Volodymyr Kubiyovych Volodymyr Mykhailovych Kubiyovych , also spelled " Kubiiovych " or " Kubijovyč " ( ; ( 23 September 1900 , Nowy Sącz , Austro - Hungarian Galicia - 2 November 1985 , Paris , France ) was a Ukrainian geographer with a specialty in demography , a cartographer , an encyclopedist , politician , and statesman . Of mixed Ukrainian and Polish ethnic background , he was an important intellectual supporting the Ukrainian national movement in inter - war Poland , and his scholarly works from this period dealt with the Ukrainian ethnic presence in Poland , Czechoslovakia , and Romania , and with the geographical boundaries of ethnographic Ukraine . During World War II he headed the Cracow - based Ukrainian Central Committee which organized social and charitable work among Ukrainians in occupied Poland . Kubiyovych became a main proponent of the cooperation between certain Ukrainian Nationalist organizations and Nazi Germany with the ultimate goal of achieving an independent Ukrainian national state . After the war , he retired from political work but became one of the leading scholars of the Ukrainian diaspora in the West . After 1945 , and throughout the Cold War , Kubiyovych remained a target of vicious attacks by the Soviet propaganda , focusing on some of his wartime activities , in particular his sponsoring of the Ukrainian division of Waffen - SS . Early life . From 1918 , Kubiyovych was educated at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow . After the collapse of Austria - Hungary , he served in the ranks of the Ukrainian Galician Army which unsuccessfully fought the Poles for control of the eastern part of the former Austrian province of Galicia . At the end of the Ukrainian - Polish war , he returned to his studies in geography at the Jagiellonian University . During the years 1928 to 1939 , Kubiyovych taught at this institution as a lecturer ( docent ) but in 1939 , was denied further tenure under political pressure from the Polish Ministry of War . In 1940 , he was appointed professor of the Ukrainian Free University in Prague which managed to preserve a precarious existence in Nazi - occupied Czechoslovakia . From 1931 , Kubiyovych had been a full member of the Galician - based Shevchenko Scientific Society , which had with some difficulty carried on its scholarly work under Polish rule ; Kubiyovych headed its geography commission . Before 1939 , Kubiyovych ' s scholarly works concentrated on the geography and demography of the Carpathian Mountains , especially the eastern Beskids , populated largely by the Ukrainian - speaking minority . At this time , he questioned official Polish statistics concerning the ethnic make - up of the inter - war Polish Republic and maintained that the official numbers on Ukrainians were grossly understated . He was an editor and co - author of the pioneering Ukrainian - language " Atlas of Ukraine and Adjacent Lands " ( 1937 ) and the equally pioneering Ukrainian - language " Geography of Ukraine and Neighbouring Lands " ( 1938 , 1943 ) . Second World War . During World War II he headed the Ukrainian Central Committee ( UCC ) in Cracow which was the officially recognized Ukrainian community and quasi - political organization under the Nazi occupation . It was responsible for social services , veteran affairs , education , youth and economic activities . For example , after a flood and famine in Transcarpathia , the Committee was able to save and resettle 30 , 000 children . By late 1943 it operated 1 , 366 kitchens and was able to feed 100 , 000 people . When the Germans began to kill Ukrainian peasants in the Zamosc region for alleged resistance , Kubiyovych ' s protest to Hans Frank was able to halt that slaughter . The Committee was also able to build student residence housing for 7 , 000 students , provided scholarships worth 1 . 35 million zlotys , and organized over 100 youth groups , camps and sports clubs . After the Soviet - Nazi alliance ended in June 1941 , Kubiyovych worked with the Germans in the creation of the " Galicia Division " , 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia ( 1st Ukrainian ) and took a leading role in its organization . The division was organized after the battle of Stalingrad as part of the German program of creating foreign formations of the Waffen - SS to fight on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union and was to be commanded by German officers . These foreign units were formed mainly with volunteers recruited from nations that suffered enormously