Khrystiuk, Pavlo
Khrystiuk, Pavlo [Христюк, Павло; Xrystjuk], b 1890 in the Kuban, d 19 September 1941 in Khabarovsk krai, RSFSR. Co-operative organizer, political figure, and publicist. Before the Revolution of 1917 he worked for the daily Rada (Kyiv), contributed to the organs of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (UPSR)—Borot’ba and Trudova respublika—and served as an editor of the co-operative journal Muraveinik-Komashnia (1916–17). During the Ukrainian struggle for independence (1917–20) he was a leading member of the central committees of the UPSR and the Peasant Association. He served as a deputy of the Central Rada and a member of its Little Rada. As general chancellor in the first Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) government (1917–18), led by Volodymyr Vynnychenko, he helped draft the land law of 31 January 1918. He served as minister of internal affairs and later state secretary (from the end of February 1918) in Vsevelod Holubovych's UNR government, and deputy minister of internal affairs in Isaak Mazepa's UNR government (1919). After the 4th Congress of the UPSR in May 1918, he joined the centrist faction. In 1919 he emigrated to Vienna, where he was a member of the foreign delegation of the UPSR and contributed to its journal Boritesia – Poborete. After returning to Ukraine in 1924, he worked for the Society of Scientific and Technical Workers for the Promotion of Socialist Construction (Kharkiv 1928–31) and contributed to the journal Chervonyi shliakh. His Zamitky i materiialy do istoriï ukraïns’koï revoliutsiï 1917–1920 rr. (Comments and Materials on the History of the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–20, 4 vols, 1921–2; repr New York 1969) is a valuable source for the history of the Ukrainian revolution. He also authored several studies including 1905 rik na Ukraïni (The Year 1905 in Ukraine, 1925) and Istoriia kliasovoï borot’by (styslyi kurs) (A History of Class Struggle [A Concise Course], 1927). Arrested in 1931, he died in a Soviet labor camp.
Arkadii Zhukovsky
[This article was updated in 2012.]