Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Mykhailo

Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Mykhailo [Омельянович-Павленко, Михайло; Omeljanovyč-Pavlenko, Myxajlo], b 8 December 1878 in Tbilisi, d 29 May 1952 in Paris. Supreme commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) and the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic; brother of Ivan Omelianovych-Pavlenko. Having commanded a company in the Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War and graduated from general staff school (1910), he served during the First World War as a regiment commander, corps chief of staff, and director of an officer candidate school in Odesa. In 1917 he joined the UNR Army and commanded a Ukrainian brigade in Katerynoslav, the Third Rifle Division in Poltava (1918), and the Zaporozhian Kish. Between 10 December 1918 and 7 June 1919 he was the supreme commander of the UHA. After returning to the UNR Army he took command of the Zaporozhian Corps and then of the entire army (December 1919–November 1920) during and after the First Winter Campaign. During the interwar years he lived in Prague, where he headed the Alliance of Ukrainian Veterans' Organizations. After the Second World War he served as defense minister in the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic (1945–8), which promoted him from major general to lieutenant general. He continued to be active in veterans’ affairs in West Germany and France and for some time served as president of the Union of Ukrainian Veterans. He is the author of Ukraïns'ko-pol's'ka viina 1918–1919 rr. (The Ukrainian-Polish War of 1918–19, 1929), Zymovyi pokhid (The Winter Campaign, 1934), and two books of memoirs (1930, 1935).

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