Pankivsky, Kost

Pankivsky, Kost [Паньківський, Кость; Pan’kivs’kyj, Kost’], b 15 April 1855 in Ryshkova Volia, Jarosław county, Galicia, d 16 November 1915 in Kyiv. Economist, co-operative leader, publisher, and civic leader; founding member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. A graduate of the Higher Agricultural School in Vienna, he was active in populist student circles. In the 1880s he worked as business manager and news editor of Dilo and as director of Saint Nicholas's Institute (1888–1906). He sat on the board of directors of many leading Ukrainian societies, such as Prosvita, Ruska Besida in Galicia, and the Ruthenian Pedagogical Society. He edited Prosvita's calendars, books, and journal Chytal’nia-Pys’mo z Prosvity (1894–6) as well as the humor magazine Zerkalo (1891–3), and helped edit the newspaper Bat’kivshchyna (1896), the children's magazine Dzvinok (1899–1900), and the literary and scholarly journal Zoria (Lviv). His publishing firm, Dribna Biblioteka (1893–7), published popular works of literature.

Pankivsky was a pioneer of the Galician co-operative movement, as a director (1898–1904) of the Provincial Credit Union and a member of the board of directors (1904–14) and managing director (1912–14) of the Provincial Audit Union (KSR). He was chief editor of Ekonomist, the official magazine of the KSR (1905–8), and its Ekonomichna Biblioteka (Economic Library) series. He maintained close contacts with leading Ukrainian intellectuals and activists in Russian-ruled Ukraine and with the Prosvita society in Kyiv. In his numerous articles he formulated the ideological principles of the Ukrainian co-operative movement. In June 1915 he was deported to Kyiv by the occupational Russian authorities.

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