Word: kiev
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Flags are one thing. But an independent Ukraine with its own soldiers? The idea may not be so farfetched: in Kiev last week the parliament overwhelmingly passed a declaration of sovereignty. Stopping short of proclaiming full independence, the document insists that the republic's laws take precedence over Moscow's rule. Furthermore, the decree envisions a neutral, nuclear-free Ukraine with its own army and currency. Even the large bloc of Communist parliamentary deputies joined nationalists in pressing for a fundamental change in relations with Moscow...
...commander of the Kiev military district, Lieut. General Gromov, 46, is one of the most famous and admired officers in the country. A major general at 39, a Hero of the Soviet Union, he served three tours in Afghanistan and was overall Soviet commander there from 1984 until the pullout last year. Typically, he was the last soldier to cross the bridge back into the U.S.S.R., in February 1989. There is no tradition of Bonapartism in Russian history, and Gromov denies rumors that he is contemplating a coup, but he says the army "cannot be kept outside politics." His political...
Amazingly, there was no ethnic Russian in the race at all. Aleksy's two competitors, Metropolitans Vladimir of Rostov and Filaret of Kiev, are both natives of the Ukraine. The three nominees were elected by the Soviet Union's bishops from a list of all 75 of their eligible colleagues, then proposed to the full church council. The council rejected bids to add other candidates, then chose Aleksy in two secret ballots...
...bishops' nominations, followed Aleksy as administrator at patriarchal headquarters in Moscow and shares his moderate views. But it was highly significant that the delegates bypassed Filaret, a hard-liner who had served as acting head of the church since the death last month of Patriarch Pimen. Leader of the Kiev diocese since 1966, Filaret is more of a Ukrainian chauvinist than is Vladimir and, according to dissident priest Gleb Yakunin, is seen as "a KGB puppet." He was third in the bishops' vote...
...changes in the church in comparison to those which took place after the election of Gorbachev." Moreover, notes Jane Ellis of England's Keston College, Filaret's election would have sent "the strongest possible anti-Catholic signal to the Vatican" just six months after Gorbachev visited the Pope. The Kiev prelate's hostility to Rome has greatly complicated the bitter fight in the western Ukraine over Catholics' seizing churches that Stalin handed to the Orthodox...