Petriv, Vsevolod

Petriv, Vsevolod [Петрів, Всеволод], b 2 January 1883 in Kyiv, d 10 July 1948 in Augsburg, Germany. Senior officer of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1948. A colonel of the general staff in the Russian army during the First World War, in early 1917 he was chief of staff in the Turkestan Division. During the Ukrainian struggle for independence (1917–20), he organized the Ukrainian troops of the division into the Haidamaka Cavalry Regiment, and commanded it in battles for Kyiv during January and March–April 1918 and then in the Crimean campaign. Under the Hetman government he served on the General Staff in the Department of Military Education, and during 1919 he organized and commanded the unified military youth school in Zhytomyr and then the Volhynian Group. Later, he served as defense minister in the government of Isaak Mazepa (1919), UNR Army inspector of infantry, and chief of general staff, and was promoted to brigadier general. In the interwar period he lived in Prague, where he lectured and wrote articles on military topics. His major work is Spomyny z chasiv ukraïns'koï revoliutsiï (1917–1921) (Memoirs from the Times of the Ukrainian Revolution [1917–21], 4 vols, 1927–9).

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