Karkhut, Vasyl

Karkhut, Vasyl [Кархут, Василь; Karxut, Vasyl'], b July 1905 in Markivtsi, Tovmach county, Galicia, d 9 October 1980 in Lviv. Physician, writer, and civic leader. Upon graduating from Lviv University (1932), he practiced medicine in Volhynia. When the Plast Ukrainian Youth Association was banned in 1930, he organized clandestine units for young tradesmen and edited the Plast magazine Vohni (see Vohni). He wrote short stories for young people and a novel, Vistria v temriavi (A Blade in the Darkness, 1934; repr 1941 under the title Polum’ianyi vykhor [The Flaming Whirlwind]). In the mid-1930s he served two years in the Polish concentration camp of Bereza Kartuzka. After the Second World War he spent 18 years in Soviet GULAG labor camps. Released in 1963, he practiced medicine in a village near Sniatyn and compiled a handbook on medicinal plants, Liky navkolo nas (Remedies around Us, 1975).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]