Semaka, Illia

Semaka, Illia [Семака, Ілля], b 23 September 1866 in Berehomet, Bukovyna, d 4 January 1929 in Prievidza, Slovakia. Judge and civic and political leader; brother of Yevhen Semaka, father of Melaniia Nyzhankivska. A graduate of Chernivtsi University, he served as a judge and eventually became chief judge of the provincial court. A member of the National Democratic party of Bukovyna, he was elected to the Austrian parliament in 1907 and 1911 and to the Bukovynian Diet and its executive in 1911. In 1915–16 he was a member of the General Ukrainian Council in Vienna. As a member of the Ukrainian National Rada and its Bukovynian section, the Ukrainian Regional Committee, he played an important role in asserting Ukrainian control of Bukovyna in November 1918. In Vienna he was active in the Government-in-exile of the Western Ukrainian National Republic and then served as a judge in Slovakia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]