"FOUR BULLETS FOR ANDRZEJ POTOCKI," AN EPISODE OF UKRAINIAN FREEDOM STRUGGLE

Assassination of Andrzej Potocki by Miroslaw Sichynsky in response to election fraud

That was an ordinary April's Sunday of 1908. Earl Andrzej Potocki, 46-year-old imperial governor of Galicia was receiving visitors in his residence in Hetman's Hills when Miroslav Sichynsky, 20-year-old law student entered his office. The young man pulled out a gun and exclaimed: "for all offences you did, for votes and for murder of Kaganyets!"

Four shots had sounded and Potocki fell. First bullet hit the earl's left ear but hooked the brain; follow shots hit his forehead, finger of a left hand and left shoulder. Sound of the shots had caused panic in the residence and secretary ran into the office. Sichynsky reminded calm, he put gun to the floor, went out to the hallway and sat to a chair. After a half hour the police commissioner arrived and Miroslav immediately confessed to him in the murder. Then the policeman (his surname was Bigun) ordered a fiacre to take him to the police department. 

Miroslav Sichynsky was born in priest family in the village of Chernyhivtsi near Zbarazh (the Ternopil region now). After graduation of gymnasiums in Kolomyia and Przemysl he joined law faculty of the University of Vienna. Later Miroslav continued his studies at Lviv University.

He was one of hundred Ukrainian students, who blocked the university in 1907 within a protest action aimed to providing a right for Ukrainian youth to obtain education in native language on their native land. As result the students-protesters have been arrested for few days.

In the same year elections were held to the Vienna parliament. Those days five Ukrainian peasants were killed In the village of Horutsk, Drohobych district during mass protests against massive falsification in favor of the Poles. Mass falsification of vote results was happened again in February next year, during the elections to the Galician Regional Seim (parliament). Mark Kaganyets, 27-year-old Ukrainian candidate to the Seim was stabbed with bayonets by police officers in front of his mother and sister in Koropets village.

Despite the fact that Ukrainians were an ethnic majority in Galicia, all power over the region had been concentrated in hands of Poles. In 1903 the Galician vicegerency was headed by Earl Andrzej Potocki, and that was received negatively by locals.

Firstly Sichynsky had launched a campaign throughout Galician towns and villages in which he called upon Ukrainians to not vote for Poles, but later he concluded legal methods of struggle as ineffective and decided to take a radical step and buy a gun... It was the Willow Sunday (Palm Sunday in the occidental christian tradition) when he went to the house of government (the building of Lviv Regional State Administration now) and registered for an audience with the governor and sat in in the waiting room; after some time the secretary has invited him, and Miroslav entered to the governor's office. Potocki was sitting at his desk, later he wrote: "everything could be different if I would saw a man with wise and parental face features, but his face was red and evil..."

On the way to the police department policemen were trying to persuade Sichynsky to pretend to be insane as an option to avoid death penalty, but he rejected this offer. The first trial over Miroslav Sychinsky was held on June 30. The jury was consisted of 12 Poles, and this fact can help us to make a conclusion about the objectivity of the judgment. The same evening, they unanimously condemned the Ukrainian nationalist to death by hanging. Later the sentence was canceled since the convicted had to be examined by psychiatrists, in result of which doctors have noted "high intelligence level of the accused, his kindness, gentleness, and a deep feeling of distress and injustice as well as harmony and order in Sichynsky's thoughts and deeds." 

On April 15, 1909 was held the second trial and the jury didn't change their decision, they required death penalty by hanging for Miroslav. However, three months later the sentence was changed to 20 years in prison by imperial order. After these events "Miroslav" became the most widespread name for newborn boys in Galicia, and an adage, that can be approximately translate as "Long live our Sichynsky, while Potocki is rotting" became very popular among locals.

Miroslaw Sichynsky was taken to the prison in Stanislaw city (Ivano-Frankivsk now).

"An old man from the prison staff began to swear at me because I wasn't standing at the wall, but in the hallway, but other man from the chancellery said to him: "Pane (sir), let the boy alone, he will not escape out of here," his voice was quiet, confident but not cruel. "I will definitely escape out of here!" - this thought flashed in my head just after he had told this words." the Ukrainian nationalist reminds. 

On third day of stay in prison one of the prison guards told to Sichynsky: "Nobody had escaped out of here, but we will help you. All you need now is patience."

Being in prison Miroslaw wakes up at five in the morning and goes to sleep at night in the evening. Every day he has worked in carpentry for 9 hours. In his spare time he was studying English. On Sundays he was usually reading, among his favorite writers were Franko, Dostoevsky, Brzozowski and Ratzel. In addition, Sichynsky often talked with the chief of the prison, Czech by nationality.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian officer of the Austro-Hungarian army Dmytro Vitovsky and journalist Mykola Ceglinsky were developing a plan Sikhynsky's escape. On November's evening of 1911 a prison guard entered to Miroslav's camera and ordered him to collect personal things. The guard made a blanket on the prisoner's bed in form of sleeping person and put Miroslav's boots at the bed.

Then they went to a cellar, where Sichynsky has dressed a guard's uniform. After that they quietly went to the exit as guards, who just have finished their alternation.

Outside Myroslav changed his clothes to look like an ordinary peasant and drove away from the city. Few months later he was hiding in the Carpathian villages. Later Sichynsky first moved to Norway and then to Sweden. In 1914 Miroslav Sichynsky move to the United States, where he had headed Ukrainian public organisations and wrote articles for Ukrainian newspapers. 

Miroslav Sichynsky

Original text by Serhiy Chapligin