Elcheshen, Dmytro

Elcheshen, Dmytro or Demetrius [Ільчищин, Дмитро; Il'čyšyn], b 20 October 1902 in Sokyryntsi, Kopychyntsi county, Galicia, d 14 November 1983 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Agronomist, editor and publisher, community leader. Elcheshen immigrated to Canada as a youth and graduated from the University of Manitoba in agriculture in 1928. He was active in the Ukrainian community in Winnipeg, especially in the Prosvita association, and also served as national secretary of the Canadian Sitch Association (1928–36), secretary of Saint Raphael’s Ukrainian Immigrants’ Welfare Association of Canada and editor of seven of its almanacs (1925–38), and president of the United Hetman Organization (1937). He was briefly associate editor of Kanadiis’kyi ukraïnets’ and in 1932–3 editor-publisher of Monitor. In 1938 Elcheshen was elected to the Winnipeg City Council. He translated into English the second volume of Dmytro Doroshenko’s Istoriia Ukraïny, 1917–1923 (The Ukrainian Hetman State of 1918, Winnipeg 1973). He received the Governor General’s Award of Canada.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]