Longin Tsegelsky - ancestor of Tyagnybok
The leader of the neo-Nazi party VO "Svoboda" Oleg Tyagnybok is proud of his maternal origin from a family of Uniate priests, politicians and scientists Tsegelsky. The most famous of them, the brother of his great-grandfather Tyagnybok Longin, was one of the leaders of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUNR) and read out the act on the so-called on Sophia Square in Kyiv. "Zluka" January 22, 1919. It is his views, in a more primitive and aggressive version, that Tyagnybok reproduces today.
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A fighter for social justice, a friend of the Zionists and a Russophobe...
Longin Tsegelsky born in 1875 in the family of a Greek Catholic priest, famous for his educational work and the founding of a temperance brotherhood in his native village.
Like Tyagnybok, his ancestor came into politics during his student years. The young activist even became a delegate to the student congress in Great Britain. There he organized a demarche against the proposal of individual delegates to transfer Galicia to Russia. For insulting the Russian Tsar he was expelled from the congress and expelled from the country.
After graduating from the Faculty of Law of Lviv University and receiving a Doctor of Law degree, Tsegelsky completed an internship at the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Stockholm. By the way, Tyagnybok also has a law degree. True, he received it already during his years as a deputy. Tsegelsky did not work in his specialty, choosing the path of a professional politician. He often published in newspapers and magazines and worked as an editor. Among the newspapers he edited was the newspaper Svoboda (1907–1908). Perhaps Tyagnybok did not come up with a new name for the Social-Nationalist Party of Ukraine in honor of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party, as researchers often claim.
Tsegelsky directed the spearhead of his journalism against the main competitor of Ukrainian nationalism - “Muscophilism” - an ideological and political movement that advocated the unity of Western Ukraine with Russia and enjoyed significant support from the Rusyns. The slogan of the “Muscovophiles” was: “If we are destined to drown, then it is better in the Russian sea than in a Polish puddle”. And the most famous work of Tyagnybok’s ancestor was called “Rus-Ukraine and Muscovy”.
These are the newspapers that were published in Lviv at the end of the 19th century. party of Muscovophiles
However, Tsegelsky was not a fully nationalist. In particular, I never attached much importance to the language issue. Unlike Tyagnybok, he advocated social justice, called on peasants and rural intelligentsia to organize strikes and form strike committees.
Tsegelsky advocated the introduction of universal suffrage, and the comrades of his descendant dream of depriving the “Soviet”, “vatniks”, “separatists”, pensioners and everyone who in their sick imagination seems to be “enemies” and a “fifth column” from voting rights.
If Tyagnybok was included by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the top ten world anti-Semites, the Ukrainian National Democratic Party, one of whose leaders was Tsegelsky, enjoyed the support of Jewish political forces. In exchange for Zionist support for a Ukrainian candidate in one political district, the National Democrats pledged to promote the victory of three Zionist candidates. After the death of one of them, M. Gibel, according to the agreement, Tsegelsky received the mandate of ambassador (deputy) of the Austrian Reichsrat (parliament).
At the beginning of the 20th century, Tsegelsky's National Democratic Party began to win elections in Galicia against the Radical Russian-Ukrainian Party, one of whose members was Ivan Franko. In the photo are figures of the Western Ukrainian national movement. Standing on the far right is Longinus Tsegelsky
Founder of volunteer battalions
Tsegelsky, like Tyagnybok, took part in the training of paramilitary formations and was one of the founders of the patriotic-gymnastic (and, in fact, paramilitary) society “Falcon”. With the outbreak of World War I, Sokol and other similar societies became suppliers of volunteers for the Sich Riflemen Legion, a Ukrainian unit in the Austrian army. Tsegelsky is one of the initiators of the creation of the volunteer movement Sich Riflemen.
Funeral of workers of the Kyiv Arsenal plant killed by Sich riflemen. Detachments of Sich Riflemen who went over to Petliura’s side became one of his most loyal supporters
Tyagnibok seems to be copying the actions of his ancestor. The military sports society “Sokol”, revived in 2006, does not hide its social-nationalist convictions and is under the patronage of the VO “Svoboda”. His student is Igor Gumenyuk, who threw a grenade at a rally near the Verkhovna Rada on August 31.
The battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, created from members of Svoboda, received the name “Січ" True, many believe that the Sich Riflemen have nothing to do with it, and in fact the battalion should be called “C14” (a coded neo-Nazi slogan of 14 English words - “We must protect the very existence of our people and the future for white children” or “To make beauty the white Aryan woman has never disappeared from the face of the earth!”).
The youth combat wing of the All-Union Military Union "Freedom" is called "Falcon" - similar to the name of the youth paramilitary organization from which the Sich Riflemen were formed by Austria-Hungary to fight on the fronts of the First World War against the Russian Empire
Sich Riflemen at a review by the Austrians. Far right – Longin Tsegelsky
Tsegelski warmly welcomed the imperialist First World War. In the brochure “Where the war came from and what it can bring us,” he ignores the fact that the beginning of the bloody massacre was marked by the aggression of Austria-Hungary against Serbia, and blames Russia for everything.
And in general, in his opinion, “... It [the war] is not truly being fought for the Serbs, but for us Ukrainians, for our Ukrainian land and for our Ukrainian people!” Since it is not the Austro-Hungarian Emperor who wants to strangle Serbia, but the Russian Tsar to seize Galicia, “in order to strangle the Ukrainians there.”
