Symon Petliura

Petliura was born in 1879 to a Cossack family in Poltava and spent his early years as a socialist journalist pushing Ukrainian nationalism. After the February Revolution toppled the Tsar in 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic declared itself and Petliura became head of its military. A brief German-backed interlude collapsed in late 1918; Petliura and the socialist Directorate revolted, restored the Republic, and by early 1919 he was leading it as Bolshevik forces closed in. Desperate, he allied with Poland's Piłsudski - the war ended with Poland independent, some border territory traded, and most of Ukraine under Soviet rule. Petliura fled into exile, first directing a government-in-exile from Poland, then settling in Paris. During those war years his army had been responsible for pogroms that killed tens of thousands of Jewish civilians; his personal role remains contested. In May 1926, Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard, who had lost relatives in the violence, shot him dead on a Paris street.