I liked this title, so I’ve stolen it for my column too. There are ten people who I think have have made big difference to Ukraine, both as to where it has come today and where it can go tomorrow.
Viacheslav Chornovil. He did the absolutely right thing at the absolutely right time in 1990-1. Chornovil focused all the pro-Ukrainian energy enough to push the country to the brink of independence. It was the impetus needed by Leonid Kravchuk to go ahead and make it legal. Alas he died with his movement, Rukh, torn apart by petty ambitions, as distant as ever from taking power in the legislature or the president’s office.
Leonid Kravchuk. Despite having the soul of a party ideologue, he allowed healthy national ambitions to come to the fore in 1991. As the de facto head of the Ukrainian SSR, he had seen agitation for a national vision since the summer of 1990, when a group of students launched a hunger strike on what was then October Revolution Plaza. When Kravchuk saw that the Aug. 21, 1991 putsch in Moscow was not gaining popular support, he officially declared Ukraine independent Aug. 24. This freed Ukraine from over 350 years of the Russian yoke and led to the break-up of the last great (evil) empire. Although Kravchuk then did little to move forward economic and political reform, he had launched a bloodless revolution. Kyiv’s central plaza is now called Maidan Nezalezhnosti – Independence Square.
Leonid Kuchma. To love him may be hard, to hate him easy enough, but by pretending he was still a hardcore “red director” Kuchma did con eastern Ukraine into voting for him rather than the communists in 1994. This replaced the passive Kravchuk with someone who, while constantly walking the line between the West and Russia, managed to start economic and political reform at last. Linked to some big scandals ever since he made Lazarenko his premier in 1996, Kuchma has proved to be a prickly, manipulative aparatchik. But in that, he’s no worse than Richard Nixon, who was supposedly far smarter. Now if he would only retire honorably after this term and let the next generation run the country, Kuchma will have made his greatest contribution.
Pavlo Lazarenko. He opened the can of worms that is the dirty world of thieving oligarchs, with links going straight to his one-time boss, Kuchma. Lazarenko also proved that, while every dog may have his day, the chickens do come home to roost. Like all those ex-soviet drivers who think they can still dodge traffic by sneaking down the oncoming lane in Chicago, Lazarenko tried to enter the US on a fake passport. Officials started wondering who the heck he was and he’s been waiting trial in the US for money-laundering ever since. Let’s hope he’s sentenced to jail before being extradited to Ukraine for murder, otherwise the fate of Volodymyr Shcherban and Vadym Hetman, two assassinated bigwigs, could await him.
Viktor Yushchenko. First as governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, and then as a reluctant premier under Kuchma, he proved his ability to reform a heavily entrenched aparatus. Yushchenko was responsible for the hryvnia’s introduction in 1996, and for improving Ukraine’s international image. Several of the IFIs linked further credits to Ukraine to his active participation. But the 1998 murder of his mentor, Vadym Hetman scared him from running for president. A low-key, sometimes uninspired public man, Yushchenko is still the closest Ukraine has to a popular leader.
Yulia Tymoshenko. Joan of Arc she may not be, but Tymoshenko has shown that even a rich, powerful and beautiful politician can see the light – read Viktor Yushchenko – and begin to work as a statesman, that is, in the interests of the nation. As a one-time insider who knew the tricks of the trade, Tymoshenko cleaned up the energy sector. This contributed to desperately-needed state revenues, but also gained the enmity of her former colleagues, the energy oligarchs. When she turned to the coal sector, they called in the chips and she landed briefly in jail. If she can curb personal ambitions and work with better qualified and less compromised people like Yushchenko and Oleksandr Moroz, Kuchma can probably be “persuaded” to retire.
Georgiy Gongadze. A pesky on-line journalist with a penchant for adventurism, Gongadze hit the limelight when he suddenly vanished in September 2000. The scandal that unfolded with the discovery of his mutilated body two months later, and tapes linking the affair to Leonid Kuchma, rocked the entire world, setting in motion the first serious political protests in Ukraine since 1991 and causing everyone to question the nature of the nation’s mass media.
The Klitschko brothers. I know, I know, everyone thinks Dynamo Kyiv is bigger. But the Klitschko brothers, especially the younger Vlodya, are not just good boxers, they are slowly changing the feel of the sport. Vlodya’s thoughtful, controlled approach, persistence and accuracy make a blood-sport look almost attractive, rather than the punch-out that it generally is. And their classiness is being associated with Ukraine internationally.
Oleh Skrypka. The intrepid leader of VV, Skrypka’s howly style has elevated folk-based melodies to high rock, even in the Russian bastion of Moscow – not known for its appreciation of things Ukrainian. The band stormed the city in the late nineties and plays to full houses regularly. Spring has come, indeed.
Andriy Fedur. Maybe we shouldn’t kill all the lawyers, just yet. Fedur has been quietly taking on some of the most high-profile cases in Ukraine and making gradual headway with all the forces set against his clients. His portfolio reads like a who’s who of those Kuchma most likes to hate: Gongadze’s mother Lesia, Yulia Tymoshenko, Slovianskiy Bank Veep Boris Feldman, Justice Mykola Zamkovenko (who released Tymoshenko from jail), Orlan beverages founder and Derzhrezursy boss until recently Yevhen Chervonenko, and deputy Mykola Agafonov. Fedur may yet prove that there is justice in Ukraine.
Now I know everybody out there is going to have a list of people I missed, but I do have to draw the line somewhere… •
–from the notebooks of Pan O.
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