November 1991. In the village clubs, where just yesterday the main topic of conversation was potato prices, people talk about politics. On the markets, in the queues, at the kitchen tables, one question gets raised: What will happen to Ukraine? Will Ukraine come into being?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Kremlin could imagine the new USSR without the Baltic countries, without Moldova, even without Georgia,\u201d says historian, author of the book \u201cHow Ukrainians Destroyed the Empire of Evil\u201d Oleksandr Zinchenko. \u201cBut not without Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Soviet Union was falling apart from the inside. Poverty, inflation and a deficit of goods \u2014 all this was par for the course. But even that status quo had its limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe referendums held in the Baltic republics \u2014 Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia \u2014 served as an example to us,\u201d explains writer, politician and diplomat Yuriy Shcherbak. \u201cThose were the referendums on the withdrawal of these republics from the Soviet Union. And we must remember that, even as they were conducted under Soviet rule, they had strong results. For example, in Latvia, 74% of people voted to leave the USSR and in Estonia, 83%. All this happened literally on the eve of Ukraine\u2019s declaration of independence. And, of course, it had an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yuriy Shcherbak, a USSR deputy, often traveled to meet with voters. He says that the impending collapse of the Soviet Union was evident to everyone. People clearly understood that this country could no longer continue to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know, it was just embarrassing: I remember meeting with voters, with Ukrainian citizens, and they would ask me, \u2018Where do you get your socks? Your underwear?\u2019 Today, we can\u2019t imagine what it\u2019s like to see shelves in stores completely empty,\u201d Shcherbak recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sociologist Yevhen Holovakha confirms this and recounts how he used to bring buckwheat, millet and oil to his aunt in Moscow. He bought it all at triple the price at a market in Kyiv.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBack then, there was a ration card system. You were allowed to get some oil, some bread, flour and the most basic goods. And, of course, people believed that this was because of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union could no longer provide for the vast majority of the population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 1990s, moods changed rapidly from one extreme to another. What seemed unthinkable yesterday became reality today. A blue and yellow flag was flying again in the center of Kyiv \u2014 on July 24, 1990, it was raised above the city council building. And behind the scenes in parliament, a member of the People\u2019s Movement was embracing a man from the Soviet system: they were Vyacheslav Chornovil and Ivan Plyushch, acting chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlyushch stops me in the hallway and says, \u2018Vyacheslav Maksymovych, come in for a chat\u2026 You know, I think the only thing our people can still believe in is complete state independence! And may it be so\u2026\u2019 I said, \u2018Ivan Stepanovych, you are a precious man! I could hug you right now!\u2019 It seemed that something had happened to change his mind,\u201d recalled Vyacheslav Chornovil when describing the collapse of the Soviet Union on March 10, 1996, in an interview with Marta Kolomiyets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historian and author of the book \u201cHow Ukrainians Destroyed the Empire of Evil,\u201d Oleksandr Zinchenko explains that the path to independence was not smooth and instantaneous, but consisted of several successive acts. First came the people who fought for Ukrainian independence for decades: Levko Lukyanenko, the Horyn brothers, Vyacheslav Chornovil and others created an environment that eventually grew into a political force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis environment shaped the opposition wing in the Verkhovna Rada. But they were not alone. They won over part of the communist elite with this idea. That was the first act. The second act was the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The third was the referendum. The fourth was the cementing of the people\u2019s vote in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The referendum was set to take place on the same day as the election of the first president. The Democrats made this decision when they passed the Act on August 24, 1991. Academic Ihor Yukhnovskyi proposed the idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He understood that for the country to truly become independent, it was not enough for parliament to want it \u2014 millions of people had to voice their support for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fate of Ukraine was decided at the referendum,\u201d says Shcherbak. \u201cThe Verkhovna Rada\u2019s declaration of independence would have been insufficient had it not been confirmed by millions and millions of Ukrainians. And that is why I believe that this referendum was of global historical significance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Witnesses to the Declaration of Independence consider Yuhnovskyi\u2019s idea to be both simple and brilliant. Moreover, on the eve of the referendum, Ihor Yuhnovskyi himself clearly argued on the air of a Kyiv radio station: \u201cIndependence is the natural state of every nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why do we need independence? Why should we vote? In the fall of 1991, these questions were being asked all around Ukraine \u2014 from the mining towns of Donbas to the villages of Crimea. Mykhailo Kosiv, one of the founders of the People\u2019s Movement, traveled around the Chernihiv Oblast, Donbas and Crimea at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s imagine that we accepted and approved this act, even with a constitutional majority in the Verkhovna Rada, but then there could still be people who would say, \u2018But this was Bandera\u2019s slogan.