The People's Movement of Ukraine ( uk, Народний Рух України, Narodnyi Rukh Ukrayiny) is a Ukrainianpolitical party and first opposition party in Soviet Ukraine. Often it is simply referred to as the Movement ( uk, Рух, Rukh). The party under the name Rukh was an observer member of the
European People's Party
The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily Ch ...
(EPP) until 2013.
Rukh gathers most of its voters and support from Western Ukraine. In November 2016, the party had 35,000 members.
History
Public movement
Initially organized as the People's Movement of Ukraine for
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
, Rukh was founded in 1989 as a civil-political movement as there were no other political parties allowed in the Soviet Union but the Communist Party. The founding of Rukh was made possible due to
Soviet General Secretary
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
's
Glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
policies.How 1989 fanned flames in Ukraine BBC News (10 June 2009) The program and statutes of the movement were proposed by the Writers Association of Ukraine and were published in the journal ''Literary Ukraine'' (Literaturna Ukraina) on 16 February 1989. The organization has its roots in Ukrainian dissidents — the most notable of them being Viacheslav Chornovil — yet not excluding the fact that it was accepting various other politically oriented members from liberalcommunists to integralistnationalists. From March to September 1989 numerous constituent party conferences took place across Ukraine. The first Constituent Congress of the "People's Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction" took place on 8–10 September 1989 in Kyiv. Elected as the first leader of the movement was the Ukrainian poet and screenwriter Ivan Drach.
Appearance of the organization coincided with dismissal of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky as the First Secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and rise of Leonid Kravchuk. On one hand Kravchuk officially promised that "faster he will grow hair on his palm than Rukh will be registered", on the other hand according to author of the book "People's Movement of Ukraine. History" ( uk, Народный рух Украины. История), Hryhoriy Honcharuk, with reference to Ivan Drach, it was Kravchuk who facilitated publishing of the Rukh's program draft in "Literaturna Ukrayina" in February 1989.Rakhmanin, S. Rukh and the presidents: a story of amorous dragon (РУХ И ПРЕЗИДЕНТЫ: ИСТОРИЯ ВЛЮБЧИВОГО ДРАКОНА) '.
Mirror Weekly
''Dzerkalo Tyzhnia'' ( ua, Дзеркало тижня), usually referred to in English as the ''Mirror Weekly'', was one of Ukraine's most influential analytical weekly-publisher newspapers, founded in 1994.KPI Talanchuk would grant the Politech's Assembly Hall to hold the Rukh's constituent congress.
The official
Soviet press
Printed media in the Soviet Union, i.e., newspapers, magazines and journals, were under strict control of the Communist Party and the Soviet state. The desire to disseminate propaganda is believed to have been the driving force behind the creatio ...
and government portrayed members as anti-Semites at first.
The movement's biggest public, political, cultural, and social actions were:
* Human chain (1990) – a chain of volunteers that stretched around all the way from the city of Lviv to the city of Kyiv, the capitals of the two former Ukrainian states that signed the '' Act Zluky'' (Unification act) on 22 January 1919. According to the Department of Internal Affairs ( Ukrainian SSR) there were only 450,000 participants, while the organizers claimed that there were between four and five million.
*Mass excursions (1990) – festivities near Nikopol and Zaporizhzhia to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Zaporozhian Cossacks from 7 September through 12.
*Various activities near
Berestechko
Berestechko ( uk, Берестечко) is a town in Lutsk Raion, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It is located on the Styr River. Population:
History
Berestechko received Magdeburg rights in 1547. Around the same era, Socinian communities were activ ...
, Baturyn, Lubny, and Khotyn.
At first the movement aimed at supporting Gorbachev's reforms, later the People's Movement of Ukraine was instrumental in conducting an independence referendum in the Ukrainian SSR. This was partially due to the
Russification
Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
Russian language
Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...
as the singular official state language of the country in 1989. During Rukh's existence within the Soviet Union, its members were threatened and intimidated. In the western oblasts "Rukh" became colloquially known as an abbreviation for the call ''Save Ukraine, fellows!'' (Рятуйте Україну, Хлопці!).
