Stakhiv, Matvii

Stakhiv, Matvii [Стахів, Матвій; Staxiv, Matvij] aka Stachiw, Matthew, b 30 November 1895 in Nushche, Zboriv county, Galicia, d 2 June 1978 in San Diego, California, USA. Lawyer, historian, and political leader; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1943. He served as an officer in the Ukrainian Galician Army (1918–20) and studied law at Prague University (LL D, 1924). After returning to Lviv he became active in the Ukrainian Radical party, in which he served as general secretary (1925–39) and editor of its weekly Hromads’kyi holos (1929–39). He also directed the Samoosvita popular university and edited its publications (1930–9). As a postwar displaced person in Germany he lectured at the Ukrainian Free University and sat on the Ukrainian National Council. After settling in the United States of America (1949) he edited the weekly Narodna volia (1949–71), sat on the board of the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, presided over the Shevchenko Scientific Society (1969–74), and was an executive member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (1951–71) and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (1967–72). In addition to numerous articles and pamphlets on political and historical subjects, he wrote Zakhidnia Ukraïna (Western Ukraine, 6 vols, 1958–61), Ukraïna v dobi Dyrektoriï UNR (Ukraine in the Period of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, 7 vols, 1962–8), and Ukraine and Russia: An Outline of History of Political and Military Relations (1967). He also coauthored Western Ukraine at the Turning Point of Europe’s History, 1918–1923 (2 vols, 1969–71) and Ukraine and the European Turmoil, 1917–1919 (1973).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]