The Associated Press - Yeltsin's Inaugural Address lyrics

Respected citizens of Russia. Peoples' Deputies. Compatriots, and respected guests. It is impossible to express in words the feelings I am experiencing at this moment. For the first time in the thousand-year history of Russia, the president is taking a solemn oath before his compatriots. For the first time in Russian history, the citizens of Russia have made their choice. They chose not only an individual, not only a president, but above all they chose the path along which our motherland is to travel. It is the path of democracy. The path of reform. The path of the restoration of human dignity. There is no higher honor than that which is given to a individual by the people. There is no higher position than that to which the citizens of a state can elect an individual. The authorities and the people were at different poles in our country for centuries. Not finding truth in life, people tried to find it in heaven or in dreams about a bright future. For centuries, the interests of the state were put higher than those of the individual, his needs and aspirations. Unfortunately, we realized later than other civilized nations that the strength of the state lies in the well-being of its citizens. The denial of this sacred principle destroyed the greatest empires of the past. The fact that it was forgotten predetermined the tragic end of grandiose social experiments. It was fate that the nations of Russia, as well other republics, had to undergo great trials. We paid a colossal, unthinkable price for today's experience. Therefore, the transition to the presidential system in the Russian Federation is filled with a special meaning for all of us. The times when ''people were silent'' are fading irrevocably into the past. Exactly a year after the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty, for the first time, a new voluntary dependence is being born between the authority of the state and the individual. The state is responsible to the people who elected it. A people are responsible to the state which they themselves have put above them. The president is no god. Nor a new monarch. Nor omnipotent wonder-worker. He is a citizen, in whom is vested a great responsibility for the destiny of Russia, his compatriots. He is above all an individual in whom the supreme trust of the people is vested. A society always reforms itself when times are hard. Transformations do not come easily. The support and understanding of the people, our mutual confidence in our powers, are especially important at this time. Domestic and international experience shows that failure is inevitable when the determination to act, to take justifiable risk, is lacking. When people limit themselves to half-measures and stop halfway. Life itself has shown that such an approach is unacceptable today. The essence of the president's course is radical reform. We have all made our choice in favor of a peaceful, legal and democratic means of transformation. The essence of our policies is not ma** self-sacrifice, but the welfare of each individual, his interests. A dignified life is not a gift from on high. Nor does it come on its own. You cannot walk to it, marching as a column, and blindly fulfilling orders from above. It will be based on the freedom of enterprises and territories. The initiative and entrepreneurship of the citizens will provide for the welfare of the families of Russia and will become the source the country's revival. And the individual in Russia must become and will become, I am convinced, the measure of all things and all actions. The spiritual liberation of the individual, true freedom of conscience and full rejection of any ideological dictate, constitute the foundation for the revival of our state. Religion has a special place in this process. The people of Russia will not reject their past, present and future for the sake of any dogma. I am convinced that the evil tradition of dividing people into right and wrong, into ''us'' and ''them'' into ''ours'' and ''theirs,'' will fade into the past. The Russian Federation also needs a radical renovation, based on the strengthening of real sovereignty, real rights of nations and republics for citizens of all ethnic groups. Russia, together with the other republics, will continue to take an active part in the most complicated work of the radical transformation of the (Soviet) Union. I am convinced that it will be achieved with dignity. Imperial ambitions are deeply alien to the political course chosen by the people. We are returning to the global community with pure thoughts, in order to find friends, not enemies, and establish honest, civilized relations with the states of the world. The cumulative historical experience of mankind confirms again and again that creative human values, freedom, property, legality, openness to the world, form the basis for progress. Popular support of the democratic candidates during the election is the best confirmation of these universal human values in our life. Respected compatriots. Russia is bound to emerge from the crisis. The creative potential of the peoples of the republic and of the Russian people is great. They suffered every trial that fate dealt them with pain and dignity. In the most inhuman conditions, they have managed to keep their moral feelings and faith in their Russia. The rich and original Russian culture is alive. It is a tireless preacher of good, humanity and justice. As before, it keeps trying to probe the enigma of the human soul, the linkage between time and fate. The main thing is that all the people of multiracial Russia have preserved the ability and wish to work and live in peace. They have preserved their desire for freedom, justice and they deserve a better life. I look into the future with optimism and I am ready for energetic action. I count on the support of people's deputies, the Supreme Soviet, the Council of Ministers, my supporters, and of course the first vice president of Russia, Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoi. Great Russia is rising from its knees. We will certainly turn it into a flourishing, democratic, peaceful, law-based sovereign state. This work, laborious for all of us, has already started. Having come through so many trials, and clearly seeing our goals, we can be firmly convinced: Russia will be revived.