Losky, Kost

Losky, Kost [Лоський, Кость; Los'kyj, Kost'], b 28 January 1874 in Saint Petersburg, d 14 October 1933 in Prague. Jurist, civic and political figure, writer, and publicist; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society; father of Ihor Losky. He graduated in history and law from Warsaw University and Saint Petersburg University, and then served as a government official in the Kholm region, where he became a leading figure in the Ukrainian movement. In 1905 he founded a branch of the Prosvita society in Hrubeshiv and a publishing house for popular Ukrainian books. He was a copublisher of the newspaper Buh. In 1917 he served as assistant gubernial commissioner for Galicia and then as chairman of the Kholm Gubernia Council. Losky was a member of the Central Rada and director of a department in the Secretariat of Internal Affairs, and then in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian National Republic. In 1918 the Hetman government sent him as an envoy to Finland, and later, to Sweden and Norway. In 1920 he settled in Prague and turned to academic work: he was appointed a professor of Roman law, dean of the law and social sciences faculty (1927–8), and prorector (1929–30) of the Ukrainian Free University. His main publications were Ukrainskii vopros. Rossiia i Antanta (The Ukrainian Question: Russia and the Entente, 1918), Narys ryms'koï istoriï (An Outline of Roman History, 1919), Korotkyi narys hrets'koï istoriï (A Brief Outline of Greek History, 1921), Istoriia dzherel ryms'koho prava (History of the Sources of Roman Law, 1921), and Istoriia i systema ryms'koho pryvatnoho prava (The History and System of Roman Private Law, 2 vols, nd). He also published a collection of feuilletons and articles, Vid velykoho do smishnoho (From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, 1919), and some translations of Anton Chekhov and Heinrich Heine.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]