Preceded by post created Children ? Succeeded by Victor Batiuk Spouse(s) Nadia Lukianenko | Role Ukrainian Politician Political party URP Name Levko Lukyanenko | |
 | ||
Born August 24, 1927 (age 96)
Khrypivka, Horodnia Raion,
Chernihiv Okruha, USSR ( 1927-08-24 ) Alma mater Moscow State University Party Ukrainian Republican Party Nominations Shevchenko National Prize in Journalism and Opinion Journalism | ||
Other political
affiliations KPSS (1953-1961) Education Moscow State University | ||
Ukrainian political Soviet era dissident and politician Levko Lukyanenko Died at 89
Levko Hryhorovych Lukyanenko (Ukrainian: Левко́ Григо́рович Лук'я́ненко, sometimes written as Levko Lukianenko, born 24 August 1927, Khrypivka) is a Ukrainian politician, and Soviet dissident and Hero of Ukraine. He was one of the founders of Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1976 and was elected a leader of the revived Ukrainian Helsinki Group, Ukrainian Helsinki Association, in 1988.
Contents
- Ukrainian political Soviet era dissident and politician Levko Lukyanenko Died at 89
- Biography
- References
Biography
Lukyanenko was born on 24 August 1927 in the Khrypivka village of Horodnia Raion, in the USSR. During World War II in 1944 he was recruited in the Soviet Army and served in Austria and then in Caucasus region (cities Ordzhonikidze and Nakhichevan). In 1953 Lukianenko enrolled in the Law Department of Moscow State University and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soon after graduation in 1958, Lukianenko was directed as a propagandist to the Radekhiv Raion Communist Party committee.
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; 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). In May 1961 he was expelled from the party, arrested, tried, and sentenced by the Lviv Oblast Court to death for idea of separatism. After 72 days his sentence was later commuted to 15 years in a prison camp. Lukianenko served his sentence at first in Mordovia and then in Vladimir. Soon after his release in 1976 he became a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. 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, and was elected a member of Ukrainian parliament in 1990. He was the co-author of Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine and the author of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine adopted in 1991. Lukyanenko was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine by President Viktor Yushchenko on April 19, 2005.
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. Lukyanenko sat next to Duke and gave him a standing ovation. 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."
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." According to Lukyanenko, Ukrainians base their attitudes of other ethnic groups upon "their attitudes towards us."
In 2006, Lukyanenko was a member of Ukrainian parliament, elected with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko.
In 2006 and (after an interval) again in 2010 Lukyanenko was elected leader of the Ukrainian Republican Party.