Iryna Dmytrivna Farion (, ; 29 April 1964 – 19 July 2024) was a Ukrainian linguist and nationalist politician who served as a deputy in the Verkhovna Rada from 2012 to 2014. She served as a political member of Svoboda in 2005 until her assassination in 2024. She was a professor at the Department of Ukrainian Language at Lviv Polytechnic's Institute of Humanitarian and Social Sciences.
Farion was known for her campaigns to promote the Ukrainian heritage language learning as a part of decolonisation, and for her vocal criticism of Ukrainians who speak Russian.
Early life and education Iryna Dmytrivna Farion was born on 29 April 1964 in Lviv, Ukraine, to Dmytro Farion, a plumber, and Yaroslava Farion (née Slipets), a librarian.
Farion graduated from the philology department of Lviv University in 1987. Until 1991, she was head of the center of Ukrainian studies at Lviv University. In 1996, she defended her doctoral thesis in philology at Lviv University.
Academic career Farion has been noted by Ukrainian academics for her efforts to promote the use of the Ukrainian language. Among her scientific works are at least four monographs and 200 articles. From 1990 to 1995 Farion worked as an hourly teacher at the Department of Languages of the Lviv State Institute of Applied Arts (now the Lviv National Academy of Arts), where she taught Ukrainian as a foreign language, language culture, and Ukrainian literature from the 11th to the 20th centuries. Then, in 1998 – 2004, Farion headed the language commission of Prosvita. From 1998, she initiated and organized the annual student competition "Language is a foundation of your life" (). In 2004, she received the Oleksa Hirnyk Literature Award. From 1990 to 1995 she taught Ukrainian literature and Ukrainian at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. She defended her higher doctoral dissertation in 2015. Farion was awarded numerous awards for her academic and educational activities, including the All-Ukrainian Borys Grinchenko Prize.
Farion wrote about the present state and oppression of the Ukrainian language, her most significant work being Language Norm: Destruction, Search, Restoration (Culture of Speech of Public Figures), a monograph that had three editions, dedicated to the evolution of language norms and the reasons for the distortion of the Ukrainian language norm in the 20th century.
Farion also wrote extensively about the history of the Ukrainian language, one of her main works being The Social Status of the Old Ukrainian (Russian) Language in the 14th-17th Centuries: Linguistic Consciousness, Linguistic Reality, Linguistic Perspective, where she rehabilitated the term Old Ukrainian language and argued that the mission of the language is to create a nation and a state.
She dedicated monographs and essays to important figures in the history of the Ukrainian language, among which are Father Markian Shashkevich - Ukrainian Language Creator (2007) and Linguistic Portrait of Ivan Pulyui (According to the Letters of the Thinker) (2017).
She was involved in several educational projects about the Ukrainian language and culture during her lifetime. One of them, the project "From the book to the goal" that she started in 2011 was aimed at youth with the aim of popularizing Ukrainian books.
Political career
Communist party During Farion's college years, she was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the only student of Lviv University being in the Communist Party. Farion at first denied membership within the Communist Party, but later said that she could not have such a career without joining the party; Farion also stated that she joined the party to "destroy it from within". Having joined the party, she published the newspaper dedicated to Ukrainian USSR political prisoner Vasyl Stus, and was accused of nationalism by a party group.
As a local councillor In 2005, Farion was elected to the Lviv Oblast Council.https://www.chesno.org/politician/398/ During her term, Farion was a deputy chairperson of the commission on education and science. She was re-elected in 2010.https://www.chesno.org/politician/398/ In the 2015 local elections, Farion again contested a single-member district but was defeated.https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2015/10/27/7086545/
As a People's Deputy Farion joined the Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda party in 2005 and balloted for People's Deputy of Ukraine mandate from the party list in 2006. However, Svoboda received less than 0.4% of the vote and failed to pass the electoral threshold.https://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2006/w6p001.html In the 2007 parliamentary election, Farion again ran on the Svoboda party list, but the party failed to pass the threshold, receiving less than 0.8% of the vote.https://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2007/w6p001.html
In the 2012 parliamentary election, Farion was elected into parliament after winning the 116th electoral district in Lviv in a landslide, receiving 68% of the vote. From 2013, she served as the head of the parliamentary subcommittee on higher education in science and education. In 2014, Farion became the first deputy chairperson of the committee on science and education. According to the Ukrainian monitoring platform Slovo i Dilo, Farion fulfilled only 4% of her declared promises during her term.https://www.slovoidilo.ua/persony/farion-iryna-dmytrivna
In the 2014 parliamentary election, Farion again tried to retain her seat, but was defeated by Self Reliance candidate, Iryna Podoliak, falling into third place with 16.4% of the vote. After losing her seat, the former MP made controversial remarks regarding the voters who supported her opponents.https://fakty.com.ua/ua/ukraine/polituka/20141028-1531635/amp/ In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Farion again failed to return to parliament after finishing fifth with 10.4% of the vote in the district no.116.
