“It is not enough to fight for independence. One must know how to do this”

December 1 marks the 19th anniversary since the All-Ukrainian referendum, in which over 90 percent of Ukrainians supported the Act of Declaration of Independence. Majorities in all regions of Ukraine, regardless of ethnic origin, said Yes to independence.

Before December 1, 1991 no country had formally recognized the newly independent Ukraine, but just within that month 40 states from all around the world recognized the new state.

Nowadays it is difficult to believe that this referendum had skeptics and opponents. At this, those were not communists, but national democrats and “conscious” students. Since before this referendum another one was held — in March, when the majority of the republic voted for preserving the USSR. Based on that referendum, the creation of a new union — the Union of Sovereign States (a weak federation) was planned for August 20, 1991. Fortunately, the failure of the State Committee for Emergencies frustrated these plans from the very beginning.

However, there were no guarantees that it would be possible to overcome the 70 percent of No votes from the March referendum.

“It is clear that we, students of the Kyiv University, supported independence, but we were not sure that residents of Donbas and the Crimea would vote the right way,” says the political expert Valerii Dymov. “There was no reason to be sure that everyone would vote for independence. Some of us were against it because we believed the decision of the Verkhovna Rada would be enough. Moreover, the Baltic countries did not hold any referendum. I remember listening to the radio, and when I heard that in my native Mykolaiv, in the Donbas, a majority of people voted for independence, tears welled up in my eyes.”

Even Leonid Kravchuk, the initiator of the referendum and first president of independent Ukraine, didn’t expect such a result:

“Of course, I hoped that there would be more people who would say Yes to independence than supporters of preserving the ‘renewed federation,’ as Mikhail Gorbachev liked to call it. The referendum’s results surpassed the most optimistic prognoses: 90.32 percent of citizens who participated in it supported the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. In 19 regions and the city of Kyiv over 90 percent supported creating the state. The then US President George Bush called me and said these results were overwhelming. I called Gorbachev myself. Before this we argued with Gorbachev about the probable results of the referendum. I expected that no less than 80 percent would vote for the independence. The head of the USSR called me a dreamer. When my dream came true, Gorbachev, in my opinion, had the right to be one of the first people to hear it. But Mikhail Gorbachev deliberately avoided discussing this topic. He only congratulated me, in a restrained manner, on the victory in the presidential elections.

“I got the support of 61.59 percent of voters, much more than Viacheslav Chornovil, who took the second place. But the results of the referendum, of course, where my main victory,” recollects the former president.

However, gaining independence is one thing, knowing what to do with it is another issue altogether. Thus, many hope that after 19 years the state will finally begin to move forward with major projects that will allow Ukrainians to truly benefit from the freedom they fought for.