Ivanys, Vasyl

Ivanys, Vasyl [Іванис, Василь], b 3 April 1888 in Stanytsia Nastasivka, Temriutsk district, in the Kuban, d 28 November 1974 in Toronto, Ontario. Economist and civic leader. He studied economics at the Moscow Commercial Institute and engineering at the Novocherkassk Polytechnical Institute (1911–15). After the February Revolution of 1917 Ivanys supported the Kuban faction that demanded independence for the region and had close ties with the Central Rada in Kyiv. He was a member of the Kuban Legislative Council from 1918, minister of trade and industry in 1919, and prime minister of the government of the Kuban People's Republic and acting otaman of the Kuban Cossack Host in 1920. As an émigré in Czechoslovakia Ivanys was one of the founders and later a professor (1927–) of the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady, then at the Ukrainian Technical and Husbandry Institute (UTHI) (1932–). He published extensively on the natural and industrial resources of Ukraine and Northern Caucasia, including the monographs Promyslovist’'Ukraïny i Pivnichnoho Kavkazu (The Industry of Ukraine and Northern Caucasia, 1937) and Energetychne hospodarstvo Ukraïny ta Pivnichnoho Kavkazu (The Energy Industry of Ukraine and Northern Caucasia, 1934), and several works on the Kuban, including Borot'ba Kubani za nezalezhnist' (Kuban’s Struggle for Independence, 1968).In 1945–8 Ivanys headed the UTHI in Regensburg. In Canada from 1948, he played an active role in the Shevchenko Scientific Society and in the Brotherhood of Saint Volodymyr in Toronto. His memoirs, in five volumes, were published as Stezhkamy zhyttia (The Paths of Life,1958–62).

Yury Boshyk

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