Leading journalist Oleksander Kryvenko, 39, killed in car accident outside Kyiv (04/13/03)

Leading journalist Oleksander Kryvenko, 39, killed in car accident outside Kyiv

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine lost one of its most creative and dynamic journalists on April 9, when Oleksander Kryvenko, founder and editor of unique broadcast, radio and print media outlets, including the Lviv newspaper Post-Postup and the Kyiv magazine Polityka i Kultura, died in an automobile accident just outside Kyiv.

President Leonid Kuchma issued a statement of condolence and called Mr. Kryvenko's contributions to Ukrainian journalism "difficult to overestimate."

At the time of his death, Mr. Kryvenko was the founding director of Hromadske Radio (Ukrainian Public Radio) and president of the citizens' group Khartia-4. He was also a leading figure in the attempt to form an independent journalists' union, a member of the opposition group Za Pravdu (For the Truth), vice-president of the Association of Ukrainian Writers and director of the Polish-Ukrainian journalist club Bez Uperedzhen.

Mr. Kryvenko, 39, died instantly after the Volkswagen Golf in which he was traveling left the Kyiv-Chernihiv highway at a slight swerve in the pavement and hit a tree, one of many that line both sides of the four-lane highway as it broadens into a boulevard near the village of Skybyn. State militia said there was no evidence that the driver of the car attempted to stop his vehicle. The car, which was traveling at more than 65 miles per hour when it collided with the tree, hit with such force that it sent the engine into the car's passenger compartment.

State militia reported that they had stopped the driver of the vehicle for speeding just 15 to 20 minutes prior to the collision. Investigators did not state whether there was evidence that either of the passengers had been drinking. They said a criminal investigation would take place and blood tests and autopsies would be performed.

Investigators are pursuing the theory that either a mechanical problem caused the car to malfunction or the driver of the vehicle may have fallen ill or asleep at the wheel. The driver, Gizo Grdelidze, projects director in Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and a diplomat with the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also died instantly.

The death of Mr. Kryvenko is the third major loss for Ukrainian journalism since the beginning of the year and follows by a single day the death of one of Ukraine's most prominent cameramen, Taras Protsyuk. Mr. Protsyuk died in Baghdad, where he was covering the war for the Reuters news agency after a U.S. tank fired a 120 mm round at the news agency's 15th floor room at the Palestine Hotel - the place where Mr. Protsyuk was filming at the time. (See story on page 1.)

On January 18, Ukrainian journalism had lost Serhii Naboka. Mr. Naboka was considered one of the first journalists to practice the new, post-Soviet style of journalism that Mr. Kryvenko made popular. At Mr. Naboka's funeral Mr. Kryvenko had called him "my professional father."

Many journalists considered Mr. Kryvenko the leading figure of the "new school" of Ukrainian journalism that arose with the end of the Soviet Union. While adopting Western standards of balanced reporting and openness, it added irony and a specific type of sardonic wit to stories of new government policies in the post-Soviet era and the awkward attempts by former Communist apparatchiks to paint themselves in democratic, free-market colors.

Mr. Kryvenko was born in 1963 in Lviv, where he graduated from Ivan Franko State University in 1987 with a degree in philology. After working in the university's Ukrainian literature department, he organized the Lev Society and began to dabble in politics as a member of the democratic and human rights organizations Memorial and Rukh. He was a delegate to Rukh's founding convention.

In 1989 he organized and became editor-in-chief of Postup, a daily that became one of the first popular newspapers that ascribed to an independent, Western style of reporting, but with a heavy dose of sharp wit, biting irony and satire. After leaving the newspaper to work for other publications, he returned to head the newspaper in 1992, which was renamed Post-Postup.

In 1995 he became news director of the television news program "Vikna," on the ICTV station, which was developed with U.S. private investments, and then news director of the "Windows on the World" program, financed by the International Media Center.

A stint as a member of the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers in 1996-1997 was followed by his promotion as an aide in the government of Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko and as a member of the political council of the National Democratic Party.

Mr. Kryvenko left politics in February 1998 when he was hired as news director of Studio 1+1, at the time the most popular Ukrainian television station. He ended his association with the station in June 1999 after editorial policy disagreements over how to cover the presidential elections that were then heating up.

In March 1999 he had already taken on the job of publishing a new Ukrainian magazine, Polityka i Kultura, (Politics and Culture) which was packaged similarly to U.S. newsmagazines like Newsweek and Time, but with a deft hint of the wit and irony of his original Postup newspaper.

However, Mr. Kryvenko quickly moved on again, this time to radio and what would be his final project, when he established Hromadske Radio in February 2002. He had said he wanted to make his Ukrainian Public Radio as influential a media force as National Public Radio is in the United States.

Mr. Kryvenko's burial was scheduled to take place on April 12 at the historic Lychakiv Cemetery in his hometown of Lviv. He is survived by his wife, Maria, and four daughters, 17-year-old Oksana and 12-year-old triplets Solomia Vasylyna, Anastasia Maria and Orysia Domna.

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