Vasynchuk, Pavlo

Vasynchuk, Pavlo or Vasylchuk [Васиньчук, Павло; Vasyn'čuk; Polish: Wasyńczuk], b 2 August 1893 in Kholm, d 5 May 1944 in Kholm. Lawyer, economist, and civic and political leader; brother of Antin Vasynchuk. A graduate of the Kyiv Commercial Institute and the law faculty of Kyiv University, he participated in the revolutionary events in Kyiv in 1917 and worked as director of the press office of the Ministry of Food Supplies of the Ukrainian National Republic. At the beginning of 1918 he represented the government of the Ukrainian National Republic on the international repatriation commission in Kovel in Volhynia. After returning to Kholm he copublished Nashe zhyttia (Kholm) with his brother and in 1920 was arrested with him for bringing out its eighth issue. In 1922 and 1928 he was elected to the Polish Sejm, where he belonged to the Ukrainian caucus (see Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation). He was a founder and the first president of the Sel-Soiuz party (1924). A convinced socialist who opposed communism, he did not support Sel-Soiuz’s merger into Sel-Rob. Breaking ranks with the latter group in December 1926, he reconstituted Sel-Soiuz and established Selians’kyi shliakh as its organ. In 1944 he acted as a representative of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic and as the Ukrainian liaison of the clandestine Polish home government. He was murdered by the Polish underground.

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