Yuri Velykanovych

Yuri Dmytrovych Velykanovych (ukr. Ю́рій Дми́трович Великано́вич; 1910 – September 7, 1938) was a participant in the Spanish Civil War, Ukrainian interbrigadist, member of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine.

Biography Yuri Velykanovych was born in a family of teachers, Emilia and Dmytro Velykanovych, in the village of Ilnyk (Austria-Hungary, nowadays Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine), where he graduated from school. In 1920 he studied in the Ukrainian grammar school in Lviv. Then he entered the Faculty of Philology at the Jan Kazimierz University (nowadays Ivan Franko National University of Lviv). As a student he joined the Communist Party of Western Ukraine.

In the summer of 1936, he was a fighter of the International Brigades in Spain during the Civil War.

In July 1937, he was a member of the company named after Taras Shevchenko (a part of the XIII Dabrowski Brigade) composed of Ukrainian communists from Galicia and Volhynia. In the interbrigadist press Velykanovych published his articles and correspondence in Polish, Spanish and Ukrainian about Taras Shevchenko's life and creativity, about the battle way of the company ("Taras Shevchenko", "The Ukrainians in the International Brigades", "Taras Shevchenko in the Aragon Front" and others).

On September 4, 1938, he was mortally wounded in the battle of the Ebro river.