1937–1999
Viacheslav Chornovil
Dissident and leader of Rukh
After his first arrest he was thrown into a cell with death-row prisoners to break him at once. It didn’t work: the journalist Viacheslav Chornovil spent more than 13 years in captivity, then became a leader of the fight for independence and head of 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
The cell that was meant to break him
“They threw me into a cell with prisoners on death row. They wanted to break me at once,” Viacheslav Chornovil recalled of his first days after arrest. It didn’t work: by then he had already written his books about the closed trials of Ukrainian intellectuals.
Chornovil was born in 1937 in the Cherkasy region into a family of teachers. He graduated from the journalism faculty of Kyiv University, worked in television in Lviv and for newspapers in Kyiv, and in the 1960s joined the Sixtiers. In 1965, when mass arrests of intellectuals began, he spoke out openly against the repressions together with Ivan Dziuba and Vasyl Stus. His collection The Misfortune of Intellect, about the political trials, was published abroad.
More than 13 years in captivity
For The Misfortune of Intellect, and later for the samizdat (self-published underground) journal The Ukrainian Herald, Chornovil was convicted several times. He served his terms in camps in Mordovia and in exile in Yakutia, and even there he kept writing appeals and going on hunger strike. In 1985, after more than 13 years in captivity, he returned to Ukraine.
From Lviv to Rukh
In 1990 Chornovil became head of the Lviv regional council, he was among the initiators of the Act of Declaration of Independence, 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 became head of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh). On 25 March 1999 Chornovil died in a car crash near Boryspil in circumstances that have never been cleared up.
Why it matters today
Chornovil showed that words and documents can stand up to a totalitarian system. His slogan “Ukraine begins with you” reads as a call to personal responsibility. And about his own life 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.