Political party
The movement initially registered by the Ministry of Justice on 9 February 1990 as the political party. After the creation of the Ukrainian Republican Party (URP) in January 1990 and later the Democratic Party of Ukraine (DemPU), the People's Movement of Ukraine unofficially existed as a coalition of those two along with numerous other smaller factions. These parties created a group within the Verkhovna Rada called the " Democratic Bloc" which stood in opposition to "Group 239", which was led by Oleksandr Moroz ("For the sovereign Soviet Ukraine") (see
1990 Ukrainian parliamentary election
The first relatively free election to the Supreme Soviet (Rada) held in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) took place in several stages, from March 4 to March 18, 1990. The elections were held to elect deputies to the republ ...
). In October 1990 Rukh's second Party Congress took place. During the session it was decided to exclude the word "Reconstruction" (
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
), not to be associated with the Communist movement. Ivan Drach was re-elected as leader, while his deputies became Mykhailo Horyn and Oleksandr Lavrynovych. In order to draw the URP and DemPU closer to Rukh, the "Institute of Associative Membership in the Movement" was established. The brittle coalition of the mentioned parties held until the presidential elections in September 1991 when URP and DemPU provided their own candidates in opposition to Vyacheslav Chornovil.
From 28 February – 1 March 1992 the third Party Congress took place during which a schism within Rukh was avoided by electing a leadership triad of Ivan Drach, Mykhailo Horyn, and Vyacheslav Chornovil. The new deputy leaders were M. Boychyshyn, O. Burakovsky, V. Burlakov, and O. Lavrynovych. The "Institute of Associative Membership in the Movement" was formally recognized as dissolved due to both the URP and DemPU declaring themselves as supporters of state president Leonid Kravchuk. The People's Movement of Ukraine declared its parliamentary opposition to the government and in January 1992 re-registered due to substantial changes in its statutes. Soon Ivan Drach left the party, followed by the resignation of Mykhailo Horyn in June 1992 together with V. Burlakov. Horyn was soon elected as leader of the Ukrainian Republican Party. In December 1992 Rukh's IV Party Congress took place which once again revised its statute and the party's goals. Vyacheslav Chornovil was elected leader, the rest of the party's leadership was left without major changes. During the Congress some party delegates in opposition to Chornovil created the All-National Movement of Ukraine (VNRU), headed by Larysa Skoryk.
The People's Movement of Ukraine was registered by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice as a political party on 1 February 1993.Народний Рух України Database DATA Rukh's parliamentary faction split up into 2 different factions in the spring of 1999 (the breakaway faction was led by Hennadiy Udovenko with its highest Rada membership of 19 dwindling to 14; the "other" faction ended with 23; meaning that 10 elected People's Movement of Ukraine deputies did not represent any segment of the party anymore by June 2002).Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition by Roman Solchanyk, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001 Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design by Paul D'Anieri,
M. E. Sharpe
M. E. Sharpe, Inc., an academic publisher, was founded by Myron Sharpe in 1958 with the original purpose of publishing translations from Russian in the social sciences and humanities. These translations were published in a series of journals, the ...
, 2006, Right before the 1999 presidential elections another major schism took place within the party. Yuriy Kostenko openly protested against the election of Viacheslav Chornovil as the party leader and established another party, People's Movement of Ukraine (Kostenko), where Kostenko became the leader of the party. Despite the split a followed party congress elected Vyacheslav Chornovil as party leader. The congress also adopted the signing of an agreement between People's Movement of Ukraine and the Reforms and Order Party for a political bloc supporting Hennadiy Udovenko as a single presidential candidate for the next elections. At the
parliamentary elections
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
on 29 March 1998, the party received 9.4% of the vote and 46 seats. At the
parliamentary elections
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
on 30 March 2002, the party was part of the Viktor Yushchenko Bloc–Our Ukraine. Currently, ''Rukh'' was a part of the Our Ukraine Bloc, where it represented the right wing of the Union's party spectrum. At the
parliamentary elections
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast ( uk, Іва́но-Франкі́вська о́бласть, translit=Ivano-Frankivska oblast), also referred to as Ivano-Frankivshchyna ( uk, Іва́но-Франкі́вщина), is an administrative divisions of Ukrain ...
, 1 in
Kherson Oblast
Kherson Oblast ( uk, Херсо́нська о́бласть, translit=Khersónsʹka óblastʹ, ), also known as Khersonshchyna ( uk, Херсо́нщина, ), is an oblast (province) in southern Ukraine, currently claimed and partly occupied ...
