On a personal level the late Vyacheslav Chornovil and I were
really little more than passing acquaintances. We would shake hands and
exchange pleasantries at some gathering or listen to each other at some
conference. Our positions diverged long ago less in terms of substance
as of emphasis. Like many of my national democratic friends, he thought
me far too critical of what Ukraine has become, and I at times found him
too accepting of it.
There is a fine line between heroic courage and pig-headed stubbornness,
which all but the most timid have at one time or another overstepped, and
Vyacheslav Maksymovych was by no means a timid man. In fact, it was his
courage that gave him his larger than life quality. At a time when a gentle
scolding from a Central Committee or KGB official was enough to make some
of his generation tow the line and write of their former friends in the
official press "may their names be accursed," he was willing to face long
years in the Gulag and exile for a goal that seemed so utopian, so impossible
then - the national liberation of Ukraine.
The other most outstanding quality about Chornovil was his wife, now
widow, Atena Pashko. The old truism that behind every great man is a woman
was never truer than in his case. She nurtured him through his trials,
warned him of lurking dangers, publicized his case with the outside world
when he was a dissident in the Gulag, and never left his side in the years
of political struggle. This remarkable woman deserves not only our condolences
but also our eternal respect, for without her love and support, her husband
would not have been the man he was.