under the Soviet rule : Estonians , Latvians , Ukrainians , but also ethnic Russians ( e . g . ROA ) . The proponent and formal organizer of the division was SS " Brigadeführer " Otto Wächter , the Nazi governor of the newly created Galicia District and former governor of Cracow . The proposal was made to Himmler on March 1 , 1943 and the division was publicly inaugurated on 28 April . With the examples before him of the Polish and Ukrainian legions formed in Austria - Hungary during the First World War , Kubiyovych was hoping to influence its essence and structure as the core of a future national army which would defend the interests of the Ukrainian people after the defeat of Germany and the chaos that was expected to ensue . However , the Germans would not allow the use of the name " Ukrainian " in the division ' s name and the end of the Second World War turned out to be quite different from what was expected . During the war , on more than one occasion Kubiyovych protested to the German authorities against the rough treatment of the local Ukrainian population . Some of this material was later brought up as evidence at the famous Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals . Some Ukrainian sources claim that during the war Kubiyovych used his official position to ameliorate Ukrainian - Polish tensions in Galicia and in 1944 called for a halt to the fierce armed underground conflict between the two sides . These sources also credit him with saving some three hundred people , " basically Jews " , from persecution by the Nazi authorities . Emigration . In 1944 , Kubiyovych , moved to Germany where he at first settled in the American occupation zone in West Germany , and then later moved to France . In Germany , he reorganized the Shevchenko Scientific Society as an émigré institution . He was its Secretary General from 1947 to 1963 , and , from 1952 , President of its European branch . In exile , Kubiyovych became the chief editor of the Ukrainian - language " Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies " ( " Entsyklopediya ukrayinoznavstva " , ten volumes , 1949 – 84 ) , the largest scholarly project undertaken by Ukrainian émigrés during the Cold War . While written largely reflecting Kubiyovych ' s own strong Ukrainophile views , his encyclopedia , was meant to preserve Ukrainian national heritage which , at that time , was intentionally neglected and downgraded by the Soviet Russian - speaking regime in Ukraine . Kubiyovych ' s encyklopedia continues to be a valuable source of reference to this day . Kubiyovych later became the chief editor of " Ukraine : A Concise Encyclopædia " published in two volumes ( 1963 – 71 ) , an English translation of the thematic part of the " Entsyklopediya ukrayinoznavstva " . A new revised and expanded English - language edition of the great ten - volume alphabetic part was published under the title " Encyclopedia of Ukraine " in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s , and was only completed after Kubiyovych ' s death . It is presently being put on - line . During his exile in France , Kubiyovych enjoyed considerable prestige as the most prominent Ukrainian scholar in the free world . He also enjoyed the respect of the influential Polish intellectual , Jerzy Giedroyć , another resident of Paris , and who wrote in his autobiography that he thought that Kubiyovych had behaved honourably during the war ( " Zachowal się świetnie " ) . In 1991 , after Ukraine declared independence from the Soviets , scholars in Ukraine began reprinting Kubiyovych ' s major works , especially his encyclopedias , making them available to a wider readership in the home country for the first time . In his later years , Kubiyovych published three volumes of memoirs describing his experiences in inter - war Poland , the Second World War , and émigré scholarly life in Germany and France during the Cold War . The most wide - ranging of these was the Ukrainian - language volume titled " I am 85 Years Old " ( Paris - Munich , 1985 ) . Volodymyr Kubiyovych died on 2 November 1985 in Paris . Modern legacy . After the collapse of the Soviet Union , the hostile Soviet propaganda line on Kubiyovych lost its official status , and the scholar ' s role in Ukrainian history became a matter of free debate . His works , including his encyclopedias , were published in Ukraine where they are now in wide circulation . In 2000 a pre - stamped envelope was issued by the Ukrainian postal service honouring 100 - year anniversary of Kubiyovych ' s birthday .