Hromada

Hromada (Ukrainian: Громада) is a Ukrainian term for community or public, more precise an association of the people united by mutual interest, position or goal, widely known in Ukraine. Similar terms could be found in Poland and Belarus.

In history of Ukraine and Belarus such associations appeared first as peasant communes, which gathered their meetings for discussing and resolving current issues. In the 19th century there were number of political organization with the same name.

Hromada means not only social association of some people, but in broader sense a symbolic unity of any territorial population or the whole national society.

Name "hromada" was frequently used by political and social organizations, newspapers in Ukraine.

At present, the term is more often applied in Ukraine, as a "territorial commune" (Ukrainian: Територіальна громада) naming the population of any region. The Constitution of Ukraine and some other laws, including the "Law on local self-governance", delegate certain rights and obligations for "hromada". But "hromada" does not have the rights of a legal entity. In his draft constitutional amendments of June 2014 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposed changing the administrative divisions of Ukraine, which should include regions, districts and "hromadas".

Hromada (disambiguation)

Hromada is a Ukrainian word for the association of the people united by mutual interest, position or goal. Also used to denote medieval communes in Ukraine.

Hromada may refer to:

See also

Hromada (secret society)

Hromada was a network of secret societies of Ukrainian intellegentsiya that appeared soon after the Crimean War. The societies laid a groundwork for appearance of the Ukrainian political elite and national political movement. The Ukrainian national and anti-oppressive movement intensified with the January Uprising and issuing of the Valuev Circular. Many former members of the disbanded Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Parallel to hromoda network in the Russian Empire, in the Austria-Hungary sprang out Prosvita (Enlightenment) societies.

Important hromadas existed in Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Poltava, Chernihiv, Odessa,

The first hromada was established in Saint Petersburg when the first members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius returned from their exile. Important publication of the Petersburg hromada was magazine Osnova (Basis) that was published for a short time in 1860s.

Due to student unrest and other revolutionary activity the Russian minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuev had arrested several hromada leaders (Pavlo Chubynsky, Petro Yefymenko and others) and exiled them to Siberia. After the publication of the Pylyp Morachevsky's New Testament in Ukrainian, Valuev banned most of publications and issued his secret Valuev circular as an instruction to the minister of education.