Meet the people connected to the archive's documents, publications, and history.
Crimean Tatar political leader, mufti, and poet who headed the national government formed in 1917. His poem Ant etkenmen became the Crimean Tatar national anthem.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian poet and artist whose collection Kobzar helped shape modern Ukrainian literature. His writing explored freedom, social injustice, and the history of Ukraine.
View profileAndrey Denyer · Public domain · Image source
Crimean Tatar educator, publisher, and reformer associated with the Jadid movement. Through his newspaper Terciman and educational work, he promoted literacy and cultural renewal.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Political and military leader of the Ukrainian People's Republic during the struggle for independence after 1917. His leadership is also examined in connection with anti-Jewish pogroms committed by forces under his authority.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Historian and public figure who chaired the Ukrainian Central Rada in 1917–1918. His multivolume History of Ukraine-Rus helped establish a distinct scholarly account of Ukraine's past.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Crimean Tatar fighter pilot and twice Hero of the Soviet Union for his service in the Second World War. He later became a test pilot, flying many experimental aircraft.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Crimean Tatar human-rights advocate and former Soviet dissident who campaigned for his people's right to return to Crimea. He chaired the Mejlis from 1991 to 2013 and has served in Ukraine's parliament.
View profileVOA · Public domain · Image source
Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Second World War and the subsequent anti-Soviet insurgency. His wartime record includes service in German formations and responsibility for violence against Polish civilians.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian painter, printmaker, illustrator, and teacher. Her work brought folk-art traditions into modern design and documented the clothing and everyday life of western Ukraine.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Seventeenth-century Cossack hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine. He sought to reunite the divided Cossack territories during the period known as the Ruin.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Cossack statesman elected hetman in exile in 1710. He is associated with the constitutional agreement of that year, which set out limits on the hetman's authority and the rights of the Cossack polity.
View profileModern artistic depiction by Natalia Pavlusenko.
Natalia Pavlusenko · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image source
Crimean Tatar poet and scholar of Turkic languages who worked across Crimea and Azerbaijan. He contributed to linguistic research and education before being executed during Stalin's Great Purge in 1937.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian military and political organizer who commanded the Sich Riflemen and became the first leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. He was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Rotterdam in 1938.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian modernist writer from Bukovyna whose fiction explored women's independence, social expectations, and rural life. Her major works include Tsarivna and Zemlia.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian nationalist politician who led the OUN-B faction. His legacy remains contested because of the movement's authoritarian ideology, wartime collaboration, and involvement in ethnic violence.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Kyiv-born aviation engineer who developed early multiengine aircraft and later founded Sikorsky Aircraft in the United States. His helicopter designs helped establish the modern helicopter industry.
View profileSDASM Archives · Public domain · Image source
Grand prince of Kyiv who ruled from 980 to 1015. His adoption of Christianity and the Christianization of Kyivan Rus in 988 shaped the region's religious and cultural history.
View profileLater artistic depiction, not a portrait made during his lifetime.
AnonymousUnknown author · Public domain · Image source
Crimean Tatar activist abducted after a peaceful protest against Russia's occupation of Crimea in March 2014. He was later found murdered and became a symbol of civilian resistance to the occupation.
View profileMemorial image from the Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea.
Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea; photographer not identified · Rights not specified · Image source
Crimean Tatar Soviet politician who chaired the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1920s. He was executed in 1928 and later rehabilitated.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Georgian-born Ukrainian journalist who co-founded Ukrainska Pravda. His abduction and murder in 2000 prompted a major political scandal and made his case central to debates about press freedom in Ukraine.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image source
Military officer and hetman who headed the Ukrainian State in 1918. His government supported universities, archives, and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences before falling to the Directory uprising.
View profileColorized historical photograph; colorization by Ruslan Habanets.
Павло Штельмах · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image source
Founder of the Crimean Khanate and the Giray dynasty in the fifteenth century. He established an independent Crimean state as the Golden Horde fragmented.
View profileArtistic depiction supplied to the archive.
Image supplied to the archive; artist unidentified · Rights not specified · Supplied image
Ukrainian poet, playwright, and translator whose works include The Forest Song and Cassandra. Her writing explored personal freedom, women's agency, and resistance to imperial domination, bringing Ukrainian literature into conversation with European and classical traditions.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian writer, scholar, translator, and political activist from Galicia. His poetry and fiction, including Moses and Zakhar Berkut, examined social injustice and national identity; his scholarship and public work helped shape modern Ukrainian cultural life.
View profileEdward Trzemeski · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian poet, translator, and Soviet dissident who defended cultural freedom and human rights. A member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, he continued writing through imprisonment and exile and died in a Soviet labor camp in 1985.
View profileOfficial KGB photograph; photographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian journalist, Soviet dissident, and independence politician. He documented political repression, spent years in imprisonment and exile, and later became a leader of the People's Movement of Ukraine, advocating independence and democratic government.
View profileVerkhovna Rada of Ukraine · Attribution · Image source
Ukrainian poet and cultural organizer associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In German-occupied Kyiv she led a writers' organization and edited the literary supplement Litavry. The Gestapo arrested her, and she was executed in 1942.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian poet, archaeologist, and political organizer, born Oleh Kandyba. He held leadership roles in the Melnyk faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and organized underground activity during the German occupation. He died under Nazi torture at Sachsenhausen in 1944.
View profilePhotographer unidentified; uploaded by Steel archer · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian lawyer and nationalist political organizer whose 1900 pamphlet Independent Ukraine argued for sovereign statehood. He helped establish the Ukrainian People's Party and promoted the formation of a Ukrainian national army during the revolution of 1917.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Ukrainian novelist, poet, and political leader who survived Soviet imprisonment and later lived in exile in Germany. His novels Tiger Hunters and The Garden of Gethsemane depict resistance to repression. He also helped lead the Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic Party.
View profileMedvedchuchka · CC BY 4.0 · Image source
Geographer, historian, and archaeologist born in Bahçesaray, profiled among İleri's writers.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain · Image source
Writer, poet, translator, stage director, and actor born in Bahçesaray, who died in Tomsk in 1955.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Non-free historical photograph · Image source
Pen name of the poet and writer Abdürahim İlyas Şeyhzade, born in Karasubazar. Not the same writer as Altaylı.
View profileDrawn portrait; artist unidentified.
Artist unidentified · Non-free historical image · Image source
Writer, journalist, and historian born in Karasubazar; one of İleri's most active writers and for a time its editor-in-chief.
View profileDrawn portrait; artist unidentified.
Artist unidentified · Non-free historical image · Image source
Poet and man of letters born in Yalta, profiled among İleri's writers.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Non-free historical photograph · Image source
Poet and writer born in the village of Cavtöbe near Kerch, profiled among İleri's writers.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Non-free historical photograph · Image source
Poet, philologist, and folklorist, also known as Kerim Reşidov, profiled among İleri's writers.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Non-free historical photograph · Image source
Wrote essays for İleri under the pen name Altaylı. Not the same writer as Altanlı.
View profilePhotographer unidentified · Public domain (source designation) · Image source
