Yanko, Oleksander

Yanko, Oleksander [Янко, Олександер; Janko], b 11 April 1879 in Stari Sanzhary, Kobeliaky county, Poltava gubernia, d 22 September 1938 in Kyiv. Revolutionary leader. After the February Revolution of 1917 he returned from political exile in Siberia and was elected to the Central Committe of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (UPSR) and as a representative from Poltava gubernia to the Central Rada (at the First All-Ukrainian Peasant Congress in June 1917) and the Russian Constituent Assembly (in November 1917). He headed the UPSR caucus in the Little Rada. He was one of the leaders of the centrist faction at the Fourth UPSR Congress in May 1918, and he played an important role in the November 1918 uprising against the Hetman government as a member of the Ukrainian National Union and head of the Peasant Association and UPSR Organizational Committee. From January 1919 he supported the position of government by workers’ and peasants’ councils based on the UPSR concept of the ‘toiling masses.’ He was arrested during the Yezhov terror and executed.

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