Lonhyn Tsehelsky

Lonhyn Tsehelsky (Ukrainian: Лонгин Цегельський July 29, 1875 – December 30, 1950) was a ukrainian lawyer, journalist and political leader who served in the Austrian parliament, who became Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs within the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, and who was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

Tsehelsky was born into a priest's family in Kaminka-Strumylova, Austrian-ruled Galicia in 1875. After completing a law degree at the University of Lviv, where he founded a Ukrainian student organization, he became involved in Ukrainian politics, organized agrarian strikes of Ukrainian workers in 1902, edited the largest Ukrainian-newspaper (Dilo) and in 1907 was elected to the Austrian parliament and to the Galician Diet in 1913. When the first world war began he helped to organize the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a Ukrainian unit within the Austro-Hungarian Army.

Longin Tsegelsky mentioned in the "Talergofskiy almanac", as a prosecution witness at the Second Viennese process, the results of which were condemned to death 24 Galician-Russian public figure.

When western Ukraine became independent he became Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs within the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. In December he was one of the signers of the treaty uniting the Western Ukrainian People's Republic with the Ukrainian People's Republic. Despite the anti-Russian nature of many of his writings, Tsehelsky recommended that the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic consider Soviet proposals for cooperation against Poland as long as the Bolsheviks recognized Ukrainian sovereignty. He argued that Ukraine could turn either to the West or to the East and that the former option was impossible because it would mean an alliance with Poland which he considered to be "imperialist" and "reactionary" while the Bolsheviks were not necessarily so. Ultimately Tsehelsky's ideas were rejected because the western Ukrainian leadership did not want to upset relations with the Western Allies.

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