Kovalenko, Oleksander

Kovalenko, Oleksander [Коваленко, Олександер], b 10 August 1875 in Romny, Poltava gubernia, d 17 October 1963 in Geneva, Switzerland. Engineer and political activist. While studying at the Kharkiv Technological Institute, he helped found the Revolutionary Ukrainian party (RUP) in Kharkiv. Upon graduating he worked as a mechanical engineer on the battleship Prince Potemkin, and in 1905 played an important part in its uprising. He escaped abroad and did not return to Ukraine until 1917. An active participant in Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1917–20), in early 1918 Kovalenko was one of the organizers of the Ukrainian National Republic Naval Ministry. From 1919 to 1922 he served on the UNR missions in Geneva and Paris, where he was a member of the Circle of Ukrainians in Paris, and after that lectured in mathematics at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady and the Ukrainian Technical and Husbandry Institute. At the end of the Second World War he moved to Geneva. Kovalenko’s publications include textbooks in mechanics and mathematics, and personal recollections.

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