Kachala, Stepan

Kachala, Stepan [Качала, Степан; Kačala], b 1815 in Firmiiv, Berezhany county, Galicia, d 1888 in Shelpaky, Zbarazh county, Galicia. Ukrainian Catholic priest and political leader. A populist, he was a founding member of the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia (1848) and the People's Home in Lviv (1849). He was one of the Ukrainian representatives at the 1848 Slavic Congress in Prague. Kachala was elected to the Galician Diet in 1861 and to the Imperial Parliament in Vienna in 1873. He was a founding member and president of the Shevchenko Literary Society (later the Shevchenko Scientific Society) and the Prosvita society. He wrote popular brochures on political and social subjects and the book Polityka Polaków względem Rusi (The Politics of the Poles with Regard to Ruthenia, 1879), which appeared in Ukrainian as Korotka istoriia Rusy (A Short History of Ruthenia, 1886).

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