Zvezdana Serebryak

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Zvezdana Serebryak (née Svetlana Kuzminichna Serebryakova-Spilek, born 28 Septem 1533) is a Mordvanian politician. She was the leader of the United Progressive Socialist Party from 1572 to 1583. She became the first woman appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving from 10 Septem 1573 to 2 Nueva 1576, and the first woman President of the Republican Council, serving from 2 Nueva 1576 to 28 Ochtyr 1579. She also became the first Mordvanian woman head of state, after being elected President of the Republic of Mordvania in 28 Marth 1584.

Serebryak was the leader of the United Progressive Socialist Party in four parliamentary elections to the Assembly of Representatives. She resigned as General Secretary of the United Progressive Socialist Party on Nueva 1583, being replaced by Vladislav Kozina.

In the 1584 Mordvanian presidential election Serebryak received 19.1% of the vote in the first round, coming in second place after General Bronislav Grazrod who received 29.4% of the vote. In the runoff, Serebryak defeated Grazrod 50,1% to 49.9% to be elected President of the Republic of Mordvania for a six-year term.

In 1578 Serebryak placed fourth in The Financial magazine's list of the world's most powerful women, only after Nylander President Tilda Morgen, Adwestene Queen Sophia I, and Nylander Secretary of State Helga Myhre.

Early life

Serebryak was born Svetlana Kuzminichna Serebryakova-Spilek 28 Septem 1533 in Amsberg, Kingdom of Abdania and Mordvania. Her mother, Miroslava Spilek, an ethnic Mordvanian nurse, was born in 1509, Wojek, Kingdom of Abdania and Mordvania. His father, Kuzmin Serebryakov was Severyan, was born on 2 Vintyr 1498, in Viyborg. He moved to the Kingdom of Abdania and Mordvania in 1523, and worked as translator for an Abdanian-language publishing house. Serebryak's grandfather, Piotr Serebryakov, was a Severyan politician, member of the Communist Party, and political dissident, executed in 1520.

Education

Serebryak studied Political Science in the Royal University of Amsberg. In 1555, she moved to Nentsia, where she graduated on Vostic studies in the National University of Mstsislavsk.

Serebryak speaks fluently seven languages, including Mordvanian, Abdanian, Sniatyn, Ashkuban, Nentsian, Saratovan, and Florinthian. She also reportedly speaks Lanlian, Bunesgan, and Kubanizan with varying degrees of fluency.

Private career

In Nentsia, she would meet Viktar Gavazansky, a Nentsian businessman 18 years her senior, whom she would marry in 1558. Gavazansky, a businessman who created two technological companies who dominated the sector for more than a decade, became one of the richest men of Nentsia during that time. Serebryak acquired Nentsian citizenship in 1559, and became active in the social life of Mstsislavsk, promoting charity events and founding two companies managed by herself, one dedicated to jewelry. Serebryak and Gavazansky separated in 1562, in an expensive divorce. She would leave Nentsia two years later.

During a holidays in the Grand-Duchy of Macharaviaya, today Khibland, in early 1565, Serebryak would meet Joze Ravnik, an officer of the Abdanian Armed Forces deployed in the Avidnan territory. They married ten months later. Ravnik was an acquaintance of Lieutenant-Colonel Bozidar Strnad, that later would become Chairman of the Council of Defense and first head of state of the Republic of Mordvania. Like Strnad, Ravnik was a member of the "Committee for a Republican Order", a Mordvanian secret organization which aimed to the abolition of the Abdanian monarchy.

Ravnik was destined as a military officer to the western front during the Mordvanian Civil War, and he was killed on Vintyr 1566 during the course of the war.

Serebryak was granted Mordvanian citizenship on early 1566, only a few weeks after the proclamation of the Republic of Mordvania. She changed her name to Zvezdana Serebryak shortly afterwards.

Political career

Early career

As his husband, Serebryak registered as a member of the Republican Social Republican Party. From 1569 to 1571, the Republican Social Republican Party was the leading member of the Republican Social Alliance, an electoral coalition with the United Progressive Socialist Party and other left-wing political forces. In mid-1570, however, Serebryak joined the United Progressive Socialist Party.

She became close to Jaska Burtnik, UPSP founder and leader, and was elected to the Assembly of Representatives as candidate of the United Progressive Socialist Party. She was dubbed at that time as "republican widow" by the media, who accused her of using the death of her late husband for political gain. Since then, Serebryak has had a complicated relation with the media which noted the contradiction between her personal wealth acquired during her marriage and divorce with her first husband and the socialist ideas of her political party. In late 1570, she became secretary of organization of the United Progressive Socialist Party and head of the party's committee for territorial affairs in the Assembly of Representatives. Shortly afterwards, the Republican Social Alliance was officially dissolved after differences between the two largest political parties of the coalition.

Jaska Burtnik died in a car accident in 1572, and Zvezdana Serebryak replaced him as General Secretary of the United Progressive Socialist Party, in a contested struggle for the leadership of the party. In the next months, she strengthened her position and became the undisputed leader of the United Progressive Socialist Party, after a positive wave of polling results. During her leadership, the United Progressive Socialist Party quickly abandoned its early doctrinal socialist ideology adopted since the founding of the party in 1567 toward a more left-wing populist orientation.

She contested the 1573 legislative elections as the anti-establishment candidate against Bogdan Privsek's Mordvanian Republican Party, which had won the 1567 and 1570 legislative elections. The United Progressive Socialist Party obtained an unexpected result, with 31,8% of the vote, and 198 of 399 seats, surpassing the ruling Mordvanian Republican Party in more than six points. After complicated negotiations, the United Progressive Socialist Party formed a coalition government with the left-republican Republican Social Radical Party, and Serebryak became the first woman Foreign Minister in the country's history.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Serebryak became Minister of Foreign Affairs without any kind of previous government experience, and in a complicated time with increasing tensions between the Kaljurand government and the Republic of Mordvania.

She faced her first political crisis when Melech Krakowski, Mordvanian ambassador in Nentsia, was attacked by unidentified assailants in his appartment in Mstsislavsk on Ochtyr 1573. This happened only a few months after Nentsian businessmen and citizens were being investigated for corruption and organized crime charges in Mordvania, and after Nentsian media accused the Mordvanian government to instigate protests against the Nentsian government, although there was no proof that Nentsian officers were involved in the attack of the Mordvanian diplomat. After several officials from the ruling Nentsian political party were charged with several criminal charges relations both countries further deteriorated.

Serebryak's role as Minister was focused on building bidirectional foreing policy, strengthening the alliance between the Republic of Mordvania and Severyane and, at the same time, approaching Western Brigidnan democracies such as the Florinthian Federation. At what extent this was a design of Serebryak herself is unclear, as the Council of Defense retained a huge influence on foreign policy and national security, and Chairman Bozidar Strnad often led many diplomatic initiatives, specially those related to military power.

Kaljurand's descend into a civil war in late 1574 further deteriorate the relations between the Republic of Mordvania and the Kaljuran dictatorship, which accused the Mordvanian government of arming the Kaljuran rebels. The conflict in Kaljurand also created a flow of refugees into Mordvania, which threatened to become into an humanitarian crisis.

President of the Republican Council

The United Progressive Socialist Party was the most voted political party in the 1576 elections, although it lost more than twenty seats in the Assembly of Representatives. Mordvanian Republican Party leader Borislav Vurnik failed to build an alternative majority, and Chairman Bozidar Strnad appointed Zvezdana Serebryak as President of the Republican Council, in a second United Progressive Socialist Party-Republican Social Radical Party coalition government. Both parties had seven members in the new government, with an independent minister, Mika Lohk, a veteran diplomat who was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Serebryak's presidency of the Republican Council was dominated by foreign policy issues, specially after Mordvanian Armed Forces intervened in the Kaljuran Civil War, which was close to create a direct military conflict with the Kingdom of Nerysia. Serebryak's government negotiated and signed the Denil Accords, which ended the Kaljuran civil war, and resulted in a division of the country in West and East, the former supported by Nerysia as a continuation of Kaljuran military regime and the later supported by Mordvania.

Relations between the Republic of Mordvania and the Nentsian government further deteriorated when Ksenia Vynnychuk was detained in Khibland in 1576 and extradited to Mordvania, where she faced corruption charges and was eventually convicted by charges of false accusation in 1576 and corruption in 1578. Shortly before the 1579 elections, she would be released, but the diplomatic tensions between Mordvania and Nentsia caused a cooling of the relation between the Republic of Mordavania and Severyane, which sided with Nentsian government and demanded the release of the daughter of the Nentsian president. Some weeks after the second conviction of Ksenia Vynnychuk, Serebryak had indirectly referred to President Vynnychuk as "crook-in-chief of the Nentsian Republic" in a speech in the Assembly of Representatives.

On domestic issues, the Mordvanian government had to face unplanned costs of the introduction of single-payer healthcare during the previous term, along the cost of more than one million Kaljuran refugees in Mordvanian soil, increasing considerably the deficit and state debt. The intervention in Kaljurand, along some interventionist economic policies of Serebryak's government, also reduced foreign investment which had a negative impact on economic growth. In 1578, Mordvanian economy entered in recession, and by early 1579 the economic growth only had increased to a 1.1% of the GDP.

In 1579, the Mordvanian Republican Party won the legislative elections by a landslide, with Serebryak's United Progressive Socialist Party only obtained 20,5% of the vote, more than twenty points behind the Mordvanian Republican Party, which under the leadership of Bogdan Privsek, returned to power after six years in the opposition.

Opposition (1579-1583) and 1584 presidential election

Serebryak remained as opposition leader and General Secretary of the United Progressive Party until 1583.

In the 1582 elections, the United Progressive Socialist Party obtained 21,8%, 13 seats more than the elections three years before. Although the Mordvanian Republican Party collapsed to 27.1% and lost about 80 seats, Bogdan Privsek continued as head of government as consequence of an agreement with the centrist Republican Liberal Party.

In mid-1583, Serebryak resigned as General Secretary of the United Progressive Socialist Party. On Dein 1583, however, she was nominated as the United Progressive Socialist Party candidate for the 1584 presidential election without barely internal contest. In the 1584 Mordvanian presidential election Serebryak received 19.1% of the vote in the first round, coming in second place after General Bronislav Grazrod who received 29.4% of the vote.

Serebryak was elected President of the Republic of Mordvania on 28 Marth 1584, after defeating Grazrod 50.1% to 49.9% in the presidential election runoff.

Political views

Serebryak is a controversial and polarizing political figure in her own country. She is considered a fierce polemicist, specially in TV political debates, and her charismatic persona and her crude and confrontational rhetoric had both appealed her supporters and creater her a high animosity between her political rivals and the media. Her direct political campaigning, characterized for a wide use of social media and her appearances in entertainment TV shows and women's magazines, which she used to gain a more friendly image between voters while delivering her political platform was unconventional and new in Mordvanian politics and proved very successful.

Serebryak positions herself on the democratic left-wing. She has described herself as a "progressive pragmatist" and a "liberal socialist". She has declared that Mordvanian republican philosophy as one of the sources of her own political education, although she is rarely personally involved in ideological discussions.

Her critics claim that Serebryak, unlike his predecessor and political mentor Jaska Burtnik, she does not espouse any kind of coherent ideology. Some of the media and Mordvanian ultra-nationalists have used her past as a socialite in Nentsia to question her patriotic or intellectual credentials.

Her political positions have been described by scholars and commentators as "populist", "radical left", and "left-wing nationalist".

Personal life

Zvezdana Serebryak has been married twice, with Nentsian businessman Viktar Gavazansky (1558-1562) and Joze Ravnik (d. 1566), whom she married in 1565. She has remained single since then, although she was been attributed several unconfirmed intimate and romantic relationships, mostly with other members of her own political party.

Serebryak has no children.

Cultural and political image