Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk is a former Ukrainian politician and the first President of Ukraine, who served from 5 December 1991, until his resignation on 19 July 1994. He is also a former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and People's Deputy of Ukraine serving in the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) faction.
Background
Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk was born in 1934 in the village of Velykyi Zhytyn (Żytyń Wielki) to a peasant family. At that time the village was located in Aleksandrija gmina, Rowno powiat in Poland.
The village became part of Rivne Oblast in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the Soviet invasion in 1939 when Kravchuk was a child. His father served in the Polish cavalry in the 1930s, and later he and his wife worked for the local osadniks (Polish colonists).
During World War II Kravchuk's father perished on the front lines.
His father died at the front in 1944, during World War II.
His mother worked on a collective farm until retirement.
Education
Kravchuk completed the Rivne Cooperative Technical School and in 1958 graduated with a diploma from the economics department of Kiev State University.
From 1958 to 1960 he taught courses in political economy at the Chernivtsi Financial Technical School.
His first step was appointment as a lecturer in the political education branch of the Chernivtsi Party organization.
The party organization sent him to study at the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow, and in 1970 he obtained the degree of candidate of sciences.
Career
In 1958, Kravchuk began his career in the CPU as an instructor in political economy at a technical school in the western Ukrainian city of Chernovtsy (Chernivtsi).
His specialty was the ideological struggle against Western influences, or "counterpropaganda. "
Kravchuk resigned from his position as CPU second secretary in September 1990.
Kravchuk supported Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring").
He adopted a more tolerant approach to Ukrainian nationalism and dissent, thus distancing himself from the hard-line policies of the CPU's first secretary, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, who died in early 1990.
In November 1990 he and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin signed an agreement recognizing the sovereignty of Ukraine and Russia.
Throughout 1991 Kravchuk defended Ukrainian sovereignty and opposed Gorbachev's attempts to construct a new union of Soviet republics.
During the abortive coup in Moscow in August 1991, Kravchuk at first temporized, neither endorsing nor condemning the coup plotters.
After the collapse of the coup, he firmly aligned himself with the Ukrainian nationalists and supported the Ukrainian supreme soviet's declaration of independence on Aug. 24, 1991.
On December 1, 1991, a referendum on Ukrainian independence and presidential elections were held.
On December 8, 1991, he joined President Yeltsin of Russia and President Stanislas; Stanislau; Shushkevi^Shushkevic of Byelarus in declaring the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Kravchuk proved to be a committed supporter of Ukrainian independence, resisting attempts at transforming the CIS into a Russian-dominated confederation.
He initiated the creation of a Ukrainian army and the partial takeover of the formerly Soviet Black Sea Fleet by Ukraine.
As a result, he was defeated in the presidential election in June 1994.
Achievements
Politics
Resigns From Communist Party In 1960 he began his career in the Communist Party of Ukraine, and for 30 years he climbed the party ladder.
From 1970 to 1989 he worked in Kiev in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, first as head of the sector for the continuing education of party cadres and later as head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda.
From 1989 to 1990 he served as secretary responsible for ideology in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and in June 1990 he was made a member of the Politburo and briefly served as second secretary of the organization.
He argued the necessity to create an independent Ukrainian party organization and to transform it into a democratic political party of the parliamentary type.
Membership
He became a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party Buro in 1989, and on 23 July 1990 became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, becoming the republic's nominal head of state.
Connections
Kravchuk is married to Antonina Mykhailivna Kravchuk. The couple married in 1957. She rarely attended official events with her husband.
Kravchuk and his wife have one child, Oleksandr Leonidovych Kravchuk, president of the State Company "Nafkom-Ahro" and the former FC Nafkom Brovary.