Died the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk

The first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, has died. He was 88 years old, reports «Radio Svoboda».

Photo: Shutterstock

“Today, May 10, 2022, at 17:00 Kiev time, Leonid Makarovich Kravchuk, the first president of independent Ukraine, passed away after a long illness,” the message says.

At the end of June 2021, 87-year-old Kravchuk underwent heart surgery. In September, he was transferred to Germany for rehabilitation. Later it was reported that the former president came out of a coma in the intensive care unit of a Munich clinic.

The future first president of Ukraine was born on January 10, 1934 in the village of Veliky (Big) Zhitin. However, there may be discrepancies regarding the correct date, since Leonid Makarovich himself speaks of it like this: “Mom said that I was born on Christmas holidays. And she said that they baptized me on January 10 - that's for sure. And not the birthday was recorded in the metric, but the day of baptism.

Childhood and youth

At the age of 10, the boy lost his father - Makar Kravchuk died in the war, fighting for his homeland. The upbringing of the son fell entirely on the shoulders of the mother, and later the stepfather. The family, as before, did not live well - Leonid would later recall how he walked barefoot until the first snow. However, the difficulties not only did not break the young man, but also tempered his character, making him what he later became.

Leonid, despite life's difficulties, nevertheless received a secondary education and successfully entered one of the technical schools in the city of Rivne. After graduating with honors, the young man continued his studies at the Kiev State University (now the Kyiv National Shevchenko University), which he was admitted to in 1953 without exams, reports ThePerson.

In order to somehow survive on a tiny scholarship, Kravchuk, along with his classmates, adapted to go to work at night, and although the job was not very prestigious - unloading frozen fish - it brought a good income. At the same time, Leonid Makarovich managed to attend all the couples and study perfectly.

First job and beginning of party activities

Upon graduating from the university in 1958, Leonid Kravchuk was forced to leave the capital - the leadership of the university sent the young specialist to Chernivtsi, where he was to teach political economy to students of one of the technical schools.

Here he again faced domestic disorder. But if during his studies he shared a room in a hostel with guys, then this time the young specialist was settled in a women's hostel. Although it was not a dwelling, but the so-called "red corner", where all the symbols inherent in the Soviet Union were stored, it was still extremely inconvenient.

This alignment of things lasted until 1960, until the young man was offered a position as a consultant-methodologist in the House of Political Education. The next stage in Kravchuk's career was the transfer to the administration of the Chernivtsi Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. With this organization, Kravchuk's promotion as a major party worker began - he rose to a serious position and became the head of the agitation and propaganda department, after which he went to graduate school at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee for further education.

On the subject: Ukrainian journalists awarded Pulitzer Prize: full list of laureates in 2022

After receiving the degree of candidate of economic sciences, Kravchuk is slowly but surely moving towards his goal - for 18 years, step by step, he has been rising higher and higher. In the period from the 70th to the 88th year, Leonid Makarovich worked in various positions in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, in the 89th he became the head of the ideological department, and in the 90th he was already a member of the Politburo and second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

Parliament and the Presidency. Rise and fall

By the beginning of the 90s, Kravchuk already had weight in the political arena of Ukraine and was quite an authoritative person. However, his election to the post of chairman of the Verkhovna Rada was more an accident than a pattern.

In 1989, Volodymyr Ivashko headed the Ukrainian Communist Party from Kyiv, which was no surprise to anyone - most of the deputies were his fellow party members who supported "their" candidate. A little later - in 1990 - they also contributed to his passage to the post of head of parliament, having previously found a replacement for Ivashka as head of the Communist Party - Stanislav Gurenko became him. Such an action was quite in the spirit of that time - it was not supposed to occupy two high-ranking positions at once.

Everything went to its logical conclusion and Ivashko took office, but he took a rather rash step, agreeing to the proposal of the incumbent President Mikhail Gorbachev to become the first deputy general secretary, that is, in fact, his own deputy. Gorbachev wanted to appear in the international political arena exclusively in the role of a statesman, and not a communist leader, and for this he simply had to “throw off” his duties as a communist onto someone else. So Ivashko left the ranks of parliamentarians and hastily moved to Moscow, which extremely outraged the deputies. Could the people's deputy then think that the desire to move up the career ladder would play a cruel joke on him in the context of the events that would soon unfold in his native Ukraine?

However, the indignation was replaced by bewilderment: "Who will now become the chairman of the Rada?" Stanislav Gurenko proposed his own version - it was the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine - Leonid Kravchuk. His candidacy pleased the majority.

The communists relied on his party membership, completely trusting him, and the nationalists (or rather, the nationalist-minded deputies, since no one spoke about it aloud), believed that Kravchuk, as a native Western Ukrainian, would take their side and desire to see Ukraine independent. So in 1990, Leonid Kravchuk was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

December 5, 1991 Leonid Kravchuk bypasses Chornovil in the first ever independent elections and becomes the full president of Ukraine. Such a choice of fellow citizens was dictated by logical considerations - the people, who only yesterday lived in one single country, preferred the candidate who spoke about maintaining friendly relations with Russia, and of course the agricultural industry. Chernovol, as an ardent nationalist, could not boast of such speeches.

However, Kravchuk's election slogans remained just words. Having signed an agreement on the creation of the CIS, Leonid Makarovich, nevertheless, did everything so that the Rada would not ratify its Charter. In 1992, a wave of indignation swept Ukrainians - the monetary unit of Ukraine, the karbovanets, put into circulation at the international level meant the termination of most economic ties and agreements within the former USSR. Further more - inflation, which covered the country headlong, forced to literally go out into the streets and trade - personal belongings, clothing, equipment, in order to somehow survive.

Naturally, this could not pass without a trace for the authorities - people, including the Ukrainian elite, achieved the limitation of power and parliament, sharing their powers with the prime minister, who became Leonid Kuchma. The conflict that arose between the president and the prime minister resulted in snap elections in 1993, which Kuchma successfully won.

After 2014

In 2015, Kravchuk became chairman of the Movement for Ukraine in NATO public organization. In 2016, he said that the Ukrainian people were the gravedigger of the USSR. At the same time, in August 2018, on the air of the ZIK TV channel, Kravchuk said that he had become disillusioned with Ukrainian society over the years of the country's independence, and was critical of both citizens and the political elite.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York.

From July 28, 2020 to February 21, 2022 - Chairman of the contact group on resolving the situation in Donbas.

Personal life

The love of Leonid Kravchuk's life - from his youth - was a woman named Antonina (nee Mishura). Having met at the university, they immediately realized that they had a lot in common: views on the world and even marital status (both grew up without a father). While still very young, they had to go through many trials, but this only strengthened their marriage. Antonina Kravchuk is a scientist, candidate of economic sciences, teacher.

Interesting Facts

• The monument to Leonid Shchors in Kyiv was created from nature, and it was Kravchuk who became the model for him.
• Kravchuchka - a two-wheeled wheelbarrow for transporting a small load - is named after Leonid Makarovich. During his reign, she became a very popular "transport".
• Leonid Kravchuk became the only representative of the authorities of a foreign state, whose portrait was placed on the postmark of Austria (1992).
• Among the hobbies of Leonid Kravchuk, hunting occupied a special place. But as he himself admitted, shooting game is not his thing. The first president of Ukraine preferred to communicate with nature.

Read also on ForumDaily:

In Russia, the legendary American robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ranked among the front-line soldiers who were separated by the war

Biden signed the lend-lease law for Ukraine: what does it give and how will it affect the course of the war with Russia

'Smart, honest, decent people are no longer needed in Russia': IT specialists and scientists are leaving the country

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.