Lavrivsky, Yuliian

Lavrivsky, Yuliian [Лаврівський, Юліян; Lavrivs’kyj, Julijan], b 27 August 1821, d 5 May 1873 in Lviv. Lawyer, civic figure, and political leader. A member of the Ruthenian Congress in 1848, he joined the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia society and became the first chairman of its law department. He was a founder and long-term president of the Ruska Besida in Galicia society and its theater (see Ukrainska Besida Theater) as well as president of the Prosvita society (1870–3). In 1861, while serving as a state procurator in Sambir, he was elected to the Galician Diet, and in 1870 he was appointed its deputy marshal. In 1869 he offered the Poles co-operation in the administration of Galicia in return for their granting the Ukrainian language the same status as Polish in government and education. The Polish-controlled provincial executive, however, rejected the offer. Lavrivsky founded the populist newspaper Osnovain 1870 and translated the Austrian civil code into Ukrainian.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]