Prokopchak, Petro

Prokopchak, Petro or Prokop, Peter [Прокопчак, Петро; Prokopčak], b 12 November 1903 in Vapenne, Gorlice county, Galicia, d 31 October 1981 in Toronto. Communist leader and journalist. After emigrating to Canada in 1926, he worked in the mines and joined the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association and the Communist Party of Canada. In the early 1930s he studied journalism in Kharkiv and then edited Robitnytsia, Ukraïns’ki robitnychi visty, Narodna hazeta (Winnipeg), Ukraïns’ke zhyttia (Winnipeg), and Zhyttia i slovo (Toronto) in Canada. He was interned during the Second World War (1940–2) under Defence of Canada regulations. In 1946 he was elected national secretary and in 1972 president of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians. At the same time he sat on the board of directors of the Workers’ Benevolent Association.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]