Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny

Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny, born Vasyl Ellansky (; January 12, 1894 – December 4, 1925) was a Ukrainian poet, journalist and politician. As a poet, using the pseudonym Ellan, he was hailed as a pioneer of Ukrainian proletarian literature. Ellansky was a founder of the Borotbists party, since 1920 he had been a member of Central committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Biography Born in Chernihiv (Chernigov) province of north Ukraine, the son of a village priest, Blakitny was educated in a village school and in a seminary, then an ecclesiastical seminary, and the Kyiv University. While he was at seminary, he joined an underground Ukrainian nationalist circle. At university, he joined the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party. In 1911-1917, he worked for youth organisations, under police supervision. After the February Revolution, in 1917, he was an active in the Socialist Revolutionary party in Chernihiv, and was one of the leaders called the Left Bank (Levoberezhtsev). The levoberezhtsi supported the Bolshevik Revolution and alliance with Soviet Russia. After the Ukrainian Rada had been driven out of Kyiv by the red army, Blakitny worked with the Kyiv soviet, but during the German occupation, in 1918, he was arrested and spent several months in Lukyanivska Prison. While he was in prison, the levoberezhtsi gained control of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian SR party, and disbanded the party, on the grounds that it was manifestly counter-revolutionary, and merged with the Borotbists. Blakitny was elected a member of the Central Committee of the new organisation. After his release from prison, he worked underground in Odessa, Mykolaiv, and Poltava, where he was one of the leaders of the resistance to German rule.