Mykola Skrypnyk

Mykola Oleksiyovych Skrypnyk (Ukrainian: Микола Олексійович Скрипник, 25 January [O.S. 13 January], 1872 – 7 July 1933) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik leader who was a proponent of the Ukrainian Republic's independence, and led the cultural Ukrainization effort in Soviet Ukraine. When the policy was reversed and he was removed from his position, he committed suicide rather than be forced to recant his policies in a show trial. He also was the Head of the Ukrainian People's Commissariat, the post of the today's Prime-Minister.

Ukrainian independentist

Skrypnyk was born in the village Yasynuvata of Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire in family of a railway serviceman. At first he studied at the Barvinkove elementary school, then realschules of the cities Izium and Kursk. While studying at Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology, he was arrested on political charges in 1901, prompting him to become a full-time revolutionary. Originally member of the Saint Petersburg Hromada society, Skrypnyk left it and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Skrypnyk was eventually excluded from the Institute. He was arrested fifteen times, exiled seven times, and at one point he was sentenced to death. In 1913 Skrypnyk was an editor of the Bolshevik's legal magazine Issues of Insurance and in 1914 was a member of the editorial collegiate of the Pravda newspaper.