Student Revolution on Granite Started 30 years Ago: October 2, 1990

Today marks a very important day in Ukrainian history. It was 30 years ago that students began a hunger strike on what was then Square of the October Revolution, as many now know it has long been Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was known as The Revolution on Granite, which would change not only the course of Ukraine's history but that of the entire USSR. which would change not only the course of Ukraine's history but that of the entire USSR.

 This event is very close to my heart for a number of different reasons which I will share with you all today. In the summer of 1990 throughout the month of July myself and five other students: Nadia Homonko, Kateryna Kharuk, Roman Ivanus, Greg (Hryts) Kindiak and  Yuriy Tatukh travelled to 

Fax machine in foreground sold to finance the Hunger Strike.

Ukraine on the invitation of Studentske bratsvo (Student brotherhood, though we have are very special sisters as well) of the city of Lviv. During that trip I made many good friends, many who unfortunately no longer with us. In mid-August that very same year at the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union (SUSK) Congress on the Erindale Campus at the University of Toronto, for a number of different reasons, I was elected president of the orgnaization. 

A planned family trip took me back to Ukraine a second time that summer flying back to Kyiv with my mother and brother. When in Lviv I met with some of my friends from Studentske bratsvo. We visited with Andriy Vynnychuk (26.06.1968-05.07.1996) ) and his parents family who lived across from the Electron Television Plant. I had billeted with Andriy's family during my month long visit in July.  I met with  Markian Ivashchyshyn (06.09.1966-21.05.2019) who was head of Studentske bratstvo  then and who informed me of a very important action that was going to take place at the beginning of October. 

As president of SUSK he was telling me this in confidence, and told me that less than a handful of people in all of Ukraine knew of this plan. His instructions to me were very simple and specific. I was to call his mother on the evening of October 1, 1990 - to learn more information of what was supposed to transpired that morning. He also informed me that it would be wise for me to compile a list of media contacts in Canada when I returned home. I was returning to Canada and to my first career position as a Reference Librarian at McGill University's McLennan Library, and in that position I had the tools to do just that. 

So in the two weeks leading up to October I used parts of my lunch hours compiling my contact list. Students in Ukraine were also making their plans for an event was to start on October 1, though the start of their activity was postponed for a day, as explained Oleksandr Doniy in his chronlogy of the event entitled Studentska Revoliutsia na Hraniti ( The Student Revolution on the Granite) published in 1995. While I was making my list, my friends in  Ukraine were making their plans as well. 

"On the eve of the action, at a joint meeting of the USS (Ukrainska studentska spilka, Ukrainian Students' Association)  and SB (Studentske bratstvo), the organizational structure of its leadership was determined.  The representative body was to be the Council of Hunger Striking Students, consisting of representatives of different cities, headed by three co-chairs, who would represent the West, East and Kyiv.

"The co-chairs were unanimously elected :  Markiyan Ivashchyshy, head of the Student Brotherhood of Lviv, part-time student of Lviv Polytechnic Institute; Oles Doniy - head of the Kyiv the USS, fifth-year student of the historical faculty at KSU (Kyiv State University), Oleh Barkov - head of the USS of the city of Dnipropetrovsk. In order to carry out executive functions of the camp Taras Korpal, a student, of the  Faculty of Philosophy at KSU. Various services for the future camp were also approved. Medical services was headed by Taras Semushchak, a student of the  Lviv Medical Institute. Oleh Kuzan and Serhiy Bashchuk from Lviv headed the press service, and and security was headed by - Andriy Klishch. The date of the action, scheduled for October 1, had to be postponed, because on this day the opposition forces held another "all-Ukrainian" strike, which was able to realize in the form of demonstrations through the streets of Kyiv. With a general skepticism it was decided to postpone the start of the hunger strike to October 2 before this "all-Ukrainian" event". 

Many things have changes regarding communications between Canada and that part of the world. Many forget that at that time to make a phone call to Lviv, one had to go through an operator in Moscow, The seven hour time difference provided a certain degree of security that information would be useless to eavesdroppers in Moscow. It took me about four hours to finally get through to Markian's mother in Lviv at about 02:00 hours Montreal time. It only took her a couple of minutes to read me the demands of the students, which numbered five:

1. Preventing the signing of a new union agreement;
2. Re-election of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR on a multiparty basis not later than the spring of 1991;
3. The return of Ukrainian soldiers to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the provision of military service by young Ukrainians exclusively on the territory of the republic;
4. Nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the LKSMU (Leninist Communist League Youth of Ukraine);
5. And the resignation of the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR Vitaly Masol.

October 2, 1990. Sign reads: I'm on a hunger-strike against the Masol Government

 Photo Courtesy of Dmytro Kloczko. 

I took the time to record our conversation and then later transcribed and translated for the series of about two dozen faxes that I would be sending to Canadian media outlets via my fax modem. 

The day the hunger-strike started my good friend Andriy Vynnychuk to Moloda Halychyna (Young Galicia) the following: ""Despite the fact that this is an extreme measure, for us it is the only opportunity to protest." 

Needless to say, I got practically no sleep at all that night... which kind of reminds me of a song by the 5th Dimension. When I arrived at work that Tuesday morning I went in and told my supervisor Mary Mason about what was going on and that I was exhausted. Mary understood my involvement in things Ukrainian and even let me have a nap, before my stint on the reference desk, and also had no problem that I had used my work phone number extension for media contact. On October 2, 1990 I did four different telephone interviews. 

Having witnessed the events of Tianamen in 1989 via CNN, the days that followed were not easy for me, knowing that Moscow could be as cruel as Bejing. So that's my little back story. 

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant