Valentyna Shevchenko (politician)

Valentyna Semenivna Shevchenko (Валентина Семенівна Шевченко; born 12 March 1935 in Kryvy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Soviet Union) was the Chairman of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

Biography
She was born in a family of miner Semen Solianyk.

From 1975 to 1985, Shevchenko is a deputy chairperson of the Supreme Council Presidium of the Ukrainian SSR. After the death of Oleksiy Vatchenko, she was acting as the chairwoman until her official appointment on petition of Volodymyr Shcherbitsky.

In 1989 Shevchenko refused to sign prohibition against the People's Movement of Ukraine.

Since September 1997, she is the honorary president of the National Fund of social defence of mothers and children: "Ukraine – children".

In a sociological poll conducted in 2004, she was among the five most important women of Ukraine with Princess Olga, Lesya Ukrainka, Yulia Tymoshenko and Yana Klochkova.