at the Odesa National Polytechnic University on the future of ''Rukh''. Chornovil's speech at the Odesa Polytechnic advocated for the strengthening of democratic norms and the creation of a middle class via economic reforms. At the same time, he continued his critique of the emerging oligarchy. In 1997, Chornovil escalated his feud with Moroz, condemning his speeches as "primitive populism" and blaming him for the escalation of political polarisation in Ukraine. Chornovil also increasingly advocated for Ukrainian integration with other Central and Eastern European states, calling for the establishment of a "Baltic-Black Sea Union", or (), the demilitarisation of the Black Sea (thus leading to the abolition of the Black Sea Fleet, which had by 1997 been transferred to Russia) and Ukrainian membership in NATO. Along with Belarusian dissident Zianon Pazniak Chornovil actively promoted the idea of the Baltic-Black Sea Union until his death. Western partners such as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Czech President Václav Havel met with Chornovil on multiple occasions, and he increasingly was regarded by Western leaders as a more trustworthy interlocutor than the largely ex-communist leadership of Ukraine. Along with a handful of other politicians, Chornovil attended the inauguration of Aslan Maskhadov as President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 1997. ''Rukh'' formally declared itself to be in opposition to Kuchma's rule in October of the same year.

1998 election

Chornovil again led ''Rukh'' in the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election, this time running as the first candidate on the party's party-list proportional representation, proportional representation list. During the election, ''Rukh'' reversed course on federalism, with Chornovil arguing that calls for Ukraine to become a federal republic were "clan federalism". Chornovil was joined by Volodymyr Cherniak, Foreign Minister Hennadiy Udovenko, Drach and Environment Minister Yuriy Kostenko as the leading party-list candidates, along with Crimean Tatar activist Mustafa Dzhemilev. ''Rukh'' did not form a coalition with any other parties to contest the election, though its candidates included members of non-governmental organisations such as Prosvita and the Ukrainian Women's Union. The party generally campaigned against the left. Chornovil called on all National-Democratic parties to form a coalition against the left and the right-wing Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, additionally arguing for a grand coalition with the pro-Kuchma People's Democratic Party (Ukraine), People's Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united). No party agreed to Chornovil's requests for a coalition. Though they were the second-largest party in the Verkhovna Rada, the result was positive for ''Rukh'', which doubled its seats compared to 1994. For the right in general, however, the election was a disappointment, as only ''Rukh'' passed the 4% threshold for party-list representation and the right in general underperformed its traditional result of 20–25% of seats. ''Rukh'' announced its intention to challenge the election results as illegitimate following the election. The Communist Party of Ukraine again became the largest party in the Verkhovna Rada, with left-wing parties forming a majority. Though he noted that the results were not as bad for the right as the prior election, Chornovil was left exhausted by the campaign and obtained a public image as being constantly fatigued. At the time, he was sleeping no more than five hours per day due to his balancing of commitments between ''Chas-Time'' and politics In Lviv Oblast, his traditional support base and a holdout against the privatisation that had occurred throughout Ukraine, ''Rukhs government was replaced by that of the Agrarian Party of Ukraine, Agrarian Party, under which political scandals involving kickbacks, money laundering and violence resulting from business feuds became frequent.

Ninth congress, 1999 presidential election, split in ''Rukh''

