Lonhyn Tsehelskyi

Lonhyn Tsehelsky ( 29 July 1875 – 30 December 1950) was a Ukrainian lawyer, journalist and political leader who served in the Austrian parliament, who became Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs within the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, and who was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

Biography

Life under Austria Tsehelsky was born into a priest's family in Kaminka-Strumylova, Austrian-ruled Galicia in 1875. After completing a law degree at the University of Lviv, where he founded a Ukrainian student organization, he became involved in Ukrainian politics, organized agrarian strikes of Ukrainian workers in 1902, edited the largest Ukrainian-newspaper, Dilo, and in 1907 was elected to the Austrian parliament and to the Galician Diet in 1913. When the first world war began he helped to organize the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a Ukrainian unit within the Austro-Hungarian Army.

Lonhyn Tsehelsky mentioned in the "Talerhof almanac", as a prosecution witness at the Second Vienna process, which resulted in the condemnation to death of 24 Galician-Russian public figures.

Activities during the struggle for independence When western Ukraine became independent he became Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs within the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. In December he was one of the signers of the treaty uniting the Western Ukrainian People's Republic with the Ukrainian People's Republic.

Exile In 1920 he was sent to the United States as a diplomatic representative of the Western Ukrainian government and settled in Philadelphia, where he edited the Ukrainian newspaper Ameryka. Tsehelsky was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a union of 20 Ukrainian organizations within the United States. He died in Philadelphia in 1950.