You're reading: Two new books add to polarizing views of Tymoshenko

With the Oct. 28 parliament elections nine days away, two books on imprisoned ex-prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko were published this month in Poland and Germany.

One compares
Tymoshenko to Catherine the Great in terms of historical significance. Another
calls her a swindler, literally. 

Frank Schumann, a German
author and publisher, presented his book The Swindler. The
Tymoshenko Case
on Oct. 16 in Berlin.  

  

The author reached his
conclusions, which are pretty clear from the title of the 250 page-book, after spending
three months in Kyiv and Kharkiv, where Tymoshenko is serving her seven-year prison
term for abuse of office when she was prime minister in 2009.    

“According to
the official German interpretation, in Ukraine we are dealing with a
dictatorship, and the latter, as you know, does not like being watched.
However, I sent a request by fax to the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kyiv and immediately received a positive response. As a result,
I was able to talk for two hours to First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat
Kuzmin,” Schumann e-mailed the Kyiv Post.

Schumann
also met officials from State Penitentiary Service and was allowed to see the
detention center in Kyiv where Tymoshenko was held from August 2011 to
December, the women’s colony in Kharkiv and the Ukrzaliznytsia hospital where
she is currently being treated for a back condition.

Schumann
also spoke to the son of Yevhen Shcherban, a member of parliament who was assassinated
in 1996. Kuzmin accuses Tymoshenko of ordering the assassination, alleging that
the killers received money from one of Tymoshenko`s bank accounts. But no
formal charges have been filed against Tymoshenko. 

“The facts that (Kuzmin) gave to me seemed
convincing enough,” said Schumann.        

Despite
meeting with many governmental officials, Schumann apparently was unable to
capture the other side of the story. He did not meet with Tymoshenko nor with any
people from her team. According to Maryna Soroka, a spokesperson of
Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party, Schumann never asked them for any comments
for his book.

“However,
the public relations machine of Tymoshenko works very well – the whole world is
perfectly informed about the events on the 9th floor of the Kharkiv
hospital. So I feel very informed,” Schumann countered.

The
author says interest for the book in Germany is big and he is negotiating a
deal with Ukrainian publishers. “Some journalists told me they share my views
but cannot write about it as the policy of their media is pro-Tymoshenko,”
Shumann says.

While
his book seems one-sided, he denies any accusations of bias and any ties with
the Ukrainian government.  “If the opinion
is critical it does not mean that there is a sponsor behind it,” he told the Kyiv
Post.

The ruling Party of Regions, however, seems to
like the book a lot.

After the US Senate adopted a Sept. 22 resolution
calling for the U.S. government to punish those responsible for Tymoshenko’s
imprisonment in Ukraine, Renat Kuzmin wrote an open letter to US Congress.

In the letter he claims Tymoshenko is guilty and
states that he has evidence of her involvement with other crimes, Shcherban’s
assassination in particular. The story about
Shumann’s book is placed on the official web page of the Party of Regions. But the
Party of Regions denies having any involvement in the book.

For Tymoshenko’s
party, it is obvious who is behind the book. “He spoke to a certain circle of
people whose job it is to tarnish Tymoshenko’s image,” Soroka said.

Meanwhile, another
book about Tymoshenko hit the shelves in Poland on Oct. 12. “Tymoshenko. Unfinished History” is
written by Polish journalist Maria Przelomiec. The 300-page biography appears
to be much more favorable towards the opposition leader. It is based mostly
on conversations with those close to Tymoshenko. 

“The book is
about a very ambitious life of an extraordinary and charismatic woman, who
also, it seems, is a bit lost,” says Przelomiec. She adds that she found
Tymoshenko so significant historically that she compared her to Russian empress
Cathrine the Great and Olga The Great, a ruler of 10th century ruler
of Kyivan Rus`. 

Przelomiec says
she particularly likes what Stepan Khmara, a Ukrainian dissident and Tymoshenko
ally, has said about her during their meeting. “In everything that Tymoshenko
did she lacked one thing – an idea that she would believe in. Her problem is
that the only idea she believed in – is herself,” says Przelomiec.

The new books
have added to shelves of dozens of books that has been written about Tymoshenko
over the last decade, both in Ukraine and abroad. She also has been a subject
of several documentaries of various quality.

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be
reached at [email protected]