At ''Rukhs , held from 12–13 December 1998, Chornovil announced the party's strategy for the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election, 1999 presidential election. Titled "Forwards, to the east", it called for greater focus on the populations of eastern Ukraine, eastern and southern Ukraine, southern Ukraine while maintaining its opposition to the establishment of Russian as a co-official language with Ukrainian. At the same congress, Chornovil announced his intention to contest the presidency for a second time in the 1999 election. Chornovil and Udovenko were the two primary candidates from ''Rukh'' to be nominated for the presidency; the final decision was intended to be made at a later date. According to Viktor Pynzenyk, leader of the centre-right Reforms and Order Party, he and Chornovil also attempted to persuade Viktor Yushchenko, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, to run for the presidency in 1999. By this time, a split between members of ''Rukh'' who regarded Chornovil as an outdated figure and those who supported him was becoming increasingly apparent. Opponents of Chornovil within the party regarded him as overly-authoritarian, disrespectful of party rules and too close to Kuchma; Chornovil's supporters likewise regarded his opponents as too close to Kuchma and supported by monied interests. Ukrainian historian Pavlo Hai-Nyzhnyk has said that Chornovil withdrew his name from the presidential nomination in January 1999 and according to the Jamestown Foundation he endorsed Udovenko, though Chornovil's son Taras has disputed this, saying he was still campaigning for the presidency until his death. The split came to a head in February 1999. Kostenko led a contingent of ''Rukh'' in declaring Chornovil to be removed as leader in a 17 or 19 February parliamentary meeting, and declared himself leader of the party in a 27 February meeting of his supporters. Chornovil responded at a 22 February press conference where he compared them to the State Committee on the State of Emergency that led the 1991 Soviet coup attempt and accused them of taking $40,000 per month from the Ukrainian government, of taking 4,000 hryvnias from a ''Rukh'' office, and of taking a million-dollar bribe from ''Rukh'' People's Deputy Oleh Ishchenko. ''Kyiv Post'' deputy editor Jaroslaw Koshiw wrote in a 25 February opinion article that only 17 deputies remained loyal to Chornovil following Kostenko's defection. The multitude of newspapers belonging to ''Rukh'' were split by the feud; 11 supported Chornovil, while five backed Kostenko. ''Dzerkalo Tyzhnia'' took an independent stance, but generally blamed Chornovil for the split, along with Kuchma and presidential candidate Yevhen Marchuk. Chornovil and his followers were scornful towards Kostenko's faction following the split; Les Tanyuk said that "These are people more concerned right now with getting their Mercedes and building their dachas", while Chornovil referred to Kostenko's attempted takeover as a "privatisation of the party" and blamed Kuchma and the government for orchestrating the split. In a 2012 court proceeding relating to Chornovil's death, Udovenko testified that in February 1999 he was contacted by Viacheslav Babenko, a Ukrainian citizen employed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). According to Udovenko, Babenko warned him that there would be an attempt on Chornovil's life involving Russian intelligence agencies. Chornovil dismissed Babenko's warning as an attempt at intimidation. Mykola Stepanenko, a Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ukraine), Ministry of Internal Affairs employee tasked with investigating Chornovil's death, noted Babenko as an individual who had substantial knowledge of Chornovil's daily routine and travel plans. Chornovil renamed ''Rukhs parliamentary faction to "People's Movement of Ukraine – 1" on 24 February. On 28 February, Kostenko's supporters organised what they referred to as the tenth congress of ''Rukh'', during which they declared that Chornovil had been officially removed as leader and that the party's period of opposition would be replaced by one of "equal partnership". A congress of Chornovil's followers, referred to as the "second stage" of the Ninth Congress by Chornovil, was held on 7 March and attended by 520 delegates of the ''Rukh'' assembly, more than the two-thirds requirement under the party's statutes.

Death and funeral

On 24 March 1999, Chornovil was at a campaign event in the city of Kirovohrad (now Kropyvnytskyi), either for himself or Udovenko. While in Kirovohrad, he gave an interview where he expressed the belief that Ukraine's financial and organised crime clans were targeting ''Rukh'' in an attempt to destroy it and secure the further accumulation of financial capital. He further claimed that Kuchma could only win by assassinating his opponents or turning them against one another. Details of his last phone calls are disputed; his sister has said that he wished her a happy birthday and described ''Rukhs split as being "all behind us", while Kostenko alleged that he indicated that he had changed his mind and wished to support him, rather than Udovenko, for the presidency. Shortly before midnight on 25 March 1999, Chornovil was returning to Kyiv from Kirovohrad with aide Yevhen Pavlov and ''Rukh'' press secretary Dmytro Ponomarchuk. Five kilometres from Boryspil, while travelling at a speed of , Chornovil's Toyota Corolla collided with a Kamaz lorry carrying grain that was stalling at a bend on the highway. Chornovil and Pavlov were both killed instantly, while Ponomarchuk was hospitalised with serious injuries. Chornovil's funeral was held at Kyiv's Kyiv City Teacher's House, City Teacher's House (where the

had been proclaimed in 1917) on 29 March, with a procession travelling to St Volodymyr's Cathedral before his burial at Baikove Cemetery. ''The Guardian'' reported that "tens of thousands of Ukrainians" were present; the Militsiya (Ukraine), Militsiya claimed a figure of 10,000; while ''The Ukrainian Weekly'' wrote that nearly 50,000 attended "what many consider the largest funeral this city [Kyiv] has ever seen". He was granted a state honour guard, as well as a military orchestra. Most of Ukraine's political elite was present at the funeral, including Kravchuk (who cried at Chornovil's funeral despite their long-running rivalry), Kuchma, Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoitenko, and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Tkachenko (politician), Oleksandr Tkachenko, as well as several former dissidents and the leaders of almost all political parties, with the notable exceptions of the Communist Party (led by Petro Symonenko) and the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (led by Nataliya Vitrenko).

