Petro Franko


Petro Ivanovych Franko son of the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, was a Ukrainian educator, pedagogue, writer, ethnographer, scientist, military leader, and politician. Franko was a co-founder of the Plast, a Ukrainian Scouting Organization and a former member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

Biography

Born as his father in the village of Nahuievychi of Drohobych powiat on June 21, 1890, he graduated from the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. He loved singing. Until World War I Franko was a teacher in a Ukrainian gymnasium in Lemberg. During that time he published a book Plast's games. From 1914 he served in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen where commanded a company as a poruchik. In 1918 he organized an aviation school of the Ukrainian Galician Army Command Center which was active until 1920.
Later worked as a teacher in Kolomyia. From 1931-1936 he worked as a chemical engineer in the scientific-research institute in Kharkiv. During that time, he became an author of 36 patented inventions. Before World War II, he lectured at the Lwow trade-economic institute as well as in the city of Jaworow. In 1940, he was elected as a deputy to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's Verkhovna Rada.
With the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, he was detained by Soviet authorities and transported out of Lviv. Franko died under unknown circumstances. Some sources claim that he died on June 28, 1941 during his attempt to escape at the Proshov railway station near Ternopil while being transported by train. Another sources claim that he was tortured to death by NKVD operatives in the summer months of the same year.

Works

He was the author of several books, including the historical novellas Makhnivska Popivna, In ancient woods of Brazil, memoirs Ivan Franko from up close, a movie script of Boryslav Laughs and others.