Rada Committee recommends passing bill on Pantheon of Heroes

Verkhovna Rada. Photo: BUK media

The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy has unanimously supported draft law No. 15360 “On the Ukrainian National Pantheon” and recommended that MPs approve it in the first reading and as a whole. This was reported by MP Volodymyr Viatrovych on Facebook.

According to him, historians, memorialization experts, and government representatives worked jointly on the document for several months.

“This draft law crowns a long path from the proclamation of the Pantheon idea and its support at the state level to the formation of a conceptual vision and clear legislative regulation,” Viatrovych said.

The document provides that a person may be reburied in the memorial complex no earlier than 20 years after his or her death. Candidates will be considered by a special expert body, after which they must be approved by Parliament through a separate law and signed by the President.

Viatrovych stressed that such a strict procedure would protect the Pantheon “from discreditation and devaluation, from attempts to make decisions about particular figures under the influence of fleeting emotions or political circumstances.”

He also added: “Ukraine will not ask anyone for permission on which heroes we should honor and how.” The politician expects the Verkhovna Rada to adopt the law in the coming days.

The initiative to create such a site at the highest state level was first put forward by Viktor Yushchenko. In 2015, the eighth convocation of Parliament adopted a resolution on building the complex in the center of the capital, and the fifth President, Petro Poroshenko, issued a decree on preparations for its construction. The main parameters of the future Pantheon were developed by specialists of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.

As the UOJ reported, a historian called for Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves to be buried in the Pantheon of Heroes.

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