Criminal proceedings in Russia In July 2015, the Investigative Committee of Russia filed a criminal case against Farion on the charges of "incitement to murder" and "extremist statements" that she allegedly made on a public rally on 15 October 2014.
Lviv Polytechnic scandal In November 2023, Farion stated in an interview that "there is no Russian-speaking population, there are Ukrainians, and there are Katsaps"; she also said that she would not consider Russian-speaking military members to be Ukrainian. Film actor and military sniper Pavlo Aldoshyn strongly criticized her comments, saying that no one outside the military should instruct soldiers on how to communicate between them.
After facing criticism, Farion published a letter by a supporter in the occupied Crimean Peninsula, but did not blur his name, causing him to be detained by Russian authorities. This resulted in public outrage, including criticism from politician Tamila Tasheva, and student protests at Lviv Polytechnic, but the institute stated it is not responsible for statements outside the university. Farion later appealed to the president and defence minister to "take measures" against Azov fighters who criticized her. The incident led to Ukraine's human rights ombudsman to say that he had asked the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to open an investigation. On 15 November, the SBU opened an investigation against her on the counts of discrimination, insulting the dignity of a serviceman, violation of confidentiality of correspondence, and breach of inviolability of private life, and she was relieved of her position at Lviv Polytechnic. She was reinstated at Lviv Polytechnic in May 2024.
Death
On 19 July 2024, at around 19:30 (EEST), Farion was shot in Lviv. The attacker was described to be a young man of about 20–25 years of age; according to Farion's neighbours, they had noticed him in the morning, waiting near her home. She was immediately admitted to the hospital in the emergency department with a gunshot wound to the head in an "extremely serious" condition. At around 23:00 EEST on the same day, doctors at the hospital announced that she was comatose and on life support. She died around 23:20, at the age of 60.
Ukraine's interior minister Ihor Klymenko stated that the murder was premeditated and the main motives the investigators were considering were either her political and social activity or a personal dislike.
Suspect On 25 July 2024, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the arrest of the suspected gunman in Dnipro, Vyacheslav Zinchenko, an 18-year-old male. The suspect was following several far-right and neo-Nazi Telegram channels including Yevhen Karas' S14 and Right Sector, and was trying to enlist in the 3rd Assault Brigade. Zinchenko denied any responsibility in the murder of Farion. The suspect's father, who was fighting on the Ukrainian front line, said his son did not have anti-Ukrainian views and was a patriot who was preparing to join the army. The father also stated that his son is a supporter of a mono-ethnic Ukrainian state, and that in 2022 he became a member of the "Right Youth" movement, the youth organization of Right Sector. According to the suspect's mother, her son is an admirer of Stepan Bandera, speaks good Ukrainian, and therefore the accusations against him are just a "political game".
Earlier that day, the Russian National Socialism / White Power group, considered a terrorist group in Russia, allegedly claimed responsibility for the murder. The video of the murder claim contains the recording of the alleged moment of the shooting and is embedded at the end of a long video entitled "Manifesto of a Ukrainian Autonomous Revolutionary Racist".
Investigation In July 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reported that the investigation in the case of the murder found a shell of a sports bullet at the scene. It also reported that the police headed out to the scene of the crime right after being informed about the shooting. Klymenko was present at the crime scene at night himself.
Funeral Farion's memorial service was held in Lviv on 21 July. Reports on the number of mourners varied from several hundred to over five thousand. She was buried in the Lychakiv Cemetery, near singer-songwriter Volodymyr Ivasyuk.
Reactions Zelenskyy expressed his condolences to her family. The head of the Lviv regional administration and the mayor of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskyi and Andriy Sadovyi, also expressed their condolences to her family. Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko called her murder "a provocation and a challenge to the law enforcement system, democracy and stability in the country", while former president Viktor Yushchenko called Farion's murder "a calculated special operation of the enemy."
Farion's political party, Svoboda, accused the Russian government of organizing her death. Journalist Ostap Drozdov called her murder "a bullet for every [Ukrainian] patriot". Politician Yaroslav Yurchyshyn called for the banning of Russian-affiliated religious organizations, stating it would be the "best immediate tribute to Iryna Farion's memory."
Multiple public figures, including rapper Oleksandr Yarmak, singers Maria Burmaka, Iryna Fedyshyn and Khrystyna Soloviy, TV presenter Olha Freimut, actor Rymma Zyubina and writer Oksana Zabuzhko wrote tributes to Farion. Farion's daughter called for a monument to be placed on Masaryk Street where she was shot, and to rename the street to "Iryna Farion Street".
Political views
According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, "Iryna Farion's extreme nationalist views have long made the Lviv linguist and Svoboda [Freedom] Party politician a controversial figure." Farion has been characterized as far-right.
During the Euromaidan protests of 2013–2014, Farion supported the opposition movement against Viktor Yanukovych’s government. She described European integration as a way for Ukraine to move away from Russian political and cultural influence, linking national identity and language policy with the country’s independence