Stepan Khmara Explained

Stepan Khmara
Birth Name:Stepan Ilkovych Khmara
Birth Date:1937 10, df=y
Birth Place:Bobiatyn, Lwów Voivodeship, Poland
Death Place:Kyiv, Ukraine
Nationality:Ukrainian
Occupation:Doctor
Education:Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University
Party:NRU
UKRP
Batkivshchyna
Office:People's Deputy of Ukraine
Term Start:14 May 2002
Term End:25 May 2006
Term Start1:15 May 1990
Term End1:12 May 1998
Native Name Lang:uk

Stepan Ilkovych Khmara (Ukrainian: Степа́н І́лькович Хма́ра; 12 October 1937 – 21 February 2024) was a Ukrainian doctor, Soviet dissident and politician.

As a student of the Lviv State Medical Institute Khmara was involved in the underground Samizdat-movement that published Soviet Union's banned literature.

In 1980 the KGB arrested Khmara and he was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment in strict regime camps and 5 years of exile for "Ukrainian nationalist activities".[1] In 1987 he returned to Ukraine and in 1988 became one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.[1] In April 1990 this organisation morphed into the Ukrainian Republican Party.[1]

In October 1990 Khmara took part in the Revolution on Granite.[1] Khmara also took part in the 13-day hunger strike that accompanied the protests.[1]

As member of the People's Movement of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party, and Batkivshchyna, Khmara served in (Ukraine's national parliament) Verkhovna Rada from 1990 to 1998[2] [3] and again from 2002 to 2006.[4] In the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election he failed to return to parliament since he stood for the party Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and Plyushch that did not win seats.[1] [5]

In 2004 Khmara was one of the faces of the Orange Revolution that supported Viktor Yushchenko.[1]

Khmara died on 21 February 2024, at the age of 86.[6] On 25 February 2024 Khmara's public funeral procesion was held on Kyiv's main square Maidan Nezalezhnosti.[1] He was buried at the Baikove Cemetery.[1]

Notes and References

  1. News: Dissident and politician Stepan Khmara was bid farewell in Kyiv. February 26, 2024. . February 25, 2024. Ukrainian.
  2. Web site: Народні депутати України 1-го скликання (1990-1994). Verkhovna Rada. Ukrainian.
  3. Web site: Народні Депутати України 2-го скликання (1994-1998). Verkhovna Rada. Ukrainian. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110603183041/http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/radac_gs09/d_index_arh?skl=2. 3 June 2011.
  4. Web site: Народні Депутати України 4-го скликання (2002-2006). Verkhovna Rada. Ukrainian. dead. http://web.archive.org/web/20180202012647/http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/radac_gs09/d_index_arh?skl=4. 2 February 2018.
  5. News: Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and Plyushch profile. February 26, 2024. . Ukrainian.
  6. News: 21 February 2024. Помер екснардеп, Герой України Степан Хмара. Ukrainian. konkurent.ua. 21 February 2024.