The Revolution on Granite: Students Meet with the Authorities

Video from Yaroslav Kendzor’s personal archive. Kyiv, October 9, 1990. A roundtable discussion attended by representatives of the striking students, the chairman and members of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, People’s Deputies, and representatives of various ministries.

In the video: at the presidium: student representative Oleg Kuzan, Chairman of the Supreme Council Leonid Kravchuk, People’s Deputy Ihor Yukhnovsky, and co-chairs of the student council Oleg Barkov, Oles Doniy, and Markiyan Ivashchyshyn; participants discuss the nationalization of Communist Party property, multi-party elections, the signing of a new union treaty, compulsory military service outside the Ukrainian SSR, and other issues.

Interview: Mykhailo Kosiv, Member of Parliament—paraphrases lines from a poem by Ivan Franko; Oleg Kuzan—on the deployment of some Lviv University students to agricultural work; on the issue of nationalizing Communist Party property; on the trial of the Communist Party; Oles Donii—on holding elections under a multiparty system and passing the relevant law; Leonid Kravchuk—on the issue of the Union Treaty, the Verkhovna Rada’s consideration of the dissolution of the Communist Party, and the confiscation of its property; Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, student representative—on the Verkhovna Rada’s refusal to adopt a new Union Treaty; Leonid Kravchuk—responds to Kyrylenko’s question; Stepan Khmara, a People’s Deputy—appeals to the students, asking some of them to end their dry hunger strike, and calls for the criminal prosecution of those who carried out provocations on the grounds of the student camp, among other things; Ihor Yukhnovsky – summarizes the negotiations, noting three demands: the resignation of Prime Minister V. Masol, the refusal to sign the union treaty, and voluntary military service outside the Ukrainian SSR; he appeals to the students to end their hunger strike; Markiyan Ivashchyshyn – expresses gratitude to the members of parliament, journalists, and representatives of civil society organizations for the opportunity to speak; he declares, on behalf of himself and the co-chairs, that they remain firm in their positions.