Ostapenko, Serhii

Ostapenko, Serhii [Остапенко, Сергій], b 18 November 1881 in Troianiv, Zhytomyr county, Volhynia gubernia, d 1937? in a Soviet labor camp. Economist and political leader from Volhynia. Until 1917 he was a lecturer at the Kyiv Commercial Institute. After the Revolution of 1917 he was a delegate to the Central Rada from the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, an economic adviser to the Ukrainian National Republic’s (UNR) delegation at the negotiations of the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), minister of trade and industry in the Council of National Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic under the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic (December 1918 to February 1919), and prime minister of the UNR (February–April 1919). Under his leadership the UNR government was less partisan than under other prime ministers, and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to negotiate with the Entente powers. After the victory of the Bolsheviks Ostapenko remained in Ukraine. He was arrested in 1931 and perished in a Soviet concentration camp; the date and circumstances of his death are unknown. His economic writings deal mostly with foreign trade, especially trade in agricultural products. He wrote mostly popular and publicistic works, including textbooks on the economic geography of Ukraine and political economy.

[This article was updated in 2015.]