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Hryts Bozhok

Hryts Bozhok (1890, the village of Kholopkiv in the Hlukhiv region — 1993, Adelaide, Australia) — a second lieutenant of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) Army, process engineer, singer, educator, commander of a half-sotnia of the Carpathian Sich, political prisoner, priest, publicist, patron, and a knight of the Symon Petliura Cross and the Military Cross. Author of the memoir Ukrainians in Egypt (Ukraintsi v Yehypti), in which he described his escape from Crimea from the Denikin army in the winter of 1919–1920 and his stay in a camp for interned Ukrainians in Egypt.

Overview

Hryts Bozhok was born in 1890 in the village of Kholopkiv in the Hlukhiv region. He was a second lieutenant of the UNR Army, a process engineer, a singer, and an educator. In March 1939 he commanded a half-sotnia of the Carpathian Sich. For his activities he was imprisoned (political prisoner), and later became a priest, publicist, and patron; he was awarded the Symon Petliura Cross and the Military Cross.

In the excerpts from the memoir Ukrainians in Egypt cited here, Bozhok recalls his escape from Crimea (followed by Turkey and Egypt, where he organized interned Ukrainians in a camp) together with the Denikin forces. In 1922 he moved to Czechia. In the 1930s he worked in Transcarpathia, briefly performing at the "Nova Stsena" ("New Stage") theater in Khust; in 1939 he was arrested by the Hungarians.

Until 1944 he taught at an agricultural secondary school in the Lemko region; from 1945, in Regensburg, he taught at the Ukrainian Technical and Economic Institute. In 1948 he emigrated to Australia, lived in Adelaide, where he died in 1993. He was a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) in Australia.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Escape from Crimea (December 1919): during the retreat of the Denikin army, Bozhok found himself in Yevpatoria, where 30-degree frosts prevailed and the "teplushkas" (heated freight cars) were filled with half-dead soldiers. He fell ill with typhus, made it to the "Tsarska Dacha" (Tsar's Summer Residence) sanatorium (now "Prymoria"), and later to a hospital. He was evacuated by a sea steamer from Sevastopol, observing the burial of the dead overboard.
  • Camp in Egypt (Tell el-Kebir, Cairo): after arriving in Alexandria, Ukrainian officers and internees ("viduzhentsi" / convalescents) gathered in a camp; according to Bozhok's assessment, at least 3/4 of the camp's inhabitants were Ukrainians, hostile to the "nedelimtsi" (adherents of a single, indivisible russia) sentiments.
  • Publication of the memoirs: Ukrainians in Egypt — Regensburg: "Ukrainske Slovo" (Ukrainian Word), 1946.
  • Connection with Crimea: the memoirs were published in excerpts in the newspaper "Krymska svitlytsia" (Crimean Svitlytsia) (2020, issue No. 1), which underscores the Ukrainian dimension of the peninsula's history.
  • Ukrainians in Egypt (Hryts Bozhok, "Krymska svitlytsia", 2020, No. 1) — primary source (memoirs) for this page.
  • Andrii Shchekun — editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Krymska svitlytsia", in which excerpts from Hryts Bozhok's memoirs were published.
  • Kharytyna Pekarchuk — another soldier of the UNR Army, a Crimean native, whose recollections of the period of the liberation struggle were published in "Krymska svitlytsia".
  • Levko Chykalenko — a participant in the delegation of the Directorate of the UNR at negotiations with Wrangel (1920), whose article was published in "Krymska svitlytsia".