WHO’S WHO IN UKRAINIAN HISTORY

Princes of Kyiv (to 1054)

Helgi (Oleg, Oleh) (? ca. 912)

Ingvar (Ihor, Igor) (? ca. 945)

Olha (Olga, Helga) (ca. 945–962)

Sviatoslav (962–972)

Yaropolk (972–980)

Volodymyr the Great (980–1015)

Sviatopolk the Accursed (1015–1019)

Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054)

Rulers of Galicia-Volhynia (1199–1340)

Roman the Great (1199–1205)

Danylo of Halych (1205–1264)

Lev (1264–1301)

Yurii (1301–1308)

Andrii and Lev (1308–1325)

Bolesław-Yurii (1325–1340)

Religious and Cultural Leaders (1580–1648)

Ivan Fedorov (ca.

Prince Kostiantyn (Vasyl) Ostrozky (1526–1608), Volhynian magnate and promoter of Orthodox reform

Ipatii Potii (1541–1613), a founder and metropolitan of the Uniate Church

Meletii Smotrytsky (ca. 1577–1633), religious polemicist and author of the first grammar of Church Slavonic

Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny (ca. 1582–1622), Cossack hetman and supporter of the Orthodox Church

Peter Mohyla (1596–1646), Orthodox reformer and metropolitan of Kyiv (1632–1646)

Cossack Hetmans (1648–1764)

Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1648–1657)

Ivan Vyhovsky (1657–1659)

Yurii Khmelnytsky (1659–1663)

Pavlo Teteria (1663–1665)

Ivan Briukhovetsky (1663–1668)

Petro Doroshenko (1665–1676)

Demian Mnohohrishny (1668–1672)

Ivan Samoilovych (1672–1687)

Ivan Mazepa (1687–1709)

Ivan Skoropadsky (1708–1721)

Danylo Apostol (1727–1734)

Kyrylo Rozumovsky (Kirill Razumovsky) (1750–1764)

Figures in the Arts and Letters (1648–1795)

Inokentii Gizel (ca. 1600–1683), archimandrite of the Kyivan Cave Monastery (1656–1683) and publisher of the Synopsis (1674)

Nathan Hannover (d. 1663), Talmudist, kabbalist, and author of Abyss of Despair (1653)

Samiilo Velychko (1670–1728), Cossack official and historian

Teofan Prokopovych (1681–1736), rector of the Kyivan College and adviser to Peter I of Russia

Rabbi Baal Shem Tov (d.

Hryhorii Skovoroda (1722–1794), philosopher, poet, and composer

Oleksandr Bezborodko (1747–1799), Cossack officer, chancellor of the Russian Empire, and historian of the Hetmanate

National “Awakeners” (1798–1849)

Ivan Kotliarevsky (1769–1838), author of Eneοda (Travestied Aeneid)

Oleksandr Dukhnovych (Aleksandr Dukhnovich) (1803–1865), a Transcarpathian priest, poet, and educator

Tadeusz Czacki (1765–1813), founder of the Kremenets Lyceum (1805)

Markian Shashkevych (1811–1843), poet and a publisher of the almanac Mermaid of the Dniester (1837)

Mykola Hohol (Nikolai Gogol) (1809–1852), novelist and promoter of Ukrainian history and culture

Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861), artist, poet, and writer often regarded as the father of the Ukrainian nation

Yakiv Holovatsky (1814–1888), historian, ethnographer, a publisher of Mermaid of the Dniester (1837), and a leader of the Russophile movement

Mykola Kostomarov (1817–1885), historian, political activist, and author of the first political program of the Ukrainian movement

Administrators and Entrepreneurs (1800–1900)

Armand Emmanuel, Duke of Richelieu (1766–1822), French royalist and governor of Odesa (1803–1814), often considered its true founder

Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky (1778–1845), Russian military commander and governor of Little Russia (1816–1834), where he helped improve living conditions for serfs and opposed the erosion of Cossack rights

Franz Stadion (1806–1853), Austrian statesman and governor of Galicia (1847–1848), where he freed the serfs and gave impetus to Ukrainian political mobilization

John James Hughes (1814–1889), Welsh entrepreneur, founder of the city of Yuzivka (present-day Donetsk), and initiator of development of the Donets basin industrial region

Platon Symyrenko (1821–1863), entrepreneur and benefactor who financed an edition of Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar

Lazar Brodsky (1848–1904), entrepreneur and philanthropist who financed the construction of Kyiv’s largest synagogue

Stanisław Szczepanowski (1846–1900), businessman, politician, and author of Galician Misery (1888) who contributed to the development of the Galician oil industry by introducing steam drills

Political and Cultural Activists (1849–1917)

Mikhail Yuzefovich (Mykhailo Yuzefovych) (1802–1889), educator and early supporter of the Ukrainophile movement who sponsored the Ems Ukase (1876)

Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895), historian, political activist and thinker, and founder of Ukrainian socialism

Ismail Gasprinski (Ismail Gaspirali) (1851–1914), educator, political activist, and leading figure of the Crimean Tatar national revival

Ivan Franko (1856–1916), poet, writer, publicist, and a founder of the socialist movement in Galicia

Mykola Mikhnovsky (1873–1924), lawyer, political activist, and early promoter of the idea of Ukrainian independence

Writers and Artists (1849–1917)

Yurii Fedkovych (1834–1888), poet and folklorist known for his stories of Bukovynian life

Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1836–1895), journalist, writer, and author of romantic stories about Galicia

Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912), composer and founder of the Ukrainian national school in music

Ilia Repin (1844–1930), realist painter best known for his epic painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (1891)

Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich) (1859–1916), leading Yiddish writer best known for his stories about Tevye the Dairyman, which served as a basis for the musical Fiddler on the Roof

Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942), modernist writer and early feminist

Heorhii Narbut (1886–1920), graphic artist, a founder of the Ukrainian Academy of Fine Arts (1917), and designer of the Ukrainian coat of arms (1918)

Figures of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921)

Yevhen Petrushevych (1863–1940), lawyer, political activist, and head of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (1918–1919)

Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934), prominent historian and president of the Central Rada, the Ukrainian revolutionary parliament (1917–1918)

Pavlo Skoropadsky (1873–1945), descendant of a prominent Cossack family, imperial officer, and hetman of Ukraine in 1918

Symon Petliura (1879–1926), journalist, political activist, secretary of military affairs of the Central Rada, and head of the Directory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic

Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880–1951), best-selling writer and head of Ukrainian governments from 1917 to 1919

Nestor Makhno (1888–1934), anarchist revolutionary and commander of a peasant army in southern Ukraine (1918–1921)

Isaac Babel (1894–1940), journalist, writer, and author of Red Cavalry (1926)

Yurii Kotsiubynsky (1896–1937), son of the Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Bolshevik, and commander of the Red Army in Ukraine in 1918

Figures of the Cultural Renaissance (1921–1933)

Mykola Skrypnyk (1872–1933), communist official and promoter of Ukrainization who committed suicide in the wake of the Great Famine

Pavlo Tychyna (1891–1967), leading poet whose work evolved from symbolism to socialist realism

Mykola Khvyliovy (Nikolai Fitilev) (1893–1933), leading communist writer and founder of Ukrainian proletarian literature who committed suicide in the wake of the Great Famine

Oleksandr Dovzhenko (1894–1956), screenwriter, director, and pioneer of Soviet film montage

Dziga Vertov (David Kaufman) (1896–1954), pioneer documentary filmmaker whose best works, including The Man with a Movie Camera (1929), were produced in Ukraine

World War II Heroes and Villains (1939–1945)

Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky (Roman Aleksander Maria Szeptycki) (1865–1944), head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (1901–1944) and leading figure in Galician society

Sydir Kovpak (1887–1967), Soviet partisan commander

Mykhailo Kyrponos (1892–1941), Red Army general and commander of the defense of Kyiv in 1941

Erich Koch (1896–1986), Nazi Gauleiter of East Prussia (1928–1945) and Reichskommissar of Ukraine (1941–1943)

Nikolai Vatutin (1901–1944), general and commander of the Red Army’s First Ukrainian Front

Otto von Wδchter (1901–1949), Nazi governor of the District of Galicia

Roman Shukhevych (1907–1950), a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and commander in chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (1943–1950)

Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its chapters in western Europe and North America (1933–1959)

Communist Leaders of Ukraine (1938–1990)

Nikita Khrushchev (1938–1949)

Lazar Kaganovich (1925–1928, 1947)

Leonid Melnikov (1949–1953)

Oleksii Kyrychenko (1953–1957)

Mykola Pidhorny (1957–1963)

Petro Shelest (1963–1972)

Volodymyr Shcherbytsky (1972–1989)

Volodymyr Ivashko (1989–1990)

Leaders of the Dissident Movement (1960s–1980s)

Levko Lukianenko (b. 1927), lawyer and political activist who spent more than twenty-five years in prison and internal exile, author of the Declaration of Ukrainian Independence (1991)

Georgii Vins (1928–1998), Baptist pastor and religious activist twice arrested and sentenced by Soviet courts before being expelled from the USSR in 1979

Viacheslav Chornovil (1937–1999), journalist, chronicler of Ukrainian dissent in the 1960s, and inmate of Soviet prisons and concentration camps

Mustafa Dzhemilev (b.

Semen Gluzman (b. 1946), psychiatrist and human rights activist sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for exposing Soviet use of psychiatry against political dissidents

Presidents of Ukraine (1991–2015)

Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994)

Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005)

Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010)

Viktor Yanukovych (2010–2014)

Petro Poroshenko (2014–)