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Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation, blaming communist leaders for “historic, strategic mistakes” that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
在俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之前，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京(Vladimir Putin)向全国发表讲话，指责共产主义领导人犯下了“历史性的、战略性的错误”，导致苏联解体。
One of those leaders was Leonid Kravchuk, who died this week aged 88. Kravchuk, a former Soviet apparatchik who adopted the cause of Ukrainian independence and became his country’s first democratically elected president, may have done more than anyone else to bring down the Soviet empire.
其中一位领导人是本周去世的列昂尼德·克拉夫丘克(Leonid Kravchuk)，享年88岁。克拉夫丘克是前苏联的一名官员，他投身于乌克兰独立的事业，并成为乌克兰首位民选总统。在摧毁苏维埃帝国的过程中，他所做的贡献可能比任何人都多。
A wily bureaucrat and astute tactician, he freed Ukraine from Soviet dominion without bloodshed. He outmanoeuvred hardliners and kept Ukraine remarkably united despite its internal divisions.
作为一个长袖善舞的官僚和精明的战术家，他没有流血就把乌克兰从苏联的统治中解放出来。他在策略上战胜了强硬派，使乌克兰在内部分裂的情况下保持了惊人的团结。
Russia could not prop up the USSR without Ukraine, the union’s second most populous state and also a fellow Slavic one. As Serhii Plokhy describes in The Last Empire, his account of the Soviet collapse, “Kravchuk performed a difficult balancing act, maintaining a veneer of loyalty to the centre while aggressively advancing the interests of his homeland.”
没有乌克兰，俄罗斯就无法支撑起苏联，因为乌克兰是苏联第二大人口大国，也同属斯拉夫族。正如浦洛基(Serhii Plokhy)在《最后的帝国》(The Last Empire)中描述的那样，“克拉夫丘克进行了艰难的平衡，既保持了对中央的忠诚，又积极推进了祖国的利益。”
Kravchuk’s life story followed his country’s turbulent history. He was born in western Ukraine in what was then Polish territory. As an eight-year old boy living under Nazi occupation, he witnessed German troops executing Jews by machine gun. His father died fighting for the Red Army against the Wehrmacht.
克拉夫丘克的人生经历伴随着他的国家动荡的历史。他出生在乌克兰西部，当时是波兰的领土。作为一个生活在纳粹占领下的8岁男孩，他目睹了德国军队用机枪处决犹太人。他的父亲在为红军对抗德国国防军的战斗中牺牲。
He studied political economy at Kyiv University and joined the Communist party, quickly rising through its ranks. In 1990, as chairman of Ukraine’s supreme soviet, he became the country’s most senior official.
他在基辅大学(Kyiv University)学习政治经济学，并加入了共产党，在党内迅速晋升。1990年，作为乌克兰最高苏维埃主席，他成为该国最高级别的官员。
As the Soviet Union crumbled, Kravchuk managed to perform loyalty to his Soviet masters while hastening their end.
随着苏联的解体，克拉夫丘克在加速苏联灭亡的同时，还设法表现出对苏联主人的忠诚。
Although Kravchuk declined to join Yeltsin’s active resistance to the 1991 coup, he criticised it enough to stay on the right side of history when the putschists faltered. He then left the party.
虽然克拉夫丘克拒绝加入叶利钦对1991年政变的积极抵抗，但他对政变的批评，足以让他在政变者倒台时站在历史正确的一边。然后他离开了该党。
After the coup attempt, he supported the thousands of Ukrainians who protested in Kyiv in favour of independence. He did so despite pressure from US president George HW Bush, who feared a chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union.
政变失败后，他支持数千名在基辅抗议支持独立的乌克兰人。尽管美国总统乔治·HW·布什(George HW Bush)出于对苏联出现混乱的解体的担心，对他施加了压力，但他还是这么做了。
Kravchuk then backed a seismic declaration of independence in the Kyiv parliament. Within eight days, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan followed suit.
