When our nation was being born, those who added the bricks of their knowledge and experience to its foundation were few and far between. Unfortunately, over time, their numbers have not got higher.
Yevhen Marchuk belongs precisely to the builders of our state. His vision of development is always ahead of time. Being active in politics, he had to work in difficult times when the society was not ready for real changes. Still, even in that coordinate system, he was able, while holding high positions, to lay many foundation stones enabling the country first to emerge, and then to develop.
Few people know that he is defending the state now as well, despite holding no office of profit. After all, patriotic thinking is more than just a set of beliefs or a list of posts. This is a mission, and Marchuk has kept performing his mission to this very day. We would like to remind that he actually saved thousands of lives of our soldiers and civilians past year. It was his hard work in a difficult field of the Minsk talks that made it possible to minimize casualties. Meanwhile, when one recalls his role in the Crimean events of 1994, when the country kept its land thanks to his timely decisions and orders, such episodes should make today’s leadership very sorry, as Marchuk’s actions form not only a model, but also a precedent of how to act in specific historical situations.
2003. DEFENSE MINISTER YEVHEN MARCHUK VISITS UKRAINIAN TROOPS IN IRAQ / Photo from Yevhen MARCHUK's personal archive
Den/The Day’s editors congratulate Yevhen Marchuk on the occasion of his birthday! As our gift, we offer a selection of thoughts, impressions and greetings from people who met Marchuk at various stages of his life and in various circumstances. The common denominator of their reflections is a high opinion of the moral qualities of this man who turned 75 today.
Serhii PYROZHKOV, Vice President, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine:
“I think there are very few people like Mr. Marchuk in Ukrainian history and society. He is a unique person of a very high intellect. This distinguishes him greatly from many other people. Yet he is an essentially communicable and well-wishing individual. If it is interesting to him, he can stay in contact with somebody for hours. Not all are like this. And, what is more, he is a great patriot in essence. He tackles and examines all problems through the prism of national interests. He is a person of a very high level as manager and organizer. He personifies all the qualities that a high-ranking official needs.
“I can remember my colleagues and me preparing a document. This left Marchuk dissatisfied. It was in the evening, at the end of a working day, but he told us to remake and submit these materials to the National Security and Defense Council secretary in the morning. I did it the way I saw it and gave the papers to the colleagues who were officially responsible for this issue so that they made some corrections. I came in the morning to take the final version, but they said I was not allowed to see these materials. Then Mr. Marchuk summoned me asked if I had read the materials after they’d been modified. I said I had done the job but had not seen the final version. He got very nervous. The next day the person in charge of this was no longer part of the staff.
“He excelled in all the offices he held. Speaking of him in the historical context, it is very sad that he failed to fully realize himself for the development of Ukraine.
“It is when he was in office that we adopted the concept of Ukraine-NATO cooperation. Mr. Marchuk took a very serious attitude to this strategy. Had we finally applied this strategy, we wouldn’t have the problems we are having – we wouldn’t have lost Crimea or have a war in the Donbas. And we would be a subject, not an object, of international relations.”
Yurii SHCHERBAK, writer, journalist, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine:
“Yevhen Marchuk is a unique figure among our politicians and public servants. I saw him at work and learned from him, because it was my first experience as a public servant and minister. I heard about Marchuk from Ivan Dziuba even before. I must say that Marchuk’s uniqueness is that the fate sent him into the dark bowels of secret services, and he has still kept his humanity intact.
“I have a lot of evidence about Marchuk remaining a moral human being despite working for the KGB. This is a case of a person who has brought their expertise to serve Ukraine. Creating Ukrainian intelligence and counterintelligence services was very painful. Distinctively, Marchuk built them up for Ukraine and tried to put his patriotism into building up the Ukrainian statehood.
SECRET. MARCH 1, 2004. DEFENSE MINISTER YEVHEN MARCHUK AT THE OSTROH MILITARY LYCEUM / Photo by Mykola LAZARENKO
“Marchuk has an idea, and his main idea is to build up Ukraine.
“He held almost all high public offices in the security field, from the director of counterintelligence to the minister of defense and the head of government. That is, he knows perfectly well all techniques of secret services and agencies which have to serve Ukraine and be the shield and the sword of the Ukrainian state. He introduced his experience and brilliant lawyer’s knowledge to this work.
