Paneiko, Vasyl

Paneiko, Vasyl [Панейко, Василь; Panejko, Vasyl'], b 1883 in Zolochiv county, Galicia, d 29 May 1956 in Caracas, Venezuela. Journalist and civic and political leader; brother of Oleksander Paneiko and Yurii Paneiko. An active supporter of the National Democratic party, he attempted unsuccessfully to revive the monthly Moloda Ukraïna in 1905. He contributed to Dilo (1907–12) and Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk (1908–14) and then served as chief editor of Dilo (1912–18). He was also one of the editors of Ukrainische Korrespondenz. In 1919 he was appointed state secretary of foreign affairs of the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR) (see State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic). He attended the Paris Peace Conference, first as vice-chairman of the delegation of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) and then (1920) as chairman of the ZUNR delegation. To gain Entente support for Ukrainian independence he advocated an eastern European federation encompassing Ukraine (with Galicia) and Russia. The idea, which he presented in the brochure Z’iedyneni derzhavy Skhidn'oï Evropy (The United States of Eastern Europe, 1922), failed to gain support in Ukrainian political circles. After a brief stay in Lviv, where he edited Dilo and Polityka (1925), Paneiko returned to Paris and worked as a correspondent for Dilo. In the 1930s he was no longer active in Ukrainian political life. After the Second World War he emigrated to the United States (1945) and then to Venezuela.

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