Yevhen Chykalenko

Yevhen Kharlampiyovych Chykalenko (; 21 December 1861 – 20 June 1929) was a Ukrainian public figure, philanthropist, landowner, agronome, publisher and patron of the arts. He was one of the initiators of the convocation of the Central Rada in 1917. He played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival in the early 20th century by co-funding the only Ukrainian-language newspapers in the Russian Empire.

Biography Yevhen Chykalenko was born in the village of Pereshory in Kherson Governorate (modern-day Odesa Oblast). He studied at a gymnasium in Yelisavetgrad, where his classmates were prominent Ukrainian cultural figures: Panas Tobilevych (later known by the pseudonym Saksahansky) and Oleksandr Tarkovskyi, grandfather of Andrey Tarkovsky. Chykalenko's sister Nadiya married Ukrainian playwright Ivan Karpenko-Karyi. but soon retired from politics due to his conservative views. In January 1919 he moved to Galicia, where he was later interned by Polish troops. From 1920 Chykalenko lived in Austria, and in 1925 was employed by the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady.

Legacy

Chykalenko's memoirs (published in 1925-1926), as well as his diary (1931) represent an important source on the history of the Ukrainian national movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.