“In addition to laws, important sectors of his work have included building up our military and developing relations with NATO. Here I am particularly pleased to cooperate with him as part of the ‘Ukraine in NATO’ movement.
“There was an attempt to remove Marchuk from the political scene. He is a very reserved person, like any intelligence and counterintelligence officer. Marchuk often refrains from commenting and smiles enigmatically. I think, nonetheless, that he knows what happened to him during the car accident after the election of 1999. I was shocked then, because understood well how important he was for us.
“Canadian Ukrainians told me that Ukraine needed a general for president – a battle-toughened general rather than some plant’s director. These people imagined Ukraine’s government as strong and corruption-free. And that is why they bet on four-star general Marchuk.”
Borys KLYMENKO, prominent journalist representing Spanish news agency EFE in Ukraine:
“Looking at the volume and quality of Yevhen Marchuk’s work at NATO summits and NATO-Ukraine bilateral meetings, one sees that in addition to the experience and authority with which he was endowed, his human qualities were important as well. Europeans rarely heard Ukrainian officials speaking English. Also, his friendly attitude to the interlocutor, his manner of getting in touch with his counterpart are so attractive that even after many years, people with whom he spoke at international meetings still trust him at a personal level. For example, why did Lord George Robertson go to hold meetings in the Donbas? I am sure it was Marchuk who persuaded him to do so, and Robertson agreed to go because he trusted Marchuk.”
Valentyn NALYVAICHENKO, chairman, Security Service of Ukraine (2006-10, 2014-15):
“My impressions and knowledge of, and inner feelings about Mr. Marchuk as a person who headed such pivotal sectors as security, defense, and international politics, where he addressed the conceptual problems of the restoration of Ukraine’s independence… It is extremely difficult to understand this now that everything seems to be clear and definite in Ukraine – it is the EU, NATO, international security, foreign languages, respect for humans and their dignity. Mr. Marchuk is exactly the person who pursued this very development vector of a large European country, when he held various offices 20-25 years ago. Moreover, he personified this vector. We, young Ukrainian diplomats, were then attracted with his otherness, originality, and, what is more, the linchpin of being unsubdued. I can clearly see a metaphor of him – a majestic and powerful Dnipro as time and the island of Khortytsia, an eternal gigantic island in the middle of the Dnipro, an island of strength. And if you ask me what associations Mr. Marchuk calls up in me, I will say it is Khortytsia which personifies strength, spirit, purposefulness, and indestructibility – and all these qualities in the right interpretation of a historical prospect for the state and people.
“Among the places of his concrete deeds, which laid the groundwork for a European and independent Ukraine, is the security sector, for he was the first to rehabilitate the victims of political repression and condemn all the punitive and antihuman regimes, systems, and institutions. He is a giant who drew up many laws in the field of security – from official secrets protection to the SBU and intelligence agencies. He was the National Security and Defense Council Secretary who properly formed the security and defense sector. In particular, this made it possible to thwart the first attempt to annex Crimea. This only proves the colossal scale of this figure, and this is why he is associated with Khortytsia in my mind. The Ukrainians who want to be wise and understand where to move on should mingle with people like Mr. Marchuk.
“In the first hours of the Russian aggression against this country, when I began a second term as SBU chairman, Mr. Marchuk was the only one to seek advice from. As the situation was extremely difficult and critical, I was in contact with Mr. Marchuk – this can and must be done. And this is where his strength lies.
“Mr. Marchuk’s staunchness has always had a positive effect on me and prompted me to go on fighting. In 2007-08, when the then parliament refused to appoint me owing to the principled position I had inherited from Mr. Marchuk in the questions of security, de-KGBzation, archive declassification, and condemnation of the criminal Holodomor, Mr. Marchuk used to tell me not to give in to political situation and not to change because right decisions were more important than appointments. It is good that I heeded him, and we managed to do a lot of things before the end of 2009. Mr. Marchuk is strong because he is the proverbial ‘stonemason,’ a figure that made not a single mistake in laying stones into the foundation of statehood.
“I agree with the people who admit that Mr. Marchuk represented a totally different historical vector of the development of our state – we would be an EU member now and on a par with Poland in socioeconomic and political terms. What the leadership did in 1999, using the administrative resource, pushed back this prospect, and we can see the consequences of this today. For two years on end, the state has been trying to get back to the track which Mr. Marchuk chose in the very beginning.”