Conspiracy theories and investigations

Suspicions of Ukrainian government involvement in Chornovil's death emerged almost immediately, inflamed by Chornovil's controversial nature and the impending presidential election. Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Kravchenko said in a televised speech on the evening of Chornovil's death that an assassination would not be considered in investigating Chornovil's death. Prior to his burial, Tanyuk and Christian Democratic Party deputy Vitaliy Zhuravskyi both alleged that Chornovil had been murdered, while journalist Serhii Naboka noted that the circumstances of his death were similar to other suspicious deaths of Soviet leaders' political opponents. The lorry driver was initially charged with recklessness, but amnestied within a month, and one passenger died under unclear circumstances. Karatnycky, citing an anonymous member of Kuchma's 1999 campaign, notes that Kuchma's other non-communist rivals failed to form a coalition against him, ultimately leading to his victory; Ukrainian political scientist Taras Kuzio likewise describes Kuchma and Yevhen Marchuk as the only serious non-leftist contenders for the presidency following Chornovil's death. The first attempt to investigate Chornovil's death began with a Verkhovna Rada commission in April 1999. Following the 2004–2005 Orange Revolution, Kuchma's successor Viktor Yushchenko announced that the investigation into the circumstances of the death of Chornovil would be renewed at a 23 August 2006 ceremony inaugurating a statue of Chornovil. On 6 September 2006, Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko declared that Chornovil had been murdered and that evidence proving it had been handed over to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko criticised Lutsenko's statements regarding the case as "to put it mildly, unprofessional," and alleged that the information came from an individual convicted of fraud and for whom an Interpol notice had been issued. Since then, investigations into Chornovil's death have been repeatedly closed and reopened without concluding whether Chornovil was the victim of an assassination plot or a simple car crash. The Boryspil District Court declared that an assassination plot did not exist in January 2014 and closed the case, but as of March 2015 it was again the subject of an investigation by the Prosecutor General's office.

Legacy

Peter Marusenko, a journalist for ''The Guardian'', argued while reporting Chornovil's funeral that his contribution to Ukrainian history was not recognised by many Ukrainians until after his death. In his 2017 book ''The Near Abroad'', professor Zbigniew Wojnowski described Chornovil as "a more inclusive vision of Ukraine, unambiguously pro-European and united by commitment to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy," in contrast to early and mid-20th century nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, and noted that a large poster of Chornovil was present during the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests. Wojnowski defines Chornovil's ideology of "reformist patriotism", advocating for Ukraine to follow reforms of and maintain historical links with Central Europe, as spreading throughout Ukrainian society following Euromaidan and the Orange Revolution. More critically, Chornovil has been accused of ignoring political realities in lieu of "romanticism" and having a naïve attitude towards politics, as in a 2017 Radio Liberty article by philosopher and writer . In particular, Kraliuk notes Chornovil's belief in federalism and refusal to work with Kravchuk following his 1991 election defeat as unconstructive. Chornovil was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine in 2000, in recognition of his significance in reestablishing a Ukrainian state. He was also awarded the Shevchenko National Prize in 1996 for his investigative journalism, particularly his samvydav (among them ''Court of Law or a Return of the Terror?'' and ''Woe from Wit''). He has twice been placed among the ten most popular Ukrainians of all time. In the 2008 ''Velyki Ukraïntsi'' poll, he was placed as Ukraine's seventh most-popular figure, with 2.63% of individuals polled naming him as the greatest Ukrainian of all time. In the 2022 "People's Top" poll, he was the ninth most-popular Ukrainian, with previous polling indicating that his support had increased from 3.5% in 2012 to 8.7% in 2022. In 2003, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin with the nominal of 2 Ukrainian hryvnia, hryvnias dedicated to Chornovil. In 2009, a Ukrainian stamp devoted to Chornovil was issued.

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

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Ukrainian Weekly newspaper biography

Pictures of the Monument

Obituary
The Times
"He who awake the Stone state" (DVD) in the library of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chornovil, Viacheslav 1937 births 1999 deaths First convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada Second convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada Third convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada 20th-century Ukrainian journalists Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by the Soviet Union Burials at Baikove Cemetery Candidates in the 1991 Ukrainian presidential election Death conspiracy theories Dubravlag detainees Komsomol of Ukraine members Libertarian socialists Members of the Lviv Oblast Council People from Cherkasy Oblast People of the Revolution on Granite People's Movement of Ukraine politicians Recipients of the Order of State Recipients of the Shevchenko National Prize Road incident deaths in Ukraine Soviet dissidents Soviet human rights activists Soviet internal exiles Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni Ukrainian anti-Soviet resistance movement Ukrainian dissidents Ukrainian Helsinki Group Ukrainian human rights activists Ukrainian nationalists Ukrainian anti-communists