Address on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine

On July 16, 1990, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, then the Ukrainian SSR, adopted a historic document – the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. The Declaration has become an important milestone in the state-building process, the memory of which we must preserve and pass on to future generations.

The Declaration proclaimed “the supremacy, independence, completeness, and indivisibility of the power of the Republic within its territory and independence and equality in foreign relations.”

Today, the Ukrainian global community pays tribute to the Ukrainian national-democratic leaders, dissidents, people who were imprisoned for their pro-Ukrainian views: Vyacheslav Chornovil, Igor Kalynets, brothers Mykola, Mykhailo and Bohdan Horyn, Levko Lukyanenko and many others thanks to whom Ukraine was able to take this step. We also remember the generations of Ukrainians in the diaspora who worked tirelessly for decades to fulfil the hope of our ancestors to restore Ukrainian statehood.

“We should not underestimate the importance of the Declaration of State Sovereignty today. The Holodomor, the burden of decades in the “prison of nations”, history of systemic repressions weighed on the people of Ukraine taking this leap in 1990. The declaration was the historic decision where the will of the Ukrainian people prevailed over the Soviet system”, – stated UWC President, Paul Grod.