Turning the pages back...

June 21, 1890

Petro Franko, the son of the "Velykyi Kameniar," the great poet, scholar and activist Ivan Franko, had an interesting if puzzling life in his own right.

Born on June 21, 1890, in the village of Nahuyevychi, Drohobych county, Petro graduated from the Lviv Polytechnic and was active as one of the organizers of the Plast Ukrainian youth organization (founded in Lviv in 1911).

In 1914, Franko joined the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, and rose to the rank of company commander. Later, in the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA), he was made a captain and organized an air force squadron in 1919.

After the war, Petro settled in Kolomyia and taught. In 1927 he moved to Soviet Ukraine, where he worked as an engineer. In 1936 he returned to Lviv and taught at the city's Trade and Economics Institute until 1939.

A writer of short stories, Petro also wrote a film script based on his father's "Boryslav Smiyetsia" (Boryslav is Laughing), translated selected works of Jack London, and published a memoir about his father titled "Ivan Franko Zblyzka" (Ivan Franko Close Up, 1937).

In 1940, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. When the Nazis invaded in the following year, he was evacuated or retreated from Galicia with the Soviets and died in unknown circumstances.

Source: "Franko, Petro," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984).

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 16, 1996, No. 24, Vol. LXIV

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