Shevelev, Arnold

Shevelev, Arnold [Шевелев, Арнольд; Ševelev, Arnol'd], b 28 November 1928 in Balakliia (now in Kharkiv oblast), d 14 March 2009 in Kyiv. Soviet historian and Communist Party functionary; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1972. He graduated from Kyiv University (1948) and taught in institutions of higher education from 1954 (from 1968 as a professor). He served as secretary (1969–72) and assistant director (from 1972) of the Kyiv branch of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU). As director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1973–8) he was instrumental in curtailing its autonomous research and eliminating most of its pre-1917 publications. He wrote many works on the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of Ukraine and a collection of essays on the development of research in Soviet and foreign history in the Ukrainian SSR (1975). He was editor in chief of Istoriia Ukraïns'koï RSR (History of the Ukrainian SSR, 8 vols in 10 books, 1977–9).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]