Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko. Central State Audiovisual and Electronic Archive
Life is a struggle…
Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko
Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko was a Ukrainian military, public and political figure, Colonel General of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Galician Army, and the UPR Army, Minister of Military Affairs of the UPR State Center in exile; a representative of the second wave of emigration. He lived and worked in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and France.
Omelianovych-Pavlenko was born on December 08, 1878 in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia). His Cossack roots, as well as the fact that his father and grandfather were professional military officers, influenced his choice of profession. He graduated from the Pavel Military School in St. Petersburg (1900). He participated in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the First World War.
According to M. Omelianovych-Pavlenko, 1917 was a turning point in his life that closely linked his life with the fate of Ukrainian people. From the beginning of the Ukrainian Revolution, he took an active part in the development of the national army. At the end of 1918, he headed the Ukrainian Galician Army and reorganized it, which had a positive impact on its combat capability. A year later, he became the commander of the UPR Army, which, under his leadership, carried out the First Winter Campaign (December 1919-May 1920). He left memories of this period in his books — The Winter Campaign (Kalisz, 1934), In Ukraine 1917-18 (Prague, 1935), and In Ukraine 1919 (Prague, 1940).
Omelianovych-Pavlenko emigrated abroad in the 1920s where he kept struggling for Ukraine’s independence. For twenty years, he lived and worked in Prague (Czechoslovakia). He headed the Alliance of Ukrainian Veterans’ Organizations. In 1925, he co-founded the Museum of Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence in Prague, a scientific institution that collected, studied, and popularized archival materials and museum objects related to the national liberation struggle of Ukrainian people. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Museum’s collections numbered about 1 million items. The institution’s activities played an important role in preserving the historical memory of the Ukrainian people.
In early 1942, along with Mykola Velychkivsky, Andriy Livytskyi, Andriy Melnyk, and Andrey Sheptytsky, he appealed to Hitler to recognize and respect the rights of Ukrainian people and Ukraine’s right to independent existence.
After the end of World War II, he moved to Germany. During 1947-1948, he served as the Minister of Military Affairs of the State Center of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in exile. From 1948, he lived in Paris (France). He headed the Organization of Ukrainian veterans in France.
He died on May 29, 1952 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise.
