Scope: 1902-1923
Size: 2 folders (54 pieces)
Language: English,
Ukrainian, and other European languages
Gift of Alexandra Solowij Watkins
(Boston, MA)
The Solowij collection includes a typescript of a biography about the Solowij family, and a folder containing foreign bank notes, including currency from Poland (1916-1919), Austria-Hungary (1902, 1912-1922), Romania (1915), Czechoslovakia (1919), Germany (1914-1923), Georgia (1919), Italy (1914), Yugoslavia (1920), Russia (1917), and Ukraine (1918-1920). Ukrainian currency includes an exchange note of the Ukrainian National Republic State Treasury worth 5 hryvni; state credit notes of 10, 25, 50, and 100 karbovantsi; and state credit notes of 2, 10, 100, and 500 hryvni.
BIOGRAPHY
Volodymyr P. Solowij was born in Lviv in 1892 to Tadei (1857-1912) and Kamilla Rieger (1866-1941). His father worked as a lawyer in Lviv, and served as legal counsel of the Galician Provincial Bank from 1901 to 1912. Volodymyr completed his studies in Lviv, Krakow, and Wroclaw. He served as secretary of the Ukrainian National Republic mission to Denmark. In the interwar period he was active in the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance and, in the election of 1935, ran for a seat in the Polish Sejm. In 1939 he left for Paris, and in the following year was sent to London by O. Shulhyn as a representative of the Government-in-exile of the UNR. In 1952 he emigrated to Montreal, Canada where he worked in the administration of Sir George Williams College. He died in Montreal on November 15, 1958.