Leonid Kravchuk

Leonid Kravchuk Makarowytsch (Ukrainian Леонід Макарович Кравчук, scientific transliteration Leonid Makarovyč Kravčuk; born January 10, 1934 in Welykyj Schytyn in Rivne Oblast ) from 1991 to 1994, the first President of Ukraine after its independence from the USSR.

Career

Kravchuk in Kiev studied economics and political economy and, after graduating in 1958 as a teacher at the Czernowitz financial pilot. In the same year he joined the Communist Party. Since 1960, he spent seven years as a consultant and lecturer in the propaganda and agitation department of the Chernivtsi Oblastkomitees the KPU. His postgraduate he studied at the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and then returned to senior positions back to the propaganda department. 1988-1990 he rose to become secretary of the Central Committee and was a candidate for membership in the Politburo of the KPU.

At the time of independence from the Soviet Union Kravchuk was President of the Parliament - the first Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukraine. On 1 December 1991, he was elected the first President of independent Ukraine and introduced into office four days later. He held the office until he was replaced in 1994 by Leonid Kuchma as his successor in office.

Leonid Kravchuk in 1998 member of the board of the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine ( SDPU (o)). From 1994 to 2006 he was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. He resigned from the party, as this 2009 decided to participate with the KPU on the Left Alliance block left-wing forces and to support the communist chairman as a presidential candidate.