The Greatest Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Великі українці) was a Ukrainian TV project. The programme was the result of a vote conducted to determine whom the Ukrainian public considers the greatest Ukrainians have been in history.
The show is running under a license from the BBC and originally has appeared on British TV under the name 100 Greatest Britons which has had there nationwide success. Such countries as Canada, France, Germany, Holland and many others have also created their own versions.
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The TV show was broadcasted on Inter being 90-180 minutes long during Sunday prime-time. Host of the program Savik Shuster started primaries (pre-voting) during his other Friday talk show The Freedom with Savik Shuster. Co-host of the programme was Inter's news anchor Hanna Homonai. Pre-voting took place in a number of Ukrainian cities such as Kiev, Lviv, Yalta, Kharkiv, Odessa, Donetsk, Simferopol, Nizhyn, Mykolayiv, Ostroh, Chernivtsi, and Kamianets-Podilskyi.
On 11 April 2008, the top 100 of Great Ukrainians were announced. The top 10 was to be re-voted, and the results were shown on 16 May 2008. The final top 10 were[1]:
An hour long documentary was filmed on each of the top 10 nominees, each of them hosted by a celebrity advocate, who delivered a passionate argument as to why their choice should be voted the greatest Ukrainian of all. The series concluded with a debate on the merits of each selected Ukrainian, bringing all of the advocates together to make a final plea to voters.
| No. | Great Ukrainian | Celebrity Supporter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikolai Amosov | Vitaly Korotich |
| 2 | Stepan Bandera | Vakhtang Kipiani |
| 3 | Valeri Lobanovsky | Leonid Kravchuk |
| 4 | Hryhorii Skovoroda | Ostap Stupka |
| 5 | Lesya Ukrainka | Roman Viktiuk |
| 6 | Ivan Franko | Svyatoslav Vakarchuk |
| 7 | Bohdan Khmelnytsky | Dmytro Korchynsky |
| 8 | Vyacheslav Chornovil | Taras Chornovil |
| 9 | Taras Shevchenko | Bohdan Stupka |
| 10 | Yaroslav I the Wise | Dmytro Tabachnyk |
Chief of project “Great Ukrainians”, journalist Vakhtang Kipiani informed the public in his blog, that the voting system had been manipulated by unknown persons. He stated that couple of days prior to publishing the results he was aware for the possible win for Yaroslav the Wise. Prior to that with a huge lead on the first place was the controversial Stepan Bandera who is hated by non-Ukrainians. For example, the winner, Yaroslav I, the Wise received 60.000 votes in one month and almost 550.000 in just one day. Nikolay Amosov, that took the second place, received almost 150.000 votes in just one day. Kipiani said that if the manipulation wouldn't have taken place that not Yaroslav the Wise would have won but the highly controversial Stepan Bandera. To many - especially in western Ukraine - he is a hero and a freedom fighter, but to others (not specified by BBC), Bandera was a terrorist, and a traitor to the Soviet motherland.[2]
Among other Great Ukrainians for whatever reasons appeared Vladimir Lenin as well as such names like Stakhanov, Glushkov, Vatutin, Khrushchev, Sviatoslav I, Vladimir II, Olga of Kiev. And if the last three at least were born on territory of Ukraine, the rest not only were not born in Ukraine, but never even spoke a word of Ukrainian and have a little or nothing at all to do in contribution to authenticate their Ukrainian culture.
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