Olha Basarab (nee Levytska)

Born July 24, 1899 in Pidhoroddia, Rohatyn county, Galicia

Died February 13, 1924,

Civic and political activist

She was a member of the first women’s platoon of the Sich Riflemen in Lviv.

Basarab did charitable and educational work on the Committee to Aid the Wounded and the Interned in Vienna and on the Committee to Aid the civilian Population.

Her work was recognized by the International Red Cross.

She helped organize soldiers that the Austrian army demobilized into Ukrainian military units.

Basarab was on the executive of the Ukrainian Women’s Union in Vienna, and in 1923 she became a member of the supreme executive of the Lviv branch of the Union of Ukrainian Women.

The Polish police arrested her for belonging to the Ukrainian Military Organization and tortured her to death during interrogation on the night of February 12-13, 1924. 

Her martyr’s death had a great impact on the interwar generation of Galicia’s Ukrainians.

Page 182                                                              Encyclopedia of Ukraine Volume 1 A-F

Edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyc

Published for the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Shevchenko Scientific Society (Sarcelles, France), and the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies

University of Toronto Press 1984