Turning the pages back...

May 15, 1990

After a round of elections in which much of the opposition was deemed illegal and many non-nomenklatura candidates were subjected to various quasi-legal impediments and physical harassment, members of the last Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of the Ukrainian SSR gathered on the morning of May 15, 1990.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside, prompting the creation of a special commission whose purpose was, in the euphemistic parlance of the moribund Soviet regime, to "ease tensions in the square" outside. Several militia generals justified the heavy police presence with the argument that the extremists could do anything."

Communist Party boss Volodymyr Ivashko was duly elected chairman of the new Parliament, but not before several signals of defiance to Moscow were sent - some resisting Gorbachevian reforms, but others insisting on a measure of economic and political autonomy for Ukraine.

Hotly debated at the first session was the question of coverage by Ukraine's news media, with the democrats insisting that the event be broadcast live and in full. The Weekly carried a report by a Rukh Press correspondent who wrote: "Only the intervention of Leonid Kravchuk, a highranking Communist official who has developed the reputation of a reformist leader, secured adoption of the democrats' proposal."

Source: "New Parliament in Ukraine opens session," The Ukrainian Weekly, Vol. 58, No. 20 (May 20, 1990).

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 15, 1994, No. 20, Vol. LXII

| Home Page |