Ukrainian Central Committee in Poland

Ukrainian Central Committee in Poland (Український центральний комітет у Польщі; Ukrainskyi tsentralnyi komitet u Polshchi, or УЦК; UTsK). A central émigré organization, founded in Warsaw in 1921 and active until the fall of Poland in September 1939. The UTsK provided a community base in Poland for the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic, with which it co-operated closely. It conducted cultural and educational work and provided legal and other aid to its members. Most of the political and military leaders of the Ukrainian National Republic who lived in Poland belonged to it. The Central Executive of the UTsK co-ordinated the work of 68 branches (1929), with a membership of approximately 15,000, located in both central Poland and parts of Western Ukraine under Polish rule. In Kalisz the UTsK organized a rest station for 310 invalids and a Ukrainian gymnasium; in Peremyshl it founded the Petliura Student Residence for émigré children; in Warsaw it sponsored the Lysenko Ukrainian National Choir. The UTsK was headed throughout its existence by Mykola M. Kovalsky. The executive members included Viktor Kushch, Illia Zolotnytsky, Mykhailo Sadovsky, and V. Krasnopilsky. Policy was set by the UTsK Council, which was elected every three years at a congress of delegates of the Ukrainian political emigration in Poland. It included Viktor Andriievsky, Levko Chykalenko, Marko Bezruchko, Yevhen Glovinsky, Oleksa Halkyn, Petro P. Kholodny, O. Kuzminsky, Oleksander Lototsky, A. Lukashevych, Yurii Lypa, S. Pysmenny, M. Sereda, Volodymyr Sinkler, Pavlo Shandruk, P. Shkurat, Sviatoslav Shramchenko, Roman Smal-Stotsky, Volodymyr Salsky, Mykhailo Tyshkevych, Mykola Yunakiv, Oleksander Zahrodsky, and Vsevolod Zmiienko. The official organs of the UTsK in Poland were Trybuna Ukraïny (published 1923 in Warsaw), Visty (1923–8), Shliakh nezalezhnosty (1929–31), and Za nezalezhnist’ (1934–8). They were all edited by Shkurat.

The UTsK in Poland worked with other Ukrainian émigré organizations, in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and France. Together they held congresses of the Ukrainian emigration (the first in 1929) and formed the Supreme Emigration Council.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

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