Navrotsky, Osyp

Navrotsky, Osyp [Навроцький, Осип; Navroc'kyj], b 24 March 1890 in Holhochi, Pidhaitsi county, Galicia, d 6 August 1972 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Lawyer and military and civic leader. While studying law at Lviv University he was president of the Ukrainian Student Union (1912–13) and a member of the chief executive of the Ukrainian Radical party (1912–33). During the First World War he fought with the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen in the Carpathian Mountains and then served as quartermaster of the Kolomyia Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army and assistant quartermaster of the Third Corps of the Ukrainian Galician Army and quartermaster of the Kherson Division of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. In 1920 he helped found the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and served as chief (1920–1) and member (1920–6) of its supreme collegium. He was imprisoned in 1921–2 and 1922–3 in connection with UVO actions. He was an executive member of the Chervona Kalyna publishing house (1920–39), the Prosvita society, the Sokil society, and the Ridna Shkola society (1923–6). During the Second World War he headed the Ukrainian Relief Committee (under the Ukrainian Central Committee) in Krynytsia (Krynica) (1940–2) and was executive director of the Military Board of the Division Galizien (1943–5). After arriving in Canada in 1948, he worked at the head office of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee until 1962. His recollections of the struggle for independence (1917–20) were published in the Ukrainian press.

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