Lysy, Volodymyr

Lysy, Volodymyr [Лисий, Володимир; Lysyj], b 5 November 1893 in Kopychyntsi, Galicia, d 26 December 1966 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Lawyer, publicist, and civic and political leader. In 1917, after studying law at Lviv University, he was drafted into the Austrian army, in which he served as liaison between the Austrian command in Ukraine and the Central Rada. In 1919 he worked in the State Secretariat of Internal Affairs of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic and prepared a draft of the election law (with an extensive commentary) for the Ukrainian National Rada. After the First World War he passed his bar examinations and in 1924 opened a law office in Ternopil. He was an active member of local educational and economic organizations and also sat on the executive of the Ukrainian Socialist Radical party (from 1928 as its deputy leader). He left Ukraine in 1944 as a displaced person, and in 1949, he settled in Detroit, where he was active in the Ukrainian-American Center and the Self-Reliance Credit Union (see Self-Reliance federal credit unions). A leading figure in the Ukrainian Free Society of America, he edited and managed the journal Vil’na Ukraïna (United States) for many years. Lysy wrote numerous articles on political and legal issues, some of which (eg, Derzhavnyi status URSR v 1917–1923 rr. [The Legal Status of the Ukrainian SSR in 1917–1923, 1963]) were published under separate cover.

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