Magalias, Semen

Magalias, Semen [Маґаляс, Семен; Magaljas], b 17 May 1885 in Vynnyky, Lviv county, Galicia, d 23 May 1978 in Newark, New Jersey. Civic and military figure. While studying law at Lviv University he became active in the Prosvita society and then worked as an inspector and organizer for the Silskyi Hospodar society. With the collapse of the Austrian Empire he volunteered for service in the Ukrainian Galician Army and was put in charge of arms acquisition. He headed the foreign affairs department of supreme otaman Symon Petliura’s general staff and later the mobilization department of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic (1920–1). After returning to Lviv he served as executive director of the Prosvita society’s head office in Lviv from 1922 to 1939. Magalias compiled a list of Ukrainian books that were banned and confiscated by the Polish authorities in the interwar period (1932; 2nd rev edn 1937). Under the German occupation he was secretary of the Lviv municipal executive. At the close of the Second World War he emigrated to Germany and then to the United States of America.

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