Prize laureates
Ukrainian civic activist, founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, Soviet-era dissident and political prisoner, founder of the Amnesty movement in Ukraine, philosopher, scholar of religion and commentator, former vice-rector and now adviser to the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.
For his human rights work, a Soviet court sentenced him in 1978 to seven years in strict-regime labour camps and five years in exile. Amnesty International recognised Marynovych as a prisoner of conscience; even after many years of imprisonment, he refused to ask the Soviet authorities for a pardon. His lifelong struggle for human rights and freedom has been recognised with the Order of Freedom, the Order for Courage, First Class, the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, Fifth Class, and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
“The very name of the prize is an exceptionally well-chosen symbol. Love for one’s native land, love for one’s own little homeland — that is what all of us would like to revive.”