Kuzmovych, Volodymyr

Kuzmovych, Volodymyr [Кузьмович, Володимир; Kuz'movyč], b 30 November 1886 in Bolekhiv, Dolyna county, Galicia, d December 1943? in Utvin, Komi Republic, RSFSR. Political activist, pedagogue, and journalist. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna before becoming a teacher at a women’s seminary and gymnasium. During the First World War, he was arrested by the Russian authorities and deported to Tashkent. After his return to Lviv he lectured at the Lviv (Underground) Ukrainian University (1922–3), then became a school inspector for the Ridna Shkola society. He was the longtime secretary of the Ukrainian Catholic Union and editor of its weekly Meta (1931–9). He was also member of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO), its general secretary in 1938–9, and an UNDO delegate to the Polish Sejm (1935–8). In 1939 he was arrested during the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine and exiled to Siberia, where he died in a concentration camp.

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