Borys Tarasyuk
Borys Ivanovych Tarasyuk ( uk, Борис Іванович Тарасюк; born 1 January 1949) is a Ukrainian politician who twice served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and a former MP who is since December 2019 Ukraine's perma ...
and others assimilated into "Fatherland" in June 2013. The bulk of the party organisation and ordinary members remained loyal to the party.
In the
2014 Ukrainian presidential election
Snap presidential elections held in Ukraine on 25 May 2014 resulted in Petro Poroshenko being elected President of Ukraine.Vasyl Kuybida
Vasyl Kuybida ( uk, Василь Степанович Куйбіда, born May 8, 1958 in Inta, Komi ASSR) is a Ukrainian politician, scientist, son of veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (both father and mother) who were exiled to the Russian ...
Interfax-Ukraine
The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukraine, Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company pub ...
Interfax-Ukraine
The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukraine, Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company pub ...
(8 November 2014) However, after being expelled from (the political party)
Self Reliance
"Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false con ...
the lawmakers
Pavlo Kyshkar
Pavlo Mykolayovych Kyshkar ( uk, Павло Миколайович Кишкар, born 22 September 1980) is a Ukrainian politician. He worked as a financial controller at a tourist company in Thailand until 2014, when he returned to Ukraine and b ...
and
Viktor Kryvenko
Viktor Mykolayovych Kryvenko ( uk, Ві́ктор Микола́йович Криве́нко, born 9 January 1982) is a Ukrainian politician.
Biography
In 2009–10, he was the deputy director general at the State Space Agency of Ukraine. In ...
joined the party in April 2016 (in parliament they both joined the faction of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc in March 2016 before leaving it in December 2017).
In the
2015 Ukrainian local elections
On 25 October 2015 local elections took place in Ukraine. The elections were conducted a little over a year since the 2014 2014 Ukrainian local elections, snap local elections, which were only held throughout parts of the country. A second roun ...
the party was able to gain seats in 270 local councils (0.17% of all local councils).
On 10 January 2019
Viktor Kryvenko
Viktor Mykolayovych Kryvenko ( uk, Ві́ктор Микола́йович Криве́нко, born 9 January 1982) is a Ukrainian politician.
Biography
In 2009–10, he was the deputy director general at the State Space Agency of Ukraine. In ...
was chosen the People's Movement of Ukraine candidate in the
2019 Ukrainian presidential election
The 2019 Ukrainian presidential election was held on 31 March and 21 April in a two-round system.
There were 39 candidates for the election on the ballot. The 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and the occupation of parts of Donetsk Oblast an ...
and their chairman. In the election he received 0.04% of the vote.
In the
2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election
Snap elections to the Ukrainian parliament were held on 21 July 2019. Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October, these elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolv ...
the party had 18 candidates in constituencies, but none of them won a parliamentary seat.
In the 2020 Ukrainian local elections the party gained 209 deputies (0.47% of all available mandates).
Political platform
Directly out of the official website:
*Further strengthening and development of the democratic roots of Ukrainian national statehood;
*Implementing the ideas of democracy, pluralism, social solidarity, and open society;
*Rebuilding the
national economy
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
citizen
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
Integration
Integration may refer to:
Biology
*Multisensory integration
*Path integration
* Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome
*DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...
into the EU and NATO as a vital cornerstone of Ukraine's foreign policy.
Associated organizations
* Shevchenko Society of Ukrainian language ( uk, Товариство української мови імені Тараса Шевченка)
* Lion's Society ( uk, Товариство Лева)
* Committee in support of Lithuania (1990)
* Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People
* Students' Fraternity of Lviv
* Ukrainian Student League
Elections history
Notable politicians
* Yuriy Kostenko, Minister of Natural Environment in 1992–1998
*
Volodymyr Lanovyi
Volodymyr Lanovyi ( uk, Володимир Тимофійович Лановий; born 17 June 1952) is a Ukrainian statesmen, politician, economical scientist.
Career
Lanovyi was born in Kyiv on June 17, 1952. A graduate of the Kyiv National Econ ...
, Minister of Economy (Vice-Prime Minister) in 1991–1992
*
Borys Tarasyuk
Borys Ivanovych Tarasyuk ( uk, Борис Іванович Тарасюк; born 1 January 1949) is a Ukrainian politician who twice served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and a former MP who is since December 2019 Ukraine's perma ...