Shandruk, Pavlo

Shandruk, Pavlo [Шандрук, Павло; Šandruk], b 28 February 1889 in Borsuky, Kremianets county, Volhynia, d 15 February 1979 in Trenton, New Jersey. Senior UNR Army officer; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1948. A graduate of the Aleksei Military School in Moscow (1913), he was commissioned in the Russian army and commanded a company and a battalion during the First World War. He joined the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic in February 1918 and held a variety of positions: commander of an armored train of the Zaporozhian Corps (1918), battalion commander (1919), commander of the Ninth Infantry Regiment of the Third Iron Rifle Division of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic (1919), commander of the First Recruit Regiment (1919), and commander of the Seventh Infantry Brigade of the Iron Division (1920). While serving under contract in the Polish army (1936–9) he graduated from the General Staff Academy in Warsaw (1938) and was promoted to lieutenant colonel and to colonel.

After being released from a German prisoner of war camp at the end of 1944, he chaired the Ukrainian National Committee. In March 1945 the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic appointed him commander in chief of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA). At the end of the war, during May 1945, he tried to save UNA units from capture by the Red Army. After the war he emigrated from Germany to the United States, where he continued to be active in veterans' organizations and in the UNR Government-in-exile. He was promoted to major general and elected honorary commander of the Free Cossacks. Shandruk was the editor of Ukraïns’ko-moskovs’ka viina v 1920 r. v dokumentakh (The Ukrainian-Russian War in 1920 in Documents, 1933) and the author of Arms of Valor (1959).

Petro Sodol

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