克拉夫丘克随后在基辅议会上支持一项具有震撼力的独立宣言。八天之内，白俄罗斯、摩尔多瓦、阿塞拜疆、乌兹别克斯坦和吉尔吉斯斯坦也纷纷效仿。
Kravchuk assuaged Moscow by agreeing to put independence to a referendum. Gorbachev doubted it would pass — it did, by an extraordinary 90 per cent, with a turnout of 84 per cent. Kravchuk was elected president that same day. The former party head of ideology and servant of the Soviet empire convinced Ukrainians that he was truly committed to their country’s self-determination.
克拉夫丘克同意就独立问题举行公投，从而安抚了莫斯科方面。戈尔巴乔夫怀疑该法案能否通过，但结果却出乎意料地获得了90%的支持，投票率达到了84%。同一天，克拉夫丘克当选为总统。这位前党的意识形态负责人和苏维埃帝国的仆人让乌克兰人相信，他真正致力于他们国家的自决权。
A week later, Yeltsin arranged to meet Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich, his Belarusian counterpart. At a hunting lodge in the Belavezha forest, Yeltsin made the case for both Belarus and Ukraine to stay in a reformed union with Russia. But Kravchuk saw that any such arrangement would be dominated by Moscow. He threatened to walk away, reportedly telling Yeltsin: “And who will you be when you return to Russia? I will return to Ukraine as the president elected by the people, and what will your role be — that of Gorbachev’s subordinate, as before?”
一周后，叶利钦安排与克拉夫丘克和白俄罗斯总统斯坦尼斯拉夫·舒什科维奇(Stanislav Shushkevich)会面。在贝拉维扎森林的一间狩猎小屋，叶利钦提出白俄罗斯和乌克兰都应与俄罗斯保持改革后的联盟关系。但克拉夫丘克认为，任何这样的安排都将由莫斯科主导。他威胁要离开，据说他对叶利钦说：“当你回到俄罗斯时，你会是谁？我将以人民选举产生的总统的身份回到乌克兰，你的角色是什么？还是像以前那样做戈尔巴乔夫的下属？”
He drafted an alternative plan for a looser Commonwealth of Independent States. Yeltsin acquiesced, seeing in it an opportunity to get rid of Gorbachev. The three leaders agreed to “hereby establish that the USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality ceases its existence”.
他为一个松散的独立国家联合体起草了另一项计划。叶利钦默许了，认为这是一个除掉戈尔巴乔夫的机会。三国领导人同意“特此宣布，苏联作为国际法主体和地缘政治现实不再存在”。
Kravchuk later agreed to give up Ukraine’s share of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees from Russia, the US and the UK — these turned out to be worthless when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and orchestrated a separatist war in the Donbas region.
克拉夫丘克后来同意放弃乌克兰在苏联核武库中的份额，以换取俄罗斯、美国和英国的安全保证--当莫斯科在2014年吞并克里米亚并在顿巴斯地区策划了一场分离主义战争时，这些保证被证明是毫无价值的。
Kravchuk lost the 1994 election to Leonid Kuchma. It was the first uncontested handover of power in democratic Ukraine and the last until Volodymyr Zelensky’s landslide in 2019. Kravchuk became a respected elder statesman, for a period presiding over diplomatic efforts to bring peace to the Donbas region.
1994年，克拉夫丘克在选举中败给了列昂尼德·库奇马(Leonid Kuchma)。这是民主的乌克兰首次毫无争议的权力交接，也是2019年弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基获得压倒性胜利之前的最后一次权力交接。克拉夫丘克成为一位受人尊敬的资深政治家，曾在一段时间内主持为顿巴斯地区带来和平的外交努力。
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “He was a person always able to find wise words and express them in such a way that they were heard by all Ukrainians. Particularly in times of crisis. When the future of an entire country can depend on the wisdom of one person.” Ben Hall
乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基说：“他是一个总是能找到明智之言，并以所有乌克兰人都能听到的方式表达出来的人。特别是在危机时期。当整个国家的未来依赖于一个人的智慧时。”