Hladky, Yaroslav

Hladky, Yaroslav [Гладкий, Ярослав; Hladkyj, Jaroslav], b 16 May 1908 in Rohatyn, Galicia, d 22 April 1996 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. Community and scout leader. Hladky was an executive member of the Plast Ukrainian Youth Association, the Ukrainian scouting organization, from 1928. From 1930 to 1939 he headed Plast during its illegal existence in interwar Galicia under Poland and edited its ideological journal Vohni (see Vohni). In Western Europe and then the United States of America after the Second World War, he was the supreme commander (1945–54) of the boy scouts in Plast, head of the Plast world executive (1954–8, 1962–6), and head of the organization’s world council (1973–82).

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