1937–1999

Viacheslav Chornovil

Dissident and leader of Rukh

Human rights defender, Statesman, Writer

Journalist, dissident and politician who spent more than 13 years in Soviet camps and exile. After his release he became a leader of the independence movement and headed the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh).

Key accomplishments

  • The document collection The Misfortune of Intellect (1967) on political trials of Ukrainian intellectuals
  • Founder and editor of the underground journal The Ukrainian Herald
  • Head of the Lviv regional council (1990), MP, and one of the initiators of the Declaration of Independence
  • Runner-up in Ukraine’s first presidential election (1991); leader of Rukh

Who he was

Viacheslav Chornovil was born in the Cherkasy region into a family of teachers. He graduated from the journalism faculty of Kyiv University and worked in television and for newspapers. In the 1960s he joined the movement of the Sixtiers.

His story

Chornovil collected and circulated materials about closed trials of Ukrainian intellectuals. The result was the collection The Misfortune of Intellect, which was translated and read in the West. Recalling his first arrest, he said he was thrown into a cell with prisoners on death row so that he would break at once, but he did not break. For this, and for publishing the samizdat (self-published underground) journal The Ukrainian Herald, he was convicted several times. In all he spent more than 13 years in captivity, and he returned to Ukraine in 1985.

In 1990 Chornovil became head of the Lviv regional council, and in the first presidential election in 1991 he came second. According to Bohdan Havrylyshyn, President Leonid Kravchuk invited Chornovil into government, even offering to let him name deputy prime ministers and ministers, but he refused and stayed in opposition. He later led the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) and remained one of the most influential opposition figures. On 25 March 1999, ahead of the presidential election, he died in a car crash near Boryspil. The circumstances of his death still raise questions.

Why it matters today

Chornovil is an example of how words and documents can stand up to a totalitarian system. His slogan “Ukraine begins with you” still reads as a call to personal responsibility. And despite his years in prison, he said that if he had to start all over again, “I would choose the life I have lived.” He was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine.