Kossak, Hryhorii

Kossak, Hryhorii [Коссак, Григорій], b 7 March 1882 in Drohobych, Galicia, d 3 March 1939 in Moscow. Senior officer of the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) with the rank of colonel; brother of Ivan Kossak. As a reserve officer of the Austrian army, in 1914 he was put in charge of a field unit of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS). In 1915 he commanded the First Kurin and then the First Regiment of the USS, which fought in the Carpathian Mountains. In 1917–18 Kossak was responsible for recruit training in the USS. During the 1918 November Uprising in Lviv, he commanded (3–9 November) the Ukrainian forces. Subsequently, he commanded the Third Corps of the UHA. In June 1919 he was appointed commander of the short-lived Fifth Corps and then commander of the army’s rear guard. In November 1919 Kossak emigrated to Austria with the government of the Ukrainian National Republic and then settled in Czechoslovakia. He moved to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924 during the Ukrainization period and served as an instructor at the Red Officer School in Kharkiv. Arrested in 1931 and accused of belonging to the so-called Ukrainian National Center and spent 5 years in labor camps in Siberia. In 1938 he was arrested again and executed by the Soviet secret police.

[This article was updated in 2017.]