Baranovsky, Khrystofor

Baranovsky, Khrystofor [Барановський, Христофор; Baranovs’kyj, Xrystofor], b 19 December 1874 in Nechipryntsi, Berdychiv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 7 May 1941 in São Paulo, Brazil. Outstanding civic and co-operative leader. Baranovsky was a founder and director of the Kyiv Credit Union Bank—the central Ukrainian institution for small credit (1907–17)—and one of the main organizers of the co-operative movement in Ukraine. In 1917 he became president of the Ukrainbank. In 1919 he became the chief adviser to the Tsentral Ukrainian agricultural co-operative union and the Strakhsoiuz co-operative insurance union. In the first General Secretariat of the Central Rada (1917), Baranovsky served as secretary of finance. In 1920 he was finance minister in the government of the Ukrainian National Republic led by Viacheslav Prokopovych. He edited the co-operative paper Muraveinyk-Komashnia and wrote many works on co-operatives. In 1920 he emigrated and lived, briefly, in France, and then in Brazil.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]