ОЛЕКСА КОССАК – ВИДАТНИЙ УКРАЇНСЬКИЙ АДВОКАТ: ПРОФЕСІЙНА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ І ГРОМАДЯНСЬКА ПОЗИЦІЯ
Authors: Kovalchuk Ivan ,   Вінницький національний технічний університет
Published: July 2024

The article examines the role of outstanding individuals who took an active part in the struggle for national independence in the Ukrainian nation-building. In particular, attention is focused on the role of famous graduates of the Faculty of Law of Lviv University, who formed an educated professional and social layer of society, which continued the baton of national revival in Galicia. At the end of the 19th – at the beginning of the 20th century, Ukrainian lawyers played a unique role in the formation of the Ukrainian political and economic elite in Galicia. They were especially active during the creation and development of West Ukrainian People's Republic. Considerable attention is paid to the characteristics of the professional activity and civic position of the outstanding Ukrainian lawyer, a graduate of the Faculty of Law of Lviv University, Oleksa Kossak. The legal activity of O. Kossak, who defended the rights of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church priests accused of using the Ukrainian language free of charge, defended the right to use the Ukrainian language in the judiciary, defended the rights and interests of Ukrainian educational, cultural and economic institutions, and defended the rights of the Kolomyia "Native School" in court, thanks to which it was possible to avoid the closure of Ukrainian schools by the Polish administration. Lawyer O. Kossak defended activists of national-patriotic organizations (Plast, Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, Ukrainian Military Organization as well as Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) during political trials in courts. Emphasis is placed on the social activities of O. Kossak, who was the chairman of the Kolomyia branch of the "Sokil" and Ukrainian Pedagogical Society, the deputy chairman of the board of the Narodnyi Dim society in Kolomyia, a member of the board of the cooperative "Subcarpathian Union", deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the cooperative bank "Pokutskyi Union". He was a member of the "Union of Ukrainian Lawyers", founded in 1923 in Lviv. He was a highly educated person: he knew seven foreign languages: German, Polish, Russian, Hebrew (Yiddish), English, French, Italian. He had a large book collection, subscribed to almost all the Galician-Ukrainian periodicals of the time, ordered specialized legal publications from Warsaw, Vienna, and London. O. Kossak was engaged in scientific activity, published articles on civil law issues in the Ukrainian legal journal "Life and Law", in particular on issues of the use of the Ukrainian language in church acts of civil status in Galicia, etc. He was interested in the theory and practice of local self-government (the preserved fragment of his legal library contains quite a few publications on this topic). He was a good expert in the field of land law and often helped peasants from Pokuttia defend their rights to their land. He was a patron of many Ukrainian cultural and educational, artistic, sports and charitable institutions in the Kolomyia region. During the German occupation of the region, from November 1941 to February 1942, he worked as a youth care officer at the Ukrainian District Committee in Kolomyia. On February 10, 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo in the case of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists youth organization and held for about ten months in Kolomyia and Chortkiv prisons. On November 27, 1942, among 56 Ukrainian prisoners of the Chortkiv prison, he was shot by the Nazis in a field between the town of Chortkiv and the village of Yagilnytsia in Ternopil Oblast and buried there in the mass grave of the executed. It is emphasized that O. Kossak was a true patriot of his Motherland, who did a lot for his people. By his way of life, he earned deep respect and good memory, because he devoted his entire life to active social, political and cultural activities aimed at the national revival of Ukraine. Nowadays, the life and professional path of Oleksa Kossak, as well as his professional activity and civic position are a model for modern Ukrainian lawyers. Keywords: professional activity, civic position, law, state, Ukraine.