\u2019 Obviously, an independent, united Ukraine sounded like Bandera\u2019s slogan, invented by the nationalists. But after December 1, no one could say that anymore, and no one did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mykhailo Kosiv admits that at first he did not want to travel anywhere, but at that time, he was a representative of presidential candidate Vyacheslav Chornovil, so he had to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI resisted and tried to get out of it,\u201d he smiles. \u201cBut Chornovil simply pushed me out. I said, \u2018Wait, what am I going to do out there? This is not my element.\u2019 \u2018It will be okay. You know how to talk to people, and you\u2019ll find common ground.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Luhansk, Mykhailo Kosiv went to the market. There were two bunches of garlic on the counter, one for one ruble and the other for one ruble twenty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI asked the old woman: What\u2019s the difference? And she said to me, \u2018Because this one\u2019s a Muscovite!\u2019\u201d he laughs. \u201cWhy a Muscovite?\u201d \u201cBecause it\u2019s nasty, like a Muscovite. This one is milder \u2014 the Ukrainian variety.\u201d I then understood that these deep historical and national foundations, laid down over centuries, have not disappeared; they still exist here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mykhailo Kosiv had several meetings every day. In the town of Sribne, in Chernihiv Oblast, he was asked where he was from. He said he was a deputy from Kyiv. But he quickly clarified that he was not originally from Kyiv but from Lviv and was born in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo,\u201d laughed one of the locals, \u201cfor the first time in my life, I\u2019m talking to a real Banderite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conversation lasted two hours. People were interested in everything: what kind of independent Ukraine he was advocating for, what it would be like, and how people would live in that independent country. They asked direct questions, not mincing any words. That\u2019s how the meetings were back then \u2014 honest, emotional, filled with both distrust and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe slogans were, \u2018Enough\u2019, \u2018We\u2019re fed up\u2019, \u2018No more Afghanistans.\u2019 This was the basis for the preparations for December 1. Aren\u2019t we tired of subordination? We are tired, very tired. Why should someone in Moscow appoint our government when we could build whatever we want on our own land? And there was another slogan, especially well remembered in Donbas: \u2018We are tired of being the stokehold of the Union!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They had three months and one week for campaigning. Kosiv says that they sought out incentives for each region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan you imagine? They bring me to the deck of a ship. The crew gathers, and I talk to them. And they also want Ukraine. It feels closer to them. After all, the entire Black Sea Fleet consisted of three categories: Ukrainians from mainland Ukraine, Ukrainians from the Crimean Peninsula, and Russians who had been sent there. But they didn\u2019t even make up a third of the fleet, so they couldn\u2019t play a significant role. And so for me, there is no doubt that the Crimean Peninsula was, is, and will be Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On December 1, Mykhailo Kosiv and his wife, Marusia, traveled to the capital to vote. For him, it wasn\u2019t some kind of special day \u2014 the campaign headquarters was still bustling with activity. The last three months had flown by. However, the priority during the vote was the question of Ukraine\u2019s independence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were checking voter turnout every hour,\u201d he recalls. \u201cMarusia had to drag me away to get something to eat. But food was the last thing on my mind. All I cared about was the events that were unfolding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andriy Saliuk, a Lviv native and one of the leaders of the Revolution on the Granite, who until recently had been pitching tents on Zhovtneva Square and protesting alongside other students, now traveled with friends to the Vinnytsia region to campaign. And these were not just conversations about politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople perceived us much more favorably when we not only spoke, but also did something,\u201d recalls Saliuk, who was then the head of the Lviv Polytechnic Student Brotherhood. \u201cWhen they see that you are actually doing something with a shovel or a pickaxe, they are more willing to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the brothers restored the graves of Sich Riflemen in Lviv Oblast, and later those of Cossacks in Vinnytsia Oblast. This work, he says, made a better case to the people than most rallies. However, their arsenal included not only shovels, but also guitars. The Student Brotherhood\u2019s singing group traveled around villages with concerts: they performed riflemen\u2019s songs, rebel songs, folk songs. And after the sing-alongs, there were books, newspapers, samvydav \u2014 information that the Soviet Union tried to conceal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt that time, Radio Liberty in America reported that the KGB wanted to expel some students from Vinnytsia Oblast,\u201d Salyuk smiles. \u201cThe KGB and the prosecutor\u2019s office constantly created problems for us \u2014 quietly, behind the scenes. They didn\u2019t allow us to do anything, they blocked us, they blacklisted us, they expelled us by force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the