Budzenie się Ukrainy
The Awakening of Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: This publication discusses two documents from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine. They were created in 1988 by the KGB structures of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and present an assessment of events that took place at that time to be used by the leadership of the party and the Ukrainian SSR. They concern the activities of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and its leaders, primarily Vyacheslav Chornovil. In the following months, that political environment established the People’s Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction, which was the main factor of political change in the country. The KGB of the Ukrainian SSR noted that the assumptions of the programme of the new organisations included, among other things, the demand for the legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church. From that time, it became one of the most important ideological assumptions of the Ukrainian perestroika movement. The changes in Ukraine were of fundamental importance for the eastern policy of John Paul II, one of whose goals was to legalise the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. They made it possible to implement that postulate. The analysis of both documents focuses on the denominational aspect of the described events.

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