Kost Levytsky

Kost Antonovych Levytsky (

Kost Levytsky took active part in public and political life in his student years, he was one of the leaders of Academic Fraternity, the Circle of Law. From the first years of his barrister's practice K. Levytsky was a practical advocate of the rights and freedoms of people. He united his professional activity with that in the sphere of Ukrainian enterprises, he was a co-founder and leading figure in the economic associations Zorya, People's trade, Dniester, Province Credit Union. At the same time he was a well-known scientist in law, translated foreign laws into Ukrainian, worked with Ukrainian law terminology; he had published German-Ukrainian Law Dictionary, a series of popular works in law for the broad circles of Galician people, founded such professional editions as Chasopys pravnycha (Law periodical) and Zhyttia i pravo (Life and Law) and was their editor.

Political career

Kost Levytsky was a patriarch of Ukrainian political life, leader of the land's first political organization

First World War and its aftermath

At the onset of the World War I he headed the Supreme Ukrainian Council (1914) in Vienna, which defined Tsarist Russia as the main enemy of the nation, and called Ukrainians to the struggle against it for the restoration of a united Ukrainian state.

In 1916, as a prosecutor for the

After K. Levytsky's resignation in December 1918 he was a head of the commission on elaboration of the election reform, a representative in the affairs of press and propaganda, in foreign affairs; he also headed diplomatic missions of ZUNR which were sent to Riga (1920), Geneva (1921), he was a member of the ZUNR delegation in Genoa (1922), headed a Committee of political emigration. After the government self-liquidation in 1923, in accordance with the decision of the League of Nations on annexation of Eastern Galicia, he returned to Lwów.

In the years between wars he was a member of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian National Democratic Association (1925–1939), was a director of Centrobank, head of the Union of Ukrainian Barristers, author of fundamental scientific works including The History of the Liberation Struggles of the Galician Ukrainians Since the War of 1914–1918 (Parts I–III. – Lviv, 1929–1930), The Great Derangement: On the History of Ukrainian State in March–November 1918 on the Basis of Recollections and Documents (Lviv, 1931).

Second World War and the independent Ukrainian state

After the

Kost Levytsky died on November 12, 1941, and was buried at Yanivsky Cemetery [uk] in Lviv.

See also

• Yevhen Petrushevych

Sources

• Display Page at www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
• Ukraine at www.worldstatesmen.org
• Government portal :: Governments of the West Ukrainian People's Republic - Officials at www.kmu.gov.ua
• Struggle for Independence (1917–“20) at www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
• Government portal :: Governments of the West Ukrainian People's Republic at www.kmu.gov.ua

References