Zahaikevych, Volodymyr

Zahaikevych, Volodymyr [Загайкевич, Володимир; Zahajkevyč], b October 1876 in Ternopil, Galicia, d 7 June 1949 in Mittenwald, Bavaria, West Germany. Lawyer and political leader; brother of Bohdan Zahaikevych. A graduate of Lviv University, he opened a law office in Peremyshl in 1909 and played a leading role in the economic and political life of the region. A member of the National Democratic party, he became a deputy to the Austrian parliament in 1912. With the disintegration of the Austrian Empire he was elected to the Ukrainian National Rada and a month later was imprisoned in a Polish concentration camp for a year. In the interwar period he acted as defense counsel in many political trials and was elected as a candidate of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance to the Polish Sejm in 1928 and 1930. He was deputy speaker of the Sejm (1928–30). During the Second World War he was a member of the Ukrainian National Council in Lviv, 1941, and served on the court of appeal in Cracow. In 1944 he left Ukraine for Vienna and then Bavaria.

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