Galan, Volodymyr

Galan, Volodymyr or Gallan, Walter [Ґалан, Володимир], b 3 April 1893 in Hlyniany, Peremyshliany county, Galicia, d 5 July 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Civic leader and banking executive. Galan studied law and economics in Lviv, Prague (LL D 1922), and Philadelphia. During the First World War he served in the Austrian army and then commanded a unit known as the Battery of Death in the Ukrainian Galician Army. In 1923 he emigrated to the United States of America. He was a founder and president (1929–40) of the United Ukrainian Organizations in America and helped to establish the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. After chairing the Relief Committee for Carpatho-Ukraine (1938–9), Galan was a founder, executive director (1947–55), and president (from 1955) of the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee. He was also a founder and president of the United Ukrainian War Veterans in America. He contributed many articles to the Ukrainian press and wrote a book of war memoirs, Bateriia smerty (The Battery of Death, 1968).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]