V'yacheslav Maksimovich Chornovil

The attitude of the young Chornovil towards those around him at the time of KTM's founding (1960) was based on one rule: he divided people not by status, but by the degree of their inner freedom and honesty towards themselves.

1. To the close circle of KTM and the sixties
   *To the “think tank” (Ivan Svetlichny, Evgeny Sverstyuk, Ivan Dzyuba):

• Attitude: Deep intellectual respect.
  *He views Svetlichny as a moral mentor ("vuyka") and a rallying point for the entire group. Chornovol doesn't joke with him—he listens attentively, consults on samizdat and books, and values ​​his erudition above any academic titles.
• To poets and rebels (Vasyl Stus, Vasyl Symonenko):
  *Attitude: Brotherhood in spirit and a willingness to watch someone's back.
• He sees in their poems not just beautiful lyrics, but a manifesto of resistance. He admires Stus's directness (though sometimes considers him too impetuous) and Symonenko's compassion for the people. He defends their texts to editors with the ferocity of a lawyer.
  *Towards artists and visionaries (Alla Gorskaya, Les Tanyuk):
• Attitude: Admiration for energy, mixed with practical pragmatism.
  *He considers Gorskaya a force of nature and the living flame of KTM—he forgives her explosive nature and argues with her as an equal.
• He respects Tanyuka for her organizational courage, but regularly brings the bohemians back down to earth: "You all soar beautifully in the empyrean and in images, but someone has to secure the premises and draw up a legally sound protocol so we don't get shut down tomorrow morning."

2. To the KGB ("Kolchik" and "curators")
   *Attitude: Sporty anger, contempt and playing on nerves.

• He is not afraid of them, and this is precisely what drives the security officers crazy.
  He speaks to them with deliberate politeness, but with icy irony. He catches the operatives in their legal illiteracy, spouting off articles from the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR and the Criminal Code: "Have you come to listen to poetry, Comrade Lieutenant? Come on in, get some culture, or else your reports have three errors per page."

The driving force behind organizational processes, the press liaison, and the author of sharp formulas. While artists and poets are lost in imagery, he immediately translates everything into the realm of "what exactly are we writing, where are we meeting, and how can we defend it to the city committee."

Passionate debater: He speaks quickly, caustically, and argues with facts and laws in such a way that senior officials are at a loss.
An idealist of action: He feels cramped within the confines of Komsomol meetings. For him, the Komsomol isn't a hobby group, but a legal springboard for stirring up the stagnant cultural swamp.
Charming impudent: Easily goes into conflict with censorship for the sake of a nice gesture or the truth, believing that the system can be outwitted by its own rules.

22–23 years old. A graduate of the journalism department of Kyiv University with honors, he was a young editor at the Kyiv television studio. Not yet a political prisoner or a dissident with a Soviet-era reputation, but a daring, promising journalist and critic.