Yevhen Petrushevych

Potrushevych Yevhen (1863 - 1940) was western Ukrainian politician and head of Western Ukrainian National Republic formed with the collapse of Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.

He was born on June 3, 1863, in the town of Busk, Lvivska oblast (Galicia] into the family of a Greek-Catholic priest. After finishing the Academic Gymnasium he studied at Law faculty of Lviv University, where he was one of the leaders of student’s movement, headed the Academic Fraternity. Being awarded a Doctor’s degree in law, he opened a lawer’s office in Sokal. He was regarded with favor by people because of his professionalism in defending them from the self-will of powers. At the same time he headed the district Prosvita (Education) and was an organizer of the cultural and educational life. He became an active member of Ukrainian National Democratic Party formed in 1899.

In 1907 Yevhen Petrushevych was elected an ambassador to the Austrian Parliament. He became one of the leaders and then a head of Ukrainian Parliament Club. In 1910 he was elected an ambassador of Galician Sejm in Lviv from the Stryi district. Being a leading figure of the Ukrainian Sejm Club, he headed the determined fight for a new election law, achieved the increase of the quota of Ukrainian mandates in the Sejm from 12 to 34, and then to 62.

In the years of the World War I at the head of Ukrainian Parliament representation he struggled against the plans of Galicia annexation by Poland, was an adherent of the territory autonomy within Austria. Being a head of Galician delegation in Brest-Litovsk in February 1918, he favored the introduction of Austria’s liability of granting autonomy to Galicia into the secret appendix of the International conference resolution. Jointly with Czekhian and Slovakian parliamentaries he worked out a project about formation of national states united with Austria on the Empire lands and submitted it for Kaiser consideration. The manifest of Kaiser Karl of October 18, 1918 proclaimed the right of peoples to self-determination.

On October 19 the representative Ukrainian Constituent in Lviv approved the resolution on formation of the independent Ukrainian State in the western ethnic territory. To implement the resolution they elected Ukrainian National Rada (Council); Yevhen Petrushevych became its president. Being an adherent of the peaceful power transfer to Ukrainians he carried out negotiations with official Vienna. But in connection with the real threat on the part of Poles, Lviv delegation of the National Council headed by K. Levytsky seized power under arms and on November 1 proclaimed the formation of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic (ZUNR). K. Levytsky’s government was formed on November 9 and they started the construction of the national state.

After the defeat of Lviv as the results of Polish aggression and the developed war, the ZUNR government remained in Stanislaviv. Being a president of the National Council, Ye. Petrushevych mainly performed representative functions, but owing to his political culture and parliamental experience he had the influence on making the most important resolutions in the state. The National Council elaborated a number of necessary laws, which regulated the socio-political and economical life, laid the legal foundation of the state and guaranteed it from acute social conflicts and destructive manifestations.

On June 9, 1919 by the decision of the top state authorities Ye. Petrushevych was entitled to dictate; this meant that he acted both as a president and a head of the government. When in July 1919 the Galician army retreated over the Zbruch under Polish army attack, the ZUNR government settled in Kamyanets-Podilskyi. The relations between Ye. Petrushevych and S. Petlyura changed for the worse in this period, and Ye. Petrushevych was dismissed from the Directory. In autumn 1919 Ye. Petrushevych left for Vienna, where the exile government continued its diplomatic activity for the restoration of ZUNR independence. The president sent Ukrainian delegations to international talks in Riga and Geneva, sent notes and messages in the address of the League of Nations, got a resolution, which recommended a Council of Ambassadors in Paris to review the Galician problem. With the aim to determine the aspirations of Ukrainians he elaborated a fundamental draft of the Constitution of Ukrainian Galician Republic. In 1922 Ye. Petrushevych headed Ukrainian delegation to Geneva where the international conference took place.

But on March 15, 1923 the Council of Ambassadors approved a resolution according to which the West Ukrainian lands were annexed by Poland without reservation.

After the liquidation of the exile government Ye. Petrushevych continued diplomatic and propagandistic actions in defence of the enslaved Galician people, spread notes and protests, published a newspaper Ukrainsky prapor (Ukrainian banner). Under the influence of illusion which concerned changes of the national problem in the Soviet Ukraine he had some contacts with the USSR diplomats in Vienna and Berlin, where he lived since 1924, displayed Sovietophilic spirits. But they had quickly dissipated in connection with Ukrainians repressions in Stalin’s empire.

In spite of the emigrant’s life difficulties, old age he collaborated with Ukrainian National Association, maintained relations with Hetman P. Skoropadskyi.

Ye. Petrushevych died on August 29, 1940 and was buried at Berlin cemetery of St.-Jadwiga Roman Catholic Cathedral.