students managed to enlist the support of the locals. Their own information campaign unfolded between fields and villages, between literature and songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe arrived in Bratslavshchyna,\u201d recalls Saliuk. \u201cAnd they said to us, \u2018Hey, why did you come? We don\u2019t need to be persuaded anymore. We know what we have to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the same with other student groups who returned from trips prior to the referendum. They heard the same thing everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEveryone said, \u2018We\u2019d arrive, but we didn\u2019t even need to campaign. They already knew why they would be voting for independence,\u2019\u201d says Saliuk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Student Brotherhood\u2019s trips were not in vain. They did their homework in advance when, in the early 1990s, they restored the graves of the riflemen and the Cossacks in various regions. On election day, students rushed to the polling stations to gather together as a community and plan their next actions, events and activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n December 1. Sunday morning. In the east and west, in cities and villages, people are going to vote for something that seemed unattainable just a few months ago \u2014 Ukraine, not as an idea on paper, but a real possibility. The cameras are capturing it. Khmelnytskyi, regional philharmonic hall, polling station No. 58. 11 a.m. A third of the voters have already cast their ballots \u2014 650 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople understand what they are voting for \u2014 for autonomy, for independence \u2014 and people are coming out, young and old alike,\u201d comments Yuriy Krulikovsky, head of polling station No. 58, dressed in a vyshyvanka and a jacket, in archival video footage digitized by Suspilne. \u201cA lot of people come and thank us for the fact that the polling station is available and they can cast their vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The voters are focused and taciturn. Journalists interview them on the streets. People do not avert their gaze or mince their words, but they wrap themselves in coats. In a social video about the nationwide referendum and presidential election, voters on the street talk about whether they voted and why. The answers and arguments vary. Here is one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid you vote?\u201d After lunch, the polling stations are crowded. There are queues. People come out of the booths, sigh, smile at the camera and remain silent. Voting continues. In Kharkiv, student and singer Maria Burmaka excitedly ticks the \u201cyes\u201d box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBack then, I think, 86% of Kharkiv residents voted for independence. Everyone understood that Ukraine was a colony, and now there was an opportunity to go our own way and build our own state. It was all about, you know, as Khvylovyi said \u2014 getting away from Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the results were being announced, Maria held her breath. Student hunger strikes, protests, nervous anticipation. Finally, the day had come that would put everything in its place. \u201cJustice prevailed\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s how she describes the choice that had long been obvious to Burmaka herself. It was what she fought for, spoke out for and sang about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen my father and I spoke Ukrainian, people would mock us in Russian, \u2018Such cultured people, but speaking Ukrainian,\u2019\u201d Burmaka smiles. \u201cI think that many factors influenced the mood of the people, especially in Kharkiv. Why did this happen? Kharkiv is a city of intellectuals, where culture was born and where it was murdered. The Slovo House. The poets and writers of the Executed Renaissance. Rebellious sentiment has always existed in Kharkiv.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maria recalls how, in 1989, she arrived from the Chervona Ruta music festival and was warmly welcomed by the student and professorial communities. And not only by the Ukrainian wing of the linguistics department at Kharkiv University, but by others as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter that, I was summoned to a certain department and asked about the song I\u2019d sung there \u2014 \u2018Oh, do not blossom, spring, my people are in chains.\u2019 Something like that happened. But no special sanctions or actions were taken against me. I think it\u2019s because these internal movements were already noticeable in Ukraine, and there was noticeable support from both students and teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the eve of the referendum, journalists from the Ukrainian television youth studio \u201cHart\u201d conducted street interviews in Donetsk, Lviv, Odesa and Kirovohrad. People spoke simply and honestly. In Donetsk, miners \u2014 the same ones who had been striking for years, fighting for economic dignity \u2014 wanted to vote. Strike committees in Donbas had not yet ceased their operations. They were waiting for concrete decisions from the new, independent Ukrainian government. They had long since stopped trusting the central power in Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe that the more rights and opportunities we have for trade and economic development, the better it will be overall,\u201d says a miner in Russian in archival footage from the Gorky Mine in Donetsk, where about 4,000 people were working at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndependence and nothing else. We need to live like human beings. How long can this go on?