Turning the pages back... May 6, 1864 (05/03/98)

Turning the pages back...

May 6, 1864

Kyrylo Trylovsky, the founder of the Sich movement and the Sich Riflemen, commonly known as the "Sich father," was born on May 6, 1864, in Bohutyn, Zolochiv county (about halfway between Lviv and Ternopil) in Galicia. After graduating from Lviv University, he practiced law in Kolomyia.

In October 1890, as a typical young intellectual influenced by the socialist ideals of Mykola Drahomanov, he joined with older activists such as Ivan Franko, and took part in the founding congress of the Ukrainian Radical Party, known as the "Radykaly," the first Ukrainian political party with a defined program, a mass following and registered membership.

Trylovsky remained a URP leader when in 1899 two groups that were increasingly uncomfortable with the party's leftist leanings split off to form the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party. In 1907 he was elected to the Austrian Parliament in Vienna, and was joined by five of his colleagues in the elections of 1911.

In May 1900 he founded the Sich society, an organization established to promote physical education and national consciousness (as well as to set up firefighting brigades), and oversaw its spread in Galicia. In 1902 he established a popular monthly magazine, Zoria, based in Kolomyia, and served as its editor. In 1908 in Stanyslaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk) a central Sich council was established with Trylovsky as its president.

1913 was a banner year for Trylovsky. He was elected to the Galician Diet and during a Ukrainian filibuster directed at measures discriminating against his compatriots, made a 10-hour speech and buried the chamber in hundreds of motions.

Also that year, he founded a paramilitary organization he called the Ukrainski Sichovi Striltsi (Ukrainian Sich Riflemen - USS). At the outbreak of the first world war in August 1914, he convened an eight-man USS Combat Board with himself as its chairman to assist in Austria's effort against the Russian empire.

In October 1918, with the proclamation of the Western Ukrainian National Republic, Trylovsky's party joined the Ukrainian National Rada, but he left for Vinnytsia when Yevhen Petrushevych was declared "dictator plenipotentiary" in June 1919. He then concentrated on organizing Sich on a civic level, establishing committees in Vinnytsia, several locals in Pokuttia and Transcarpathia and, eventually, in Vienna, where he moved in 1921.

Returning to Galicia in 1927, he came back to live in Kolomyia, but he travelled throughout the region, overseeing Sich operations, publishing Sich songbooks and contributing articles to various publications. For many years he was a correspondent for Svoboda, and also wrote for another U.S.-based publication, Narodne Slovo.

Trylovsky died in Kolomyia on October 19, 1941.

Sources: "Trylovsky, Kyrylo," "Sich," "Ukrainian Radical Party," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 4, 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).