| Viacheslav Chornovil В'ячесла́в Чорнові́л |
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|---|---|
| People's Deputy of Ukraine | |
| In office March 1990 – March 1994 |
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| Majority | 68.60% |
| In office March 1994 – March 1998 |
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| Majority | 62.52% |
| In office March 1998 – March 1999 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | December 24, 1937 Yerky, Kiev Oblast, Ukrainian SSR Soviet Union |
| Died | March 25, 1999 (aged 61) Boryspil, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine |
| Nationality | Ukrainian |
| Political party | People's Movement of Ukraine |
| Spouse(s) | Atena-Svyatomyra Pashko |
| Children | Andriy Chornovil, Taras Chornovil |
| Alma mater | University of Kiev (journalist) |
| Occupation | Politician and Soviet dissident |
| Religion | Ukrainian Orthodox |
| Military service | |
| Awards | Hero of Ukraine "The Order of State" Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise Shevchenko Prize (1996) |
Viacheslav Chornovil (Ukrainian: В'ячесла́в Макси́мович Чорнові́л) (born December 24, 1937 in Yerky, Katerynopil Raion, Kiev Oblast - died March 25, 1999, near Boryspil, Kiev Oblast) was a Ukrainian politician. A prominent Ukrainian dissident to the Soviet policies, he was arrested multiple times in the 1960s and 1970s for his political views. A long-time advocate of Ukrainian independence, he was one of the most prominent political figures of the late 1980s and early 1990s who paved the path of the contemporary Ukraine to its independence.
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Chornovil studied journalism at the University of Kiev and joined the Komsomol. He graduated in 1960.
Chornovil worked for various newspapers and in television in Lviv and Kiev. He became known as a dissident after documenting the illegal imprisonment of some Ukrainian intellectuals. He himself was ordered to stand witness and testify at one of them, but he refused and was sentenced to three months of labor. Later, he covered a similar story about twenty Ukrainians.[1] He was charged with slander and sentenced to three years of imprisonment,[2] but was released in half the time under a general amnesty in 1967 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. The Times awarded him the Tomalin Prize for the documentation of the trials.
He was imprisoned another time for being involved in Ukrainian separatist movements and affiliated publications. Chornovil renounced his Soviet citizenship and decided to move to Canada in 1975 but was not permitted to do so. He joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which helped to monitor and enforce the 1975 Helsinki Accords.
He was arrested yet again for "attempted rape" in a falsified case in 1980 and was sentenced to five years in prison,[3] after which he carried out a 120-day-long hunger strike. He was released in 1983 following the protest of the Prosecutor. He was arrested various other times during the next ten years. In the late 1980s actively participated in the Ukrainian national movement becoming of the first leaders of the People's Movement of Ukraine (better known as Rukh). In 1988 there was a first attempt to create the "Democratic Front in support of Perestroika" in Lviv only to be dispersed by the Soviet OMON canine unit. Later he promoted several nationally oriented actions one of them was the Zhyvy lantsiuh that took place on January 21, 1990 and commemorated the act of unification of the Ukrainian lands in 1919 (see Act Zluky).
Chornovil ran for President of Ukraine in 1991 but was defeated. He was one of the most important members of the People's Movement of Ukraine, a right-wing party. He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada for the People's Movement of Ukraine in 1994 and 1998 and was the head of that party. In 1999 his party was almost dissolved due to disagreements within. There are speculations that the failure to liquidate the party led to the road accident that took the Chornovil's life. That fact is mentioned in the documentary movie of Volodymyr Onyshchenko He who awoke the Stone state.[4]
Chornovil was expected to become the main opposition candidate against the incumbent president Leonid Kuchma for the 1999 presidential election, but Chornovil's presidential campaign was interrupted in its early stages by his suspicious death in an automobile crash on March 25, 1999, his assistant Yevhen Pavlov was also killed in the crash .[5] The official investigation carried by the Ministry of Internal Affairs concluded that the crash was purely accidental and discovered no evidence of the foul play. However, some of Chornovil's supporters called his death a political murder and called on bringing those responsible for it to justice. The fact of murder is stated on the website dedicated to Vyacheslav Chornovil and created by his son Taras Chornovil, a deputy of Verkhovna Rada formerly from the Party of Regions[6]
In 2003, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin with the nominal of 2 Hryvnias dedicated to Chornovil.
On August 23, 2006, Viktor Yushchenko, the previous President of Ukraine, unveiled a monument to Chornovil and ordered a new investigation into his death. On September 6, 2006, Yuri Lutsenko, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, announced that based on the information he saw, he personally believes that Chornovil was a victim of the murder rather than a car accident.[7][8] Lutsenko stated further that the investigation is now carried by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine, the law enforcement authorities not under Lutsenko's control. He went further, alluding that "certain circles" in the Prosecutor's Office and Security Service are stonewalling the investigation.[9] However, on August 9, Oleksandr Medvedko, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, commented at the news conference that Lutsenko's statement is "unprofessional" as his conclusions are based on unreliable information.[10]
On March 25, 2009 a funeral service was held in near the memorable sign in Boryspil and admirers (including the Mayor of Kiev (then Leonid Chernovetskyi)) lead flowers on his monument in Kiev to mark the 10 year passing after Chornovil's death.[11] The same day the People's Movement of Ukraine called on the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to complete investigation into the case involving the killing of their former leader Viacheslav Chornovil and his assistant Yevhen Pavlov in a road incident until 2010.[5]
In 2009, a Ukrainian stamp devoted to Chornovil was issued.[12]
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