Remembering Vyacheslav Chornovil

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.