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March The annual Shevchenko award was
1962 introduced, which was given for
achievements in literature, journalism, art and
architecture.
August The space flight around the Earth of the first
1962 Ukrainian cosmonaut P. Popovych.
February The conference on issues of the Ukrainian
1963 language culture, organized by Kyiv
University and Institution of Linguistics of
Academy of Sciences of Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic took place. Nearly 800
people participated. Many speeches
condemned the russification and narrowing of
the functioning sphere of the Ukrainian
language. It threatened existence itself of
Ukrainian nation. The conference recognized
the idea of bilingualism as absurd. The
conference petitioned to CC CPU and the
government of Ukraine for possibility of
instruction in Ukrainian in establishments of
higher education, technical colleges,
vocational technical schools and institutions
of preschool education. They also asked to
transfer office paper work in Ukrainian. All
those propositions were ignored and buried in
depths of bureaucratic machine.
July 1963 The plenum CC CPU discharged M.
Pidhornyi from the position of the First
Secretary because of his transfer to another
position in Moscow. This position was given
to Petro Shelest, who occupied the position of
the First Secretary of CC CPU till 1972.
September The strike of workers in Kryvyi Rih. It was

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