Mazurenko, Vasyl

Mazurenko, Vasyl [Мазуренко, Василь], b 25 April 1877 in Kryvorizhia, Oblast of the Don Cossack Host, d 21 November 1937 in Almaty, Kazakh SSR. Engineer and political activist; brother of Semen Mazurenko and Yurii Mazurenko. He was active in the Revolutionary Ukrainian party from 1901 and, later, in the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. During the Ukrainian struggle for independence (1917–20) he was a member of the Central Rada. In 1917–19 he served as deputy to a number of finance ministers, general secretary of finance (November 1917), and minister of finance in Volodymyr Chekhivsky’s cabinet (1919). He served in Italy as head of the diplomatic mission of the Ukrainian National Republic. In 1920 he returned to Ukraine and was appointed director of the Chamber of Weights and Measures in Kharkiv. He was arrested by the GPU in the early 1930s, exiled to Kazakhstan, and later executed. He wrote several works on silicates.

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