One should love Ukraine not only to the depths of the soul but also to the depths of one’s pocket.
Yevhen Chykalenko
Yevhen Chykalenko was a philanthropist, publisher, journalist, member of the Hromada of Kyiv, and initiator of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives.
He was born on December 21, 1861, in Pereshory, Kherson region, to Kharlampii Chykalenko, secretary of the Ananiivka District Court, and his wife Olena. Yevhen got his education at the Yelisavetgrad Real School and Kharkiv University. During his student years, he was an active member of the Drahomanov radical circle. In 1884, he was arrested and spent five years under police surveillance in his village.
After his father’s death, Chykalenko began to manage the family estate on his own and was quite successful. When cultivating the land, he used advanced agronomic technologies and agricultural machinery. He wrote a series of popular brochures called “Rozmova pro sil’s’ke khaziaistvo” (Conversations on Farming), describing modern farming methods as a conversation with a peasant. However, because the brochures were written in Ukrainian, they were published with a five-year delay. Over the next two decades, Chykalenko wrote six more books on efficient agriculture.
In 1894, he moved to Odesa, where he joined the Odesa Ukrainian community, which united professors from The Imperial Novorossiysk University, gymnasium teachers, and lawyers. Since 1900, he lived in Kyiv.
Chykalenko was one of the most prominent Ukrainian philanthropists of the time, who spent his fortune on developing Ukrainian affairs. For example, he contributed to the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language publication, edited by Borys Hrinchenko. Yevhen Chykalenko organized the Danylo Mordovets Fund at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv to help Ukrainian writers. He financed the weekly paper of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, “Selianyn” (The Villager) in Lviv, and the publication “Kievskaia Starina” in Kyiv. He became the principal supporter of the dormitory for students of Lviv Polytechnic.
Yevhen Chykalenko was an active member of the Hromada of Kyiv, the Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party. He founded the Society of Ukrainian Progressives and was its de facto chairman.
Chykalenko was a central figure in the Ukrainian periodical press of the time. He put a lot of effort into creating the Ukrainian newspaper “Hromads’ka Dumka” (1906), and for eight years, he maintained the “Rada” newspaper (1906-1914).
During the First World War, Yevhen Chykalenko was forced to leave Ukraine for fear of persecution by the tsarist gendarmes. With the outbreak of the Ukrainian Revolution, he returned to Kyiv. He was one of the initiators of the convocation of the Central Rada. At the same time, he did not participate in political activities, and in 1918 finally retired from politics. In January 1919, Chykalenko left for Galicia, where the Poles later interned him.
In exile, Yevhen Chykalenko lived first in Czechoslovakia, then in Austria, and from 1925 onward, again in Czechoslovakia. He was engaged in compiling dictionaries: in 1927, he published the Russian-Ukrainian Agricultural Dictionary, and in 1928, the Forestry Dictionary.
He died on June 20, 1929, in Podebrady.
Chykalenko is also known for his “Spohady” (Memoirs) and “Shchodennyk” (Diary) 1917-1919, which provide rich material on the history of the Ukrainian movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
