1. Levko Hryhorovych Lukianenko was a Ukrainian politician, Soviet dissident, and Hero of Ukraine.
23 Facts About Levko Lukianenko
1. 2.
Levko Lukianenko was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1976 and was elected a leader of the Ukrainian Helsinki Association in 1988.
3.
Levko Lukianenko was born on 24 August 1928 in the Khrypivka village of Horodnia Raion, Soviet Union.
4.
In 1953, Levko Lukianenko enrolled in the Law Department of Moscow State University and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
5.
Levko Lukianenko defended the right of secession of Ukraine from the rest of Soviet Union, a right that was theoretically granted by the 1936 Soviet Constitution.
6.
Levko Lukianenko served his sentence at first in Mordovia and then in Vladimir, at the Vladimir Central Prison.
7.
In 1988, Levko Lukianenko was released in the wave of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika.
8.
Levko Lukianenko refused to emigrate as a condition for his release, but he was released anyway in November 1988.
9.
Levko Lukianenko was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada in March 1990 and became the head of the new Ukrainian Republican Party the following month.
10.
Levko Lukianenko was the co-author of Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine and the author of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, adopted in 1991.
11.
From May 1992 to November 1993, Levko Lukianenko was the first Ukrainian ambassador to Canada.
12.
From 1994 to 1998, Levko Lukianenko was a People's Deputy of Ukraine from the 68th electoral district, representing the city of Novovolynsk.
13.
Levko Lukianenko was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on 19 April 2005.
14.
In 2006, Levko Lukianenko was again elected as a member of the Verkhovna Rada.
15.
Levko Lukianenko was elected with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko.
16.
Levko Lukianenko was again re-elected for the bloc in the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election, but on 15 June 2007, he resigned his mandate at his own request.
17.
In 2006 and, after an interval, again in 2010, Levko Lukianenko was elected leader of the Ukrainian Republican Party.
18.
Levko Lukianenko was awarded the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 2007.
19.
In 2005, Levko Lukianenko participated in a conference entitled "Zionism as the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization," which was controversial for its antisemitic tone and his invitation of the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
20.
Levko Lukianenko sat next to Duke and gave him a standing ovation.
21.
Levko Lukianenko suggested that a Ukrainian who wants to marry a person of a different race should leave Ukraine and renounce Ukrainian citizenship.
22.
Levko Lukianenko died in a Kyiv hospital on 7 July 2018 from leukemia.
23.
Levko Lukianenko was buried in Kyiv's Baikove Cemetery on 10 July 2018.