Famous Ukrainian dissident writer to feature on new banknote
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Ukrainian author and dissident Vasyl Stus will appear on a new Hr 2,000 banknote to enter circulation in September, the National Bank of Ukraine reported on July 10.
Stus emerged as a leading figure in the Sixtiers movement, a group of Ukrainian intellectuals, writers, and artists during the 1960s who challenged Soviet orthodoxy by championing liberal values and a Ukrainian national revival.
"He became a symbol of the unbreakable Ukrainian spirit and the embodiment of personal responsibility to the nation, the state, and future generations," National Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyy said during a press briefing.
The reverse of the banknote depicts the Philology Faculty building of Donetsk National University, where Stus studied.
Stus was arrested multiple times throughout his life by Soviet authorities for his pro-Ukrainian stance and later died in a Russian penal colony in 1985. Other members of the Sixtiers movement, including the artist Alla Horska, also suffered tragic deaths because of their beliefs.
Stus is not the only literary figure featured on Ukrainian currency. Eighteenth-century philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, a leading figure of Ukraine's Enlightenment period, features on the Hr 500 banknote.
The 19th-century authors Ivan Franko, Taras Shevchenko, and Lesia Ukrainka — who championed a Ukrainian national revival when much of Ukraine was under the control of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires — are featured on the Hr 20, 100, and 200 banknotes, respectively.
