Olesiiuk, Tymish

Olesiiuk, Tymish [Олесіюк, Тиміш; Olesijuk, Tymiš; pseudonym: T. Olesevych], b 21 February 1895 in Dovholiska, near Volodava, Podlachia, d 14 September 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Physician and civic and political leader; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. He interrupted his university studies during Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1917–20) to serve as deputy of the Kholm region and the Podlachia region to the Central Rada, secretary of the Kholm Gubernia Executive Committee (1917–18), officer of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic, deputy commissioner of education for Kholm gubernia (1918–19), and attaché of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) diplomatic mission to Warsaw. He was sent in 1920 as a UNR observer to the Polish-Soviet peace negotiations in Riga (see Peace Treaty of Riga). After the First World War he resumed his studies in Warsaw and Prague (MD, 1929). He was active in the Union of Ukrainian Student Organizations under Poland and helped to establish the Central Union of Ukrainian Students. In 1932–44 he practiced medicine in Podlachia. After emigrating to Germany in 1944, he became a member of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic and a founder and first president (1946–7) of the Ukrainian National State Union. In 1947 he settled in the United States of America, where he resumed medical practice and served on the executive of the Union of Ukrainian National Democrats (1950–2), which he helped found. Besides demographic studies in compedniums, articles on politics and education, and recollections, which were published in journals, he wrote five books, including Statystychni tablytsi ukraïns'koho naselennia SSSR (Statistical Tables of the Ukrainian Population of the USSR, 1930) and Sira Ukraïna (Gray Ukraine [that is, Ukrainians in Central Asia], 1947).

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