Kyiv celebrates January anniversary (02/01/98)

Kyiv celebrates January anniversary

Embassy of Ukraine

WASHINGTON - A solemn gathering commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Ukrainian National Republic was held at the National Opera House in Kyiv on January 21.

The gathering was attended by President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, national deputies, and representatives of public organizations, labor collectives and diplomatic missions accredited to Kyiv.

In his opening speech, Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko stressed the great historic significance of the declaration of the Ukrainian National Republic's independence on January 22, 1918. Yet another epoch-making event happened on January 22, 1919, when two sovereign Ukrainian states, the Ukrainian National Republic and the Western Ukrainian National Republic, united into one independent state.

Vice Prime Minister Valerii Smolii noted the 1918 independence declaration's great influence on the Ukrainian people's future, as it uplifted the national spirit and created "a genuine outburst of liberation energy." The Ukrainian revolution of 1918, as a social phenomenon, was determined by the laws of historical progress; it justly ranks high among liberation processes of the peoples of Europe and the whole world, he said.

The gathering was addressed also by Justice Minister Suzanna Stanik; the director of the Taras Shevchenko Literature Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, Mykola Zhulynsky; and Academician Ivan Dzyuba.

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