Medvediev, Yukhym

Medvediev, Yukhym or Vedmediv [Медведєв, Юхим; Medvedjev, Juxym], b 1 April 1886 in Bakhmut, Katerynoslav gubernia, d 7 June 1938 in Kharkiv. Head of the first Soviet government in Ukraine. A member of the strike committee in Katerynoslav during the Revolution of 1905, after the February Revolution of 1917 he joined the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. As a delegate of the Kharkiv Executive Committee to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies in Kyiv, he walked out with the Bolshevik minority and attended the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kharkiv, which on 25 December 1917 elected him chairman of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee in Ukraine; in this capacity, he initially headed the People's Secretariat. In March 1918 he attended the peace conference at Brest-Litovsk (see Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) and the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, which relieved him of his chairmanship. Later in 1918 he joined the Borotbists and organized Borotbist partisan units in Katerynoslav gubernia. He joined the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine with other Borotbists in 1920 and resigned from it in the 1930s. In 1938 he was arrested, accused of organizing a counterrevolutionary terrorist organization, and executed. He was ‘rehabilitated’ in 1957.

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