\u201d adds another miner, also in Russian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar sentiments were echoed hundreds of kilometers away in the village of Dobrovelychkivka in Kirovohrad Oblast, home to 7,000 people:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are Ukrainians, we will vote for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor independence. It\u2019s like a big family, like my parents had \u2014 there were eight of us, and we survived somehow. But if you have just one child, or two, life is different. That\u2019s how we lived in the Union\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLife in the village is not great. If you compare it to what they show on TV \u2014 they recently showed small towns in Finland\u2026 If we had done this earlier, maybe we would already be living like they do in Finland. But all is not lost. While there is still a chance, we must seize it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the center of Kyiv, at a polling station in the building of the National Academy of Sciences near Besarabka, Yuriy Shcherbak, who in three years will become Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to the United States, goes to vote with his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBush made a statement that if the referendum in Ukraine ended positively, that is, if there were convincing figures regarding the Ukrainian people\u2019s desire to move toward an independent Ukrainian state, the United States would support Ukraine\u2019s independence. It came out of the blue. An angry Gorbachev began calling Bush. What are you doing? You are destroying the Soviet Union. But that was the decision made in Washington and the White House,\u201d explains Yuriy Shcherbak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that day, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians voted for independence. The turnout was 84 percent. Nearly 32 million people cast their ballots.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am a sociologist, after all,\u201d smiles Yevhen Holovakha. \u201cAnd at that time, I knew very well how everything would end, both the referendum and the presidential elections. We conducted more than one poll. The only thing that remained in play was Crimea. Crimea was a mystery, that\u2019s true. Although all the polls, including ours, showed around 52-53 percent in favor, that was no guarantee that it wouldn\u2019t be 47-48 percent, taking into account certain errors, circumstances, and events that could influence the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to him, in the early 1990s, society was filled with extraordinary faith in the future. People sincerely believed that Ukraine was the richest republic, and that once it became independent, everything would immediately flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut by April 1992, journalists were coming to me and asking, \u2018So where is this improvement? Why isn\u2019t anything changing?\u2019 I had to explain that social transformation is not an instant process, especially in post-Soviet countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At around 10 p.m., the first official results begin to appear, \u201cyes\u201d votes so far prevailing. The country freezes in anticipation. Televisions glow in apartments, kitchens, and dormitories. In the center \u2014 Kyiv, Cherkasy, Poltava \u2014 over 90% in favor. Even in the east \u2014 Luhansk, Donetsk \u2014 more than 80% in favor. In Crimea, too \u2014 the majority in favor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe idea was simple,\u201d explains Yevhen Holovakha. \u201cA better life. For ourselves, for our children. So that we no longer work for someone else, but build a better life for ourselves in our own home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leonid Kravchuk won the presidential election. Vyacheslav Chornovil lost to him, winning a majority in only three regions: Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. Why did this happen? Sociologists have the answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn essence, the national idea embodied by Chornovil, Kravchuk\u2019s main rival, was the deciding factor only for a quarter of the population, mainly in the west. In Kyiv, it was for about 40 percent. But overall, it wasn\u2019t the main issue for the voters. We also conducted surveys in villages, and there was no one there who said, \u2018I want my own Ukraine.\u2019 The sentiment was more like this: Why do we need Russia? We are on our own. We will be better off. We are hard-working, and they\u2019re all drunks. This was a very common argument. Some people had served in Russia \u2014 in Vyatka, in Vladimir \u2014 and saw how people lived there. Others heard about it from someone else. And everyone came to the conclusion: we will be better off on our own,\u201d sums up Yevhen Holovakha, who at the time was head of the sector for the democratization of society at the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PPashc_archive_0_07.jpg\")
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<\/figure>\nEnough<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Quietly, from under the hem<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\nZero hour<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes, I did.\u201d
\u201cWhich way?\u201d
\u201cFor independence. That\u2019s the only way to get out of this mess.\u201d
\u201cHow will you benefit from it personally?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t need to benefit personally. We need to be reborn as a nation. As a state,\u201d says the man in a suit, tie and hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PPashc_archive_0_02.jpg\")
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1. Dismantling of the Lenin monument on Independence Square in Kyiv. September 12, 1991 \/ 2. The dismantled head of Dzerzhinsky, the leader of the \u201cRed Terror\u201d and the violent establishment of Bolshevik dictatorship. His monument was removed from in front of the former KGB building in Kyiv. Like Lenin\u2019s, it was taken to the grounds of what was then the Museum of Kyiv History. 1992<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI will listen to my people<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n