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Draft:Fedir Borzhynskyi

Fedir Borzhynskyi
Born3.2.1879
Died14.2.1919
Юзівка
Awardsорден Святого Георгія, золота Георгіївська зброя

Fedir Borzhynskyi (born Fedir Demydovych Makushek) (* 3 February 1879, Verkhnyachka, Uman district , Kyiv Governorate - † 14 February 1919, Yuzivka, Bakhmut district, Katerynoslav Governorate) - Ukrainian diplomat, first ambassador of the Ukrainian state to the Kuban People's Republic.

Biography

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He was born on 3 February 1879 in a peasant family in the village of Verkhnyachka, Uman district, Kyiv Governorate.

In the tsarist army in 1899, he was a private in the 51st Lithuanian Infantry Regiment in Simferopol. In 1904, as a lieutenant in the East Siberian Rifle Regiment, he fought against the Japanese and was wounded.

He had a degree in Oriental Studies and was fluent in Chinese, Mongolian, Buryat and Japanese. From 1910 to 1914, he was an intelligence officer at the headquarters of the Irkutsk Military District. Under the guise of a merchant, he visited Halara, the Kherlen River and Hulun Lake, and the cities of Khalkha and Urga. He was instructed to bring a Mongolian delegation to St Petersburg for secret negotiations. On 11 October 1911, the Xinhai Revolution erupted in China, and Mongolia was not in a position to take care of itself, as it rapidly changed its vector towards Russia.

For his achievements during this period, after a series of ‘foreign Far Eastern missions’ - intelligence work in China, Mongolia and the Far East - he was made a baron - the Russian government recognised him with a noble title received from the government of Mongolia - the newly settled Bogdo-Gegen Jebzun-Damba-Khukhutkhi.

As a full member of the East Siberian Division of the Geographical Society, he compiled the first detailed geographical map of Mongolia, wrote scientific works on the history, culture and ethnography of Mongolia and China. In 1911, he married a Ukrainian woman in Irkutsk.

At the fronts of the First World War, he was a member of the Irkutsk Cossack Hundred, which was deployed into a division. Later he became a centurion of the Chita and then Khopersk Cossack regiment.

He was wounded in 1915 in battles in Poland. In August 1915, he was awarded the golden St George's Arms. For fighting in the Caucasus, he was awarded the Order of St George and personalised weapons and promoted to lieutenant colonel (January 1917).

In the spring of 1918, he returned to Ukraine. His first government appointment was in June 1918 as Consul of Ukraine in Pyatigorsk.

On 20 September 1918, he was promoted to colonel by Hetman Skoropadskyi and appointed plenipotentiary representative of the Ukrainian state in the Kuban (consular agent of the first category), and began his service at the end of September.

With the assistance of Ambassador Borzhynskyi, the local Prosvita organisation launches book publishing, newspaper printing, and Ukrainian language education. On 28 October, in a secret report to the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Borzhynskyi reports on the brewing conflict between the Kuban government and the leadership of the Volunteer Army, stressing the need to spread Ukrainian propaganda among the Cossack strata. On 8 November, by order of Skoropadskyi, Borzhynskyi is promoted to the rank of resident minister of the Ukrainian state to the Kuban government, the first rank of representation.

For his pro-Ukrainian activities, he was blacklisted by the Denikins. In November, his apartment and the embassy were searched by the Denikins. During his stay in Yekaterinodar, he was subjected to bullying in the White Guardian press.

On 28 November, he writes to Kyiv about the feasibility of opening a Ukrainian chamber of commerce in Yekaterinodar, consulates in Novorossiysk and Stavropol, and a vice-consulate in Tuapse.

When the anti-Ukrainian psychosis reached its peak, he was arrested by the Denikins. He was soon released on the condition that he immediately leave for Ukraine. In February 1919, Borzhynskyi travelled to Kyiv to receive instructions from the Directory on how to continue his work in the Kuban. The chieftains of the Don and Kuban Cossacks dissuaded him, worried about his safety, but he went, hoping for immunity as a diplomat of the Ukrainian state.

On 13 February, at Volnovakha station, the ambassador's official car was surrounded by soldiers of the Volunteer Army. Borzhynskyi and his subordinates from the diplomatic mission were taken to Yuzivka. Among them were the diplomat's secretary, Andriy Yukhymovych Teslya, and his wife, a well-known cooperator Mykola Levytskyi, who was an adviser to the resident minister, and others. All the arrested were handed over to a military field court. Borzhynskyi was accused of treason, allegedly being a colonel in the Russian army who had joined the ‘traitorous separatists’. Teslya was accused of anti-state activities during the war, and Levitsky was accused of the same. The rest of the arrested were acquitted by the investigation. The court session took place on the night of 14 February. Borzhynskyi was sentenced to death, and on the same night the diplomat was shot by the Denikins behind Yuzivka in a hollow. According to Mykola Levitsky, Teslya stated in court that he had not been part of the mission, but had signed up fictitiously in order to get to Lubny, from where he had to escape from the persecution of the Ukrainian authorities and the Germans; that he had never been a Ukrainian (in the sense of political aspirations) and did not consider himself one; that he had always been a Russian patriot; and that he had nothing to do with Borzhynskyi. He was subsequently acquitted. Levitsky himself, according to him, was released from punishment because of his old age. After that, Teslya and Levitsky were sent to Rostov. The body of the executed diplomat was left unburied at the place of execution. He was recognised by his Ukrainian chumarka (his boots seemed to have been removed). A few days later, Yuzivka workers secretly buried him in Yuzivka. Mykola Levytskyi told all of this to Mykyta Mandrytsia when he met him in Rostov in February 1919.

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Sources

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