[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 113 (Friday, July 6, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E969-E970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HONORING IVAN DRACH

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, July 6, 2018

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleague and fellow 
co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Ukraine Caucus, Rep. Brian 
Fitzpatrick, to honor the dignified and illustrious life of Ukrainian 
democratic leader, Ivan Drach. A poet, author, politician, and lover of 
liberty for Ukraine, Ivan was a true leader who brought forward the 
edge of freedom for his nation. On June 19, Ivan passed away in Kyiv at 
the age of 81.
  He first gained prominence with his poem, ``Knife in the Sun,'' and 
then later in 1988 helped found and led the ``Popular Movement for 
Ukraine,'' popularly known as Rukh. After his election to the Ukrainian 
Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada in 1990, he worked tirelessly to shine a 
light on wicked crimes of Russian-

[[Page E970]]

imposed communism, as well as to find commonality between all of 
Ukraine's ethnicities.
  It is during these times that we look to his example of humble, yet 
powerful leadership. May we remember his sacrifice, and find 
inspiration in his unflagging commitment to a free and open Ukraine, 
and his pursuit for liberty.

              Ivan Drach--Giant of Ukraine's Independence

       Ivan Drach, a giant in Ukraine's movement to independence, 
     died June 19 in a Kyiv hospital at the age of 81.
       Drach, a long-time member of the Writer's Union of Ukraine, 
     was a respected and award-winning poet and screenwriter. With 
     his poem ``Knife in the Sun,'' he first came into national 
     prominence during ``The Thaw''--a brief period of political 
     and cultural liberalization under then Soviet leader Nikita 
     Khrushchev.
       Twenty years later, Drach again came to national and 
     international prominence as a political activist during the 
     Soviet Union's Perestroika period in the late 1980s and then 
     during the early years of Ukraine's independence. The numbers 
     of young men from Ukraine lost in the Soviet Union's war in 
     Afghanistan and the handling of the Chornobyl explosion led 
     to Ukraine's civil society becoming restless with directives 
     from what was euphemistically known as ``the center'' 
     (Moscow) and were increasingly distrustful of leaders in the 
     Kremlin.
       In what began in late 1988 as an initiative of the Writer's 
     Union of Ukraine, a year later had become a national 
     movement. In September 1989, at the founding congress of the 
     ``Popular Movement of Ukraine'' (Narodniy Rukh Ukrainy), a 
     grassroots opposition movement known worldwide simply as 
     ``Rukh,'' Drach was elected chairman and an Mykhailo Horyn, a 
     political dissident who had survived the Soviet Gulag, was 
     elected head of Rukh's secretariat. The pair combined focused 
     vision with determined leadership and guided the 
     organization, and civil society, through a tumultuous period 
     in history.
       As Rukh's membership grew throughout Ukraine other 
     prominent dissidents, as well as representatives of major 
     ethnic and religious groups in Ukraine assumed leadership 
     roles. However, Drach, although often understated in his 
     actions, was the recognized leader. With the sensibility of a 
     writer, Drach was eloquent in his expression of Rukh's goals 
     and ideals, particularly emphasizing the inclusivity of Rukh. 
     He always spoke in terms of ``people of Ukraine,'' and not 
     ``the Ukrainian people.''
       A recognized tool in the USSR's system of authoritarian 
     governance was routinely to create friction between 
     nationalities in order to weaken opposition. In contrast, 
     Drach and Rukh recognized and spoke to the common interests 
     of all citizens of Ukraine--Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, 
     Jews, Tatars, and others. At the founding congress of Rukh, 
     reflecting upon the principles of Rukh, Drach underscored the 
     importance of multi-ethnic respect within Ukraine stating, 
     ``Jews should live better and feel more comfortable in 
     Ukraine than in Moscow, Leningrad, New York, Tel-Aviv, and 
     Jerusalem.'' While at the helm of Rukh, he actively supported 
     the decision by Rukh's Council of Nationalities to help fund 
     the gathering of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, the first to be 
     held in Crimea since the group's mass deportation by Stalin 
     in 1944.
       In March 4, 1990, in the first politically contested 
     elections in Soviet Ukraine, 111 candidates, including Drach 
     and others from the Democratic Bloc, a political coalition 
     that included the Helsinki Watch Group, and the Green Party, 
     as well as Rukh, were elected to the Verkhovna Rada 
     (Parliament), breaking the Communist Party's monopoly on 
     political power.
       The day after the election, March 5, Drach and other 
     leaders of Rukh, a number of whom, like Drach, were members 
     of the Communist Party, drafted and signed a statement 
     calling for Ukrainian independence, denouncing the Communist 
     Party and calling on the Communist Party to take 
     responsibility for the 1932-33 genocidal famine (the 
     Holodomor), deportations, repressions, the policy of 
     Russification, economic decline and ecological disasters.
       In early August, 1991, Drach received international 
     attention at the time President George H.W. Bush came to Kyiv 
     to deliver a speech to the Verkhovna Rada in which he 
     cautioned Ukraine against ``suicidal nationalism.'' (Later 
     named the ``Chicken Kiev'' speech by the late New York Times 
     columnist Bill Satire).
       Before President Bush arrived in Ukraine from Moscow, at a 
     Rukh rally in central Kyiv, Drach surprised the crowd and the 
     media by anticipating Bush's message and repudiating it in 
     advance. ``I am afraid that Bush has come here as a messenger 
     for the center . . . We are not a sample of Soviet culture . 
     . . . Our culture is the culture of Ukraine, the culture of 
     Ukrainians, Russians who live in Ukraine, Jews, Poles. 
     Ukraine will become independent despite the center. Like the 
     United States that cast off the British Empire, Ukraine will 
     cast off Moscow's Soviet Empire.''
       One of Drach's most important contributions was his role 
     during the week between August 19, 1991, and August 24, 1991. 
     In response to a coup in Moscow during the early morning 
     hours of August 19, under the direction of Drach, Rukh 
     immediately issued a statement condemning the leaders of the 
     coup and the effort to return the USSR to hardline Communism, 
     away from glasnost and perestroika. Rukh feared a reverse in 
     the course of freedom that had been advanced. Rukh called for 
     a special session of the Verkhovna Rada to be held 
     immediately in order that a strategy be developed to distance 
     Ukraine from the coup in Moscow. Behind the scenes, the 
     leaders of Rukh pressured the members of the Communist 
     majority in parliament to agree to a vote for Ukraine's 
     independence on August 24, the date of the special session. 
     Then, by an almost unanimous vote, parliamentarians passed 
     Ukraine's Declaration of Independence conditioning the 
     declaration upon the vote of the people of Ukraine in a 
     national referendum that was held on December 1, 1991. 
     Ukraine was the only republic of the Soviet Union to 
     condition its independence on a vote of the people.
       Drach continued to lead Rukh until the autumn of 1992, and 
     continued to serve in the Verkhovna Rada through several more 
     election cycles.
       Born on October 17, 1936, in Enlightens, Kyiv Oblast, 
     Ukrainian SSR, Ivan Fedorovych Drach is survived by his wife 
     Mariya and daughter Maryana, who is the Director of the 
     Ukrainian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 
     Prague. His son Maksym, who had worked as a member of a 
     medical team during the aftermath of Chornobyl, and later 
     suffered health consequences as a result, passed away in 2009 
     at the age of 44.
       Although offered a prominent state burial, Drach declined 
     and was buried in his native village, next to his parents and 
     his son.
       --Robert A. McConnell, Co-Founder of the U.S.-Ukraine 
     Foundation.

                          ____________________