The International Movement of Donbass, also known as the Interfront of the Donbass, sometimes shortened to the Intermovement was a political movement in the late Ukrainian SSR and the first decade of independent Ukraine. It was founded in 1990 by the members of the intelligentsia in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine. It was founded in opposition to the People's Movement of Ukraine, which favored Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union.James Ivan Clem: The Life of the Parties: Party Activism in Lʹviv and Donetsk, Ukraine, Ann Arbor (MA): University of Michigan Press 1995, p. 52. Similar Interfront pro-Soviet movements existed in the Latvian SSR, Moldovan SSR and other republics.
In 1992, it grew stronger as miners and local elites opposed the perceived economic mismanagement of the central government in Kyiv and alleged Ukrainization.p. 71., Lewis H. Siegelbaum/Daniel J. Walkowitz: Workers of the Donbass Speak: Survival and Identity in the New Ukraine, 1989–1992, Albany (NY): SUNY Press 1995, In 1993, the Interfront participated in a rally in Donetsk against the economic policy of Leonid Kravchuk. The rally was co-sponsored by the Socialist Party of Ukraine.Paul J. D'Anieri: Economic interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian relations, Albany (NY): SUNY Press 1999, p. 111 (footnote: p. 250).
In a publication from 1993, the Interfront emphasized the multinational character of the Donbas.
In 1993 and 1994, the chairman of the Intermovement was Dmitriy Kornilov.FBIS Report: Central Eurasia, 1993, p. 10.Pal Kolsto: Political Construction Sites: Nation Building in Russia and the Post-soviet States, London: Taylor & Francis 2018, p. 382.
In 1993, members of the Interfront participated in the foundation of the Civil Congress of Ukraine. Kornilov became the ideological leader of the Civic Congress.Tor Bukkvoll: Ukraine and European Security, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs Corporation 1997, p. 31. The Congress turned into the Slavic Party in 1998.
In 1997, Kornilov said that Donetsk is "beyond doubt" Russian.Tor Bukkvoll: Ukraine and European Security, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs Corporation 1997, p. 31. Two years later, he repeated that the Donetsk region "orients itself towards Moscow".Justin Burke: Ukraine: State Building and Stability, New York (NY): Open Society Institute 1999, p. 51.
Dmitriy Kornilov died in 2002. His brother, Vladimir Kornilov continued his work and later became a citizen of the Donetsk People's Republic. Some observers see the small Donetsk Republic political party as the successor movement to the Interfront of the Donbas.Tim Judah: In Wartime – Stories from Ukraine, London: Penguin Books 2015, p. 173.
The flag of the Donetsk People's Republic is claimed by the separatist authorities to be based on the flag of the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, whom they consider the "People's Republic's" predecessor. However, there is no evidence of any such flag in 1918, and it is most likely based on the flag of the Interfront.James Ivan Clem: The Life of the Parties: Party Activism in Lʹviv and Donetsk, Ukraine, Ann Arbor (MA): University of Michigan Press 1995, p. 52.
See also International Front of the Working People of Latvia Unity Movement for Equality in Rights
Literature Andrew Wilson: The Donbas between Ukraine and Russia: The Use of History in Political Disputes, in: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 30 (1995), No. 2, pp. 265–289.
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