Dmytro Vitovsky

Who was Dmytro Vitovsky?

Dmytro Vitovsky was a Ukrainian politician and military leader.

Vitovsky was born into a family of gentry. in the village of Medukha in Galicia. He graduated from the Stanislau gymnasium and later was a student activist at the law school of Lviv University. Later Vitovsky joined the Ukrainian Radical Party and was an active organizer of a number of Ukrainian educational and scouting Sich groups near Stanislau, which later became part of the regular Galician Army.

Vitovsky started his active military career in 1914 participating in mountain battles in the Carpathians, and was an ideologist of Ukrainian military political thought. In 1916-1917 he was a Ukrainian military commissar in Volhynia, and organized Ukrainian schools there. Vitovsky also was co-founder of the Striletsky Found, and published the official newspaper of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, Shliakhy. He became a company commander of the Legion of Sich Riflemen and carried out special assignments. Towards the end of the World War I Vitovsky was appointed the chairman of Ukrainian Military Committee that organized the takeover of Lviv. He became the first commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army.