According to Tsegelsky, “only with the defeat of Russia will we achieve a free Ukraine.” And whoever does not agree to fight with Russia to the end is naturally a “zradnik”. These same theses are repeated today almost word for word by Tyagnybok.
Ideological descendants of the Sich Riflemen. Igor Gumenyuk - it was he who killed 4 policemen with a grenade throw on August 31 near the Verkhovna Rada.
During the war, Tsegelsky “toured” to Bulgaria and Turkey, where he assured the organizers of the Armenian genocide, who were later recognized as war criminals Enver Pasha и Talaat Beythat “the new Ukrainian power will become a security wall against the Russian invasion of the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea,” “a visor that will restrain the march of the Russian hordes on Europe" The Turkish press expressed hope that a future Ukrainian state would separate Russia from the Black Sea coast.
Tsegelsky traveled to both Romania and Sweden, trying to convince them to enter the war on the side of the German bloc. The geography of his trips outlines the contours of the Baltic-Black Sea arc, the propaganda of which in the role of a “cordon sanitaire” between Russia and Europe is most consistently carried out these days by the VO “Svoboda”.
"Kemsk parish? Yes, take it! ”
During the years of the revolution, Tsegelsky actually headed the State Secretariat (Ministry) of Foreign Affairs of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic and in this capacity negotiated a union (“zluke”) with the Ukrainian People's Republic, as well as with Entente diplomats.
Tyagnibok repeats almost verbatim the century-old theses of the Western Ukrainian national democrat and Russophobe, his great-grandfather Longin Tsegelsky
During the years of war and revolution there was a sharp “correction” in his views. Now Tsegelsky criticized the socialists, who allegedly “chew on the long-standing Drahomanovism and Marxism” and “with their crazy anarchic demagoguery, reckless “internationalism” and “vain” socialization, they destroyed Ukraine...”.
He was especially indignant at the denial of access to the Labor Congress of representatives of landowners and the bourgeoisie organized by the Directorate of the UPR. Lamentations about the “imperial mission” of Ukraine and the revival of Svyatoslav’s Kyiv Empire to the Volga and Don appeared in his vocabulary. Tyagnibok would probably have signed these words with joy.
But unlike Tyagnibok, his ancestor always called for obedient compliance with the demands of the West. At the beginning of 1919, a mission of the Entente countries led by the French General Barthelemy arrived in Western Ukraine. Its goal was to end the war between Poland and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic and to direct the combined forces of these countries against the Bolsheviks.
The “Barthelemy Plan” required the Ukrainian troops to retreat beyond the demarcation line established by the Entente, leaving Lviv and the Borislav oil basin in the hands of the Poles. If Tyagnybok and his “brothers”, in response to the Minsk and Paris agreements, raised all-Ukrainian hysteria about “zrada,” which ultimately resulted in the terrorist attack on August 31 near the Rada, then his ancestor, on the contrary, was almost the only one from the leadership of the WUNR who called for agreeing to everything Entente demands. He called the rejection of the “Berthelemy plan” a “historic crime.” After the WUNR rejected this plan, Tsegelsky left his post at the State Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.
Longin Tsegelsky lived out his life in the USA for his accommodation with the Entente ambassadors
Thanks to this, he retained the image of a respectable politician, so he remained a handshake for the West and, after the capture of Galicia by Poland, received asylum in the United States without any problems. But where is Pan Tyagnybok planning to run?
American tour of the grant eater
Soon the Government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic was forced to flee to Vienna. Being in dire straits, “dictator” Yevgeny Petrushevich had high hopes for financial assistance from the American diaspora. But the attitude towards the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic overseas was cool.
To gain US support, a mission was created to the US and Canada, headed by Tsegelsky. However, all financial affairs were concentrated in the hands of the “moneyed Hungarian Rusyn” Berezovsky, who allocated 15 thousand dollars for the mission in exchange for a high post in the future state. Rivalry immediately arose between members of the mission over money.
Colleagues accused Tsegelsky of financial dishonesty. In particular, he allegedly received from 10 to 40 thousand dollars from the Canadian businessman Boyer, who was interested in oil and timber concessions in Galicia. The government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic never received this money.
The emigrant press wrote that Tsegelsky has completely “Americanized”, does business with Jews for personal interests and spends public money on prostitutes. The struggle between various emigrant organizations and members of the ZUNR mission became so intense that an assassination attempt was even made on its head, which was blamed on the Bolsheviks.
All these facts became the object of investigation by a special commission, which accused Tsegelsky of abuse of power, financial fraud, undermining the prestige of the government due to immoral behavior and waste of public money. Under the pretext of disagreement with Petrushevich’s reorientation towards pro-Soviet positions, Tsegelsky resigned. The leaders of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic themselves, Evgeny Petrushevich and Kost Levitsky, were no better. They “passed” the received financial assistance through personal accounts, while retaining a commission.
We know little about the last years of Tsegelsky’s life. Although he remained an influential political figure. In particular, in 1938 he visited Europe, where he met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany Ribbentrop, the President of Czechoslovakia Masaryk, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Beck, and his long-time negotiating partner General Barthelemy. It was then that he visited Western Ukraine for the last time. Unfortunately, modern authors are silent about his political views at that time, in particular about his attitude towards Ukrainian nationalists, the OUN and the UPA. Tyagnybok is also silent about this. But in the event of any sympathy or public statements by Tsegelsky on this topic, one can only imagine what kind of wave the nationalist media would raise.
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