Valiisky, Arkadii

Valiisky, Arkadii [Валійський, Аркадій; Valijs'kyj, Arkadij], b 8 February 1894 in Chernihiv, d 16 September 1976 in New York. Military officer. During Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1917–20), he served in Zhytomyr (in 1918–19) as a company commander and then as an instructor in the officer school of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. In 1920 he was a company commander at the unified military youth school in Kamianets-Podilskyi and then an instructor in the Kalisz internment camp in Poland. In 1924 he became chief of the Operations Section at the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Ukrainian National Republic, and in 1927 he was contracted by the Polish army. In 1936–9 he was chief of staff in the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Ukrainian National Republic in Warsaw. At the outbreak of Second World War he was interned by the Germans. In the spring of 1945 he served, at the rank of colonel, as chief of staff of the Ukrainian National Army. After the war he emigrated to the United States of America (1951), where he was active in veterans’ organizations (such as the United Ukrainian War Veterans in America) and in the defense department of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic, which promoted him to brigadier general.

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