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Place of origin Russian Empire, Soviet Union | ||
The family of Yulia Tymoshenko, a Ukrainian politician and former Prime Minister of Ukraine, is made up of people of Ukrainian and Latvian ancestry. Tymoshenko has claimed her mother has Ukrainian roots and her father Latvian roots "both for ten generations".
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Tymoshenko's parents were both born in Ukraine and are, therefore, Ukrainian as defined by the Law on Citizenship of Ukraine and by the Ukrainian Constitution.
Olexandr Tymoshenko
Yulia Tymoshenko is married to Olexandr Tymoshenko (born 11 June 1960). A businessman, he married Yulia Telehina in 1979, and she took his name.
During the early years of her political career, the two were parted for years while Olexandr Tymoshenko was evading arrest.
They have a daughter, Yevhenia (Eugenia) (born in 1980). According to an income declaration filled in by Yulia Tymoshenko, her husband's income is higher than hers. Tymoshenko's hypocorism for her husband is "Sasha". Tymoshenko has expressed regret that she neglected her family due to her political activity.
Oleksandr Tymoshenko and his father Hennady Tymoshenko were members of the board of United Energy Systems of Ukraine. In August 2000 Olexandr Tymoshenko was arrested and charged with bribing former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko as a member of the board of United Energy Systems of Ukraine; the charges were dropped in May 2002. Tymoshenko's father-in-law has also been arrested in connection with this case; he was released in 2003. According to Tymoshenko her spouse has never been personally involved in the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko.
In early January 2012 Oleksandr Tymoshenko was granted asylum in the Czech Republic, as he had requested at the end of the previous year.
Eugenia Tymoshenko
Eugenia Tymoshenko is the daughter of Yulia Tymoshenko and Olexandr Tymoshenko. Yevhenia was born 20 February 1980, and moved to London when she was 14, boarding at Rugby School. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics in the field of politics and philosophy. Yevhenia spent nine years in England.
Eugenia Tymoshenko was her mother’s defender during the trial against her in the summer-autumn 2011. For two and a half years of the former prime minister imprisonment Eugenia conducted an active campaign for her release: held dozens of meetings with leaders of the European Union, the Western countries and international organizations, delivered speeches in the US Senate, at the meeting of the Committee on Foreign affairs of the Italian Parliament, at the Bornholm conference in Denmark, at the 20th Congress of the European People's Party, at the congresses of the German Christian Social Union and the Italian party "The Union of Christian and Centre Democrats", in the media.
In February 2012 Eugenia Tymoshenko submitted a statement to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to demand investigation in prison of the facts about the torture of her mother.
Awards
Eugenia Tymoshenko received Crans Montana Forum Medal for her contribution to defending democracy and human rights. The Crans Montana Forum was founded in 1986, works closely with the United Nations, UNESCO, the European Union and other institutions to ensure the stability, security and respect for human rights in the world.
Lyudmila Telehina
Yulia Tymoshenko was raised by her mother Lyudmila Mykolayivna Telehina (née Nelepova), who was born August 11, 1937, in Dnipropetrovsk. Yulia used her mother's married name "Telehina" before graduating in 1979.
Volodymyr Hrihyan
Yulia Tymoshenko's father Volodymyr Abramovych Hrihyan—who abandoned Lyudmila Telehina and his daughter when Yulia was three years old—was born December 3, 1937, in Dnipropetrovsk and was, according to his Soviet passport, Latvian. His mother was Maria Yosypivna Hrihyan, born in 1909. His father was Abram Kelmanovych Kapitelman (Ukrainian: Абрам Кельманович Капітельман, born in 1914); after graduating from Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1940 Kapitelman was sent to work in Western Ukraine, where he worked "one academic quarter" as the director of a public Jewish school in the city Sniatyn. In the autumn of 1940 Kapitelman was mobilized into the army, he was killed while taking part in World War II on November 8, 1944, with the rank of "lieutenant communications".
Yosyp Yosypovych Hrihyan (Ukrainian: Йосип Йосипович Грігян), whose surname is also found as "Hrihan" (Гріган), was born in Riga, then in the Russian Empire, in 1884. In 1914, he moved to Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk), where he worked as a conductor on the train (the station "Lotsmanka" in Dnipropetrovsk). He was arrested in 1937 and again in 1938 (because of having received letters from Latvia) during the political repression in the Soviet Union. The prosecution of the criminal case stated: "Hrihan discredited the Soviet regime among the workers, praised the good life of the working class in the fascist countries: Germany and Poland"). Hrihyan served 10 years in Soviet Gulags (1938–1948) and was rehabilitated in 1963. His wife Olena Titivna Hrihyan (born in 1893) was ethnic Ukrainian, from the village Martynivka (Kishenkovsky municipality, province of Poltava).