Turkalo, Kost

Turkalo, Kost [Туркало, Кость], b 20 August 1892 in Nemyryntsi, Proskuriv county, Podilia gubernia, d 17 October 1979 in New York. Chemical engineer and civic and political leader. A former member of the Central Rada, he became a research associate of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and editor of the technical department of the Institute of the Ukrainian Scientific Language (1922–9). In that capacity he prepared a number of technical dictionaries (see Terminology), the most notable (coauthored by V. Favorsky, 1928) dealing with public utilities. He was arrested repeatedly by the OGPU and was a defendant in the Stalinist show trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (1930), at which he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment. He managed to flee from the USSR in 1943 and emigrated to the United States of America in 1949. In addition to articles on linguistic, political, and community issues he wrote two collections of autobiographical essays, Tortury (Tortures, 1963) and Spohady (Recollections, 1978).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]