The Granite Revolution sparked Ukrainian independence

Today is the anniversary of Ukrainian independence. But little attention is paid to the 1990 protests that sparked the imagination of Ukrainians: that maybe, just maybe, they could be free.

Editor’s Note: Happy independence day from free Ukraine. The last two and a half years have been a struggle, but Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands. 

But the groundwork for all we see today was laid in a 16 day protest in the capital’s Maidan, in a little remembered demonstration that set the stage for Ukraine’s mass movements of the subsequent decades. If you think this sort of human-first coverage is critical, please join us as a paid subscriber!

Viktor Rog hadn’t eaten for a week when he lost consciousness.

“I was walking, then everything went black. My friend caught me before I hit the ground,” Viktor remembered.

Viktor is one of 298 protesters that went on hunger strike in The Granite Revolution in 1990, which became the first time in Ukraine’s history that a protest group successfully occupied Kyiv’s Independence Square – also known as Maidan Nezalezhnosti

The protest demanded among other reforms: the rejection of the New Union Treaty, which aimed to bring back the Soviet Union and the resignation of Prime Minister Vitaliy Masol.

The protest ended when Prime Minister Masol resigned. Although their other demands were not immediately met, nine months later, Ukrainian independence was declared. 

Viktor Rog standing with former political prisoners that decided to join the hunger strike, 14th October, 1990

Despite the protests' partial success, the government acceptance of demands was not itself the big achievement. The protesters had shown, for the first time since the Soviets took power, that protests and outcries for change in Ukraine could not only go unpunished, but they could be successful. 

The Granite Revolution was a catalyst for Ukrainian independence: people now saw that the Soviet government was no longer strong enough to repress people, opening a new chapter of political activism in Ukraine. 

The Granite Revolution was non-violent, which partially accounts for why it is often left out of many retellings of Ukraine’s turbulent post-independence history. Yet it is critical to understanding the foundation of Ukraine’s fight for independence – a fight which is as existential today as it was 34 years ago. 

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