Levko Lukyanenko

Lukyanenko was born on 24 August 1928 in the Khrypivka village of Horodnia Raion, in the USSR.[6] During World War II in 1944 he was recruited in the Soviet Army at age of 15 as he could prove that he was underage (in order to get drafted he lied that he was born in 1927[7]) and served in Austria and then in Caucasus region (cities Ordzhonikidze and Nakhichevan). While being in Austria he observed the arrival of Ukrainian wheat in Baden bei Wien, this reminded him of the removal of grain from Ukraine whilst he was almost starving in the 1930s (during Holodomor).[7] This event made Lukyanenko to "follow Severyn Nalyvaiko's path - I would fight for an independent Ukraine."[7]

In 1953 Lukyanenko enrolled in the Law Department of Moscow State University and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). (Later Lukyanenko claimed he only joined the CPSU "to do the highest for Ukraine."[7]) In this university, Lukyanenko later claimed, he was name called Khokhol.[7] Soon after graduation in 1958, Lukianenko was directed as a propagandist to the Radekhiv Raion Communist Party committee. Lukyanenko claimed that after the 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "I stopped pretending I was a party member."[8]

In 1959 in the time of the Khrushchev Thaw, he organized a dissident movement in Hlyniany called the Ukrainian Workers and Peasants Union along with Ivan Kandyba and others;[7] Lukianenko defended the right of secession of Ukraine from the rest of Soviet Union, a right theoretically granted by the 1936 Soviet Constitution (Articles 17 and 125).[9] In May 1961 he was expelled from the party, arrested, tried, and sentenced by the Lviv Oblast Court to death for idea of separatism and for "undermining the credibility of the CPSU, and defaming the theory of Marxism-Leninism."[7] After 72 days his sentence was later commuted to 15 years in a prison camp.[7] Lukianenko served his sentence at first in Mordovia (Dubravlag, OLP #10, in Sosnovka, Zubovo-Polyansky District)[7] and then in Vladimir (infamous Vladimir Central). Soon after his release in 1976 he moved to Chernihiv and became a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.[6][7] In 1977 he was arrested again and was sentenced by Chernihiv Oblast Court to 10 years in a camp and 5 years of internal exile for "Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda".

In 1988 Lukyanenko was released in the wave of Gorbachev's perestroika (in total he had spent 27 years in prisons).[7] After having refused to emigrate as a condition for his release he was released in November 1988.[10] Lukyanenko was elected a member of Ukrainian parliament in March 1990, and became the head of the newly founded Ukrainian Republican Party the following month.[7] He was the co-author of Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine and the author of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine adopted in 1991.[6][7] In the 1991 Ukrainian presidential election Lukyanenko finished third with 4.5% of the vote.[10][7]

From May 1992 to November 1993 Lukyanenko was the first Ukrainian ambassador to Canada.[10] In protest of government policies he resigned.[10]

From 1994 until the 1998 parliamentary election Lukyanenko was a People's Deputy of Ukraine representing Novovolynsk.[2][11]

During the 1998 parliamentary election his Ukrainian Republican Party was part (together with Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists & Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party[12]) of the Election Bloc "National Front" and he headed the electoral list of this alliance.[11] But since it did not overcame the 4 percent election barrier he was not elected to parliament.[11]

Lukyanenko was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine by President Viktor Yushchenko on 19 April 2005.[5]

Also in 2005, he participated in a conference entitled "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization," which was controversial for its anti-Semitic tone and its invitation of former Grand Wizard David Duke.[13] Lukyanenko sat next to Duke and gave him a standing ovation.[14] Presenting his own paper, Lukyanenko argued that the Holodomor was carried out by a satanic government controlled by the Jews. According to Lukyanenko, 95% of Soviet people's commissars were Jewish, most military and judicial commissars were Jewish, Lenin and Stalin were Jewish, and "thus… of the most important administrative positions… 80% were Jews."[14]

Lukyanenko has argued that there is no anti-Semitism in Ukraine, since he has "not met a single Ukrainian, who is a opposed to all Semitic people."[14][15] According to Lukyanenko, Ukrainians base their attitudes of other ethnic groups upon "their attitudes towards us."[14][15]

In 2006 Lukyanenko was again elected as a member of Ukrainian parliament, elected with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko.[11] He was again re-elected for this bloc/alliance in the 2007 parliamentary elections but on 15 June 2007 he resigned his mandate at his own request.[11]

In 2006 and (after an interval) again in 2010 Lukyanenko was elected leader of the Ukrainian Republican Party.[16][17]

Lukyanenko was awarded the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (V degree) in 2007.[11]

In a 2008 article for Personal-Plus magazine Lukyanenko argued that Ukrainians as "a white race" should not mix with other races; he suggested that if a Ukrainian wanted to marry a person of a different race they should leave Ukraine and renounce their Ukrainian citizenship.[8]

In 2016 Lukyanenko was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize.[18]

Lukyanenko died in a Kiev hospital on 7 July 2018.[6] He was buried in Kiev's Baikove Cemetery on 10 July 2018.[19][20] Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended his funeral in Kiev's St Volodymyr's Cathedral, the funeral service was led by the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate Patriarch Filaret.[18][20]

Lukyanenko was married to Nadiya Bugaevsky (born in 1943[11]), the couple did not have children.[7]

• Soviet dissidents

• Levko Lukyanenko, indomitable champion of the national cause