Pavliv-Bilozersky, Ostap

Pavliv-Bilozersky, Ostap [Павлів-Білозерський, Остап; Pavliv-Bilozers'kyj], b 6 November 1892 in Sambir, Galicia, d 7 October 1955 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. Political and civic leader, journalist, and writer. He was a noted member of the Ukrainian Radical party and from 1922 was repeatedly elected to its secretariat. In 1925 he became secretary of the Central Council of the Union of Peasant Associations in Lviv. He was active in Sich societies and the Union of Ukrainian Progressive Youth. From 1922 to 1928 he edited the Radical party’s weekly Hromads’kyi holos and then a number of the magazine’s monthly supplements—Molodi kameniari (1928–32), Pluh i hart (1928–9), and Snip (1936–7). He served several terms in Polish prisons for his political activities. After the Second World War he coedited the newspaper Ukraïns’ke slovo in Germany (1948–9) before emigrating to the United States of America in 1949. There he contributed to Narodna volia and Vil’na Ukraïna (United States). As a writer he is known for his short stories and historical novels, including Naperedodni (On the Eve, 1935), Komakha (Insect, 1939), and Dyiavol pohnoblenyi (The Devil Oppressed, 2 vols, 1948). He also was a translator of Polish, German, and Russian literature into Ukrainian.

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