President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. OP’s photo
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that on Constitution Day he submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a draft law on the Ukrainian National Pantheon, which is designed to honor recognized Ukrainians.
Source: head of state and the head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Budanov in Telegram, a card draft law on the VR website
Zelensky’s direct speech: “Today I submitted to the parliament a law on the Ukrainian National Pantheon. The names of all the heroes who in different centuries and eras fought for Ukraine, inspired Ukraine, will be combined and forever inscribed in our history with a capital letter, with great respect and attention from the state – Ukraine, which respects itself, values its own and defends its – its right to be Ukrainians. When no one will ever dictate how we should live, how we should speak, who we should to love, to whom to be grateful and which heroes to honor.”
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Details: Budanov also emphasized that no one will tell Ukrainians who to call their heroes.
“No one will ever dictate to Ukrainians which heroes to honor, which holidays to celebrate or which history to study. Our ancestors fought for this right to freedom of choice and national independence for hundreds of years, and it is for this that our soldiers shed their blood today. Their memory should live forever,” said the head of the OP.
According to the text of the draft law, it defines the legal status of the national pantheon and will honor “the most outstanding representatives of the Ukrainian nation who made an exceptional, historically significant contribution” to the achievement and restoration of Ukraine’s independence, its development, the formation of the Ukrainian nation, the military, the culture of art, science, sports, the formation of language, the development of civil society and religion.
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It is noted that the pantheon will be a public memorial set and will be located in Kyiv.
The customer of its construction is determined by the draft law of the Cabinet of Ministers. It is also indicated that the pantheon project will be developed through an open competition.
In addition, the document defines a list of 6 categories of persons who can be honored in the pantheon. In particular, it refers to heads of state or their equivalents at different times, presidents of Ukraine, commanders-in-chief, persons who made an exceptional contribution to the achievement or restoration of independence, development of the country, etc., Nobel laureates, etc.
There is also a list of those categories of persons who cannot be in the pantheon. For example, those who have been convicted of a criminal offense against national security and peace.
The document regulates the procedure for making a decision regarding the commemoration of a person in the pantheon, the procedure for reburial in the pantheon, and the creation of the Book of Memory of Persons Commemorated in the Pantheon.
The draft law also proposes that the pantheon should have a 24-hour guard of honor.
It is assumed that the construction, maintenance and protection of the pantheon will be carried out at the expense of the state budget.
According to the explanatory note, the draft law aims to “honor the most outstanding representatives of the Ukrainian nation, to shape Ukrainian national and civic identity based on their examples, to create the Ukrainian National Pantheon as a nationwide place of memory of the Ukrainian people.”
“The adoption of the draft law will contribute to the restoration of historical justice, the formation of national memory and the consolidation of society around a common history,” the explanatory note says.
