"I Am a Ukrainian" is an Internet viral video, first posted on YouTube in 2014 featuring a young Ukrainian woman supporting the protestors in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. At the woman's request, British photographer Graham Mitchell filmed her speaking on the Maidan, and her friend, Ben Moses, edited the material into video he posted on her behalf on YouTube. By late March that year the video had been viewed over 8 million times.
The woman in the video was initially not named [1] in order to keep her safe, [2] but was eventually identified as Yulia Marushevska, a Kyiv Ph.D. student of Ukrainian literature at Taras Shevchenko National University. [3] Marushevska conceived, wrote, and produced the video after the death of five people, three of whom died of gunshot wounds, on January 22. [4] Marushevska felt she needed to do more for the EuroMaidan, and was frustrated with what she perceived to be the foreigners’ ignorance about why the protests were happening.[ citation needed ] She wanted to inform the viewers that the Ukrainians want to change their government due to concerns over alleged unchecked corruption within it. [5] [ unreliable source? ] They ended up shooting a 2-minute, 4 second long video [5] where she speaks in English. [6]
After only a few days on YouTube the video had about 3.5 million views. [6] The video has received mostly positive reception, with the majority of the tens of thousands of comments supportive. [5] [6] [7] By February 21 the video had approximately 70,000 "likes" and 4,000 "dislikes". [5] A minority of voices argued that it is too one-sided. [6] [7] It has also been criticized for its professional production value, invoking a comparison to the controversial Kony 2012 viral video, which misled viewers into thinking it was a purely amateur production. [7] [8]
BBC News has described it as having the greatest impact of any video from the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. [6] Moses has now completed a feature-length documentary, Witness to a Revolution, about Yulia's and Ukraine's progress in the year following her viral video. [9]
In July 2015 Mikheil Saakashvili, Governor of Odesa, announced that Yulia Marushevska accepted a job as Deputy Head of the Odesa Regional State Administration. According to Mikheil Saakashvili Yulia Marushevska had previously spent a year of training at Harvard and Stanford universities. [10]
Mikheil Saakashvili is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician and jurist. He was the third president of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. From May 2015 until November 2016, Saakashvili was the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. He is the founder and former chairman of the United National Movement party. Saakashvili heads the executive committee of Ukraine's National Reform Council since 7 May 2020. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Georgia accused of abuse of power and organization of a grievous bodily injury against an opposition MP.
Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian politician, people's Deputy of Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for the fuel and energy complex (1999–2001), Prime Minister of Ukraine from February to September 2005 and from December 2007 to March 2010. She was the first and so far is the only woman to serve as prime minister of Ukraine. She has the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti is the central square of Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. One of the city's main squares, it is located on Khreshchatyk Street in the Shevchenko Raion. The square has been known under many different names, but often it is called by people simply Maidan ("square"). The square contains the iconic Independence Monument.
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Valentyn Oleksandrovych Nalyvaichenko is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician.
Khatia Dekanoidze is a Georgian politician who served as Minister of Education and Science in 2012 and as a Member of Parliament since 2020, as well as a former Ukrainian official, serving as Chief of the National Police of Ukraine in 2015–2016.
Mustafa Masi Nayyem is an Afghan-Ukrainian journalist, MP, lecturer at the Kyiv School of Economics, and public figure who was influential in sparking the Euromaidan in Ukraine. Since January 2023 Nayyem is the head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development. Prior to this he was Deputy Minister of Infrastructure appointed in August 2021.
Euromaidan, or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU, but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. Euromaidan led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
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Below are the foreign reactions to the Euromaidan. Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began on the night of 21 November 2013 after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
Below are the domestic responses to the Euromaidan. Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began on the night of 21 November 2013 after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
The Maidan People's Union is an alliance in Ukraine formed by several political parties and non-partisan individuals and public organizations on the fifth Sunday of the Euromaidan-protests with the aim of "building a new Ukraine and a new Ukrainian government" by creating a new Ukrainian constitution, and removing corrupt judges and prosecutors. It also aims to organize opposition to the current regime and to coordinate the protest movement in all regions of the country. In practice this means broadening support for the goals of the organization in the pro-government and pro-presidential heartland East Ukraine.
Altogether, 108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers were killed in Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which was the culmination of the Euromaidan protest movement. The deaths occurred in January and February 2014; most of them on 20 February, when police snipers fired on anti-government activists in Kyiv. The slain activists are known in Ukraine as the Heavenly Hundred or Heavenly Company. By June 2016, 55 people had been charged in relation to the deaths of protesters, including 29 former members of the Berkut special police force, ten titushky or loyalists of the former government, and ten former government officials.
The anti-Maidan refers to a number of pro-Russian demonstrations in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014 that were directed against Euromaidan and later the new Ukrainian government. The initial participants were in favor of supporting the cabinet of the second Azarov government, President Viktor Yanukovych, and closer ties with Russia. By the time of the Revolution of Dignity in February 2014, the “anti-Maidan” movement had begun to decline, and after the overthrow of Yanukovych, the anti-Maidan fractured into various other groups, which partially overlapped. These ranged from people protesting against social ills, to supporters of a federalization of Ukraine, to pro-Russian separatists and nationalists.
Yulia Marushevska is a Ukrainian activist and civil servant. A graduate student in literature and history, she appeared in a short video, entitled I Am a Ukrainian, which went viral after being posted in February 2014. In the spring of 2014, she gave talks about the cause of Ukrainian freedom in the United States and Canada and was interviewed by news media from dozens of countries.
In early 2014, there were clashes between rival groups of protestors in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, during the pro-Russian unrest that followed the Ukrainian Revolution. The street clashes were between pro-revolution (pro-Maidan) and anti-revolution (anti-Maidan)/pro-Russian protesters. Violence erupted on 2 May, when a 'United Ukraine' rally was attacked by pro-Russian separatists. Stones, petrol bombs and gunfire were exchanged; two pro-Ukraine activists and four pro-Russia activists were shot dead in the clashes. The pro-Ukraine demonstrators then moved to dismantle a pro-Russian protest camp in Kulykove Pole, causing some pro-Russian activists to barricade themselves in the nearby Trade Unions House. Shots were fired by both sides, and the pro-Ukraine demonstrators attempted to storm the building, which caught fire as the two groups threw petrol bombs at each other.
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