Eikhelman, Otto

Eikhelman, Otto [Ейхельман, Отто; Ejxel'man], b 27 April 1854 in Saint Petersburg gubernia, d 21 February 1943 in Prague. Jurist, specialist in several branches of state and international law, professor at Kyiv University and head of the international law department there from 1884 until the First World War. He was a professor at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague from 1922 and a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In 1918 Eikhelman was active in the government of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) and worked for the Ministry of Trade and Industry and for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a deputy to the minister. In 1918 he took part in economic negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the Austrian and German governments as well as in negotiations with the government of the Soviet Russia. As an émigré he devoted himself mainly to legal scholarship. His major works include Khrestomatiia russkogo mezhdunarodnogo prava (Anthology of Russian International Law, 1887–9), Ocherki iz lektsii po mezhdunarodnomu pravu (Outlines of Lectures on International Law, 1900, 1905), and Proiekt konstytutsiï osnovnykh derzhavnykh zakoniv UNR (Draft of the Constitution of Fundamental State Laws of the UNR, 1921).

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