Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, Jan

Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, Jan (Токаржевський-Карашевич; Tokarzhevsky-Karashevych), b 24 June 1885 in Chabanivka, Ushytsia (now Stara Ushytsia) county, Podilia gubernia, d 18 November 1954 in London, Great Britain (buried in South Bound Brook, New Jersey). Ukrainian diplomat and heraldist, descended from Polish nobility (the Janiszewski family). He obtained a doctorate at Fribourg University in Switzerland. In 1911–18 he worked in the Poltava gubernia and zemstvo administrations and was general comptroller of the zemstvo Red Cross Committee. He served as an adviser to the missions of the Ukrainian National Republic in Vienna (June 1918 to June 1919) and Istanbul (August 1919 to March 1920) and as consul general in Istanbul (to December 1921). In January 1922 he became director of the Ministry of External Affairs for the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic. In Paris (from 1924) he headed the International Heraldic Institute and supported the Promethean movement; in Rome (from 1936) he worked in the archives of the Vatican; and in London (from 1948) he was a leading member of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. His writings included numerous articles in Polish, French, Italian, German, and English on Ukrainian history, literature, and heraldry, as well as the unpublished monograph Istoriia ukraïns'koï dyplomatiï (A History of Ukrainian Diplomacy).

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