Stepan Khmara

StepanIlkovych Kh mara was a Ukrainian politician and human rights activist, political prisoner and dissident of the USSR. Died on February 21, 2024.

Stepan Khmara was born in the village of Bobyatin, in Lviv region on October 12, 1937.

He graduated from Lviv Medical Institute in 1964.

He worked as a dentist in the village of Gornyak in Lviv region. He actively participated in the dissident movement, distributing banned literature.

In the 60s he was the first in Ukraine to translate into Ukrainian the work of academician Andrei Sakharov "Reflections on Peace, Intellectual Freedom and Progress".

In 1974, Stepan Khmara published his publications "Ethnocide of Ukrainians in the USSR" and "General Pogrom" as part of the illegal publication "Ukrainian Bulletin" in the USSR. Later, these materials were repeatedly reprinted in Europe in different languages.

In 1975, Khmara was detained for the first time, but was soon released due to lack of evidence of the crime.

In 1980 Stepan Khmara was arrested by the KGB, charged under the article "anti-Soviet propaganda" and sentenced to seven years in a high-security camp and five years of exile afterwards.

In 1987, the politician returned to Ukraine and became one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and after its reformatting into the URP in 1990, he became deputy head of the group.

In the same year he was elected as a People's Deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament.

In November 1990, he was taken into custody on charges of assaulting a law enforcement officer. This case received high publicity and public resonance, becoming known as the "Khmara case".

After Ukraine gained independence, Stepan Khmara was elected as a people's deputy twice more - in 1994 and later in 2002 from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

He took an active part in the Orange Revolution, supporting Viktor Yushchenko.

In 2005, he left the Batkivshchyna party.

He holds the title of Hero of Ukraine, received from Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

He was awarded the Order of Freedom and the Order of Yaroslav the Wise.

Stepan Khmara is married. His wife is Roksolana Khmara.

Stepan Khmara stated that he wanted to bail the odious Nadiya Savchenko, arrested on suspicion of preparing a coup d'état.

He spoke harshly about Petro Poroshenko and his government.