Petro Tronko

Petro Tronko (12 July 1915 - 12 September 2011) was a Ukrainian academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and veteran of World War II.

He was a head of editorial collegium for the 26 volume encyclopedia on "The History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR.

Born during World War I in 1915 to peasant family in Sloboda Ukraine, Tronko started to work in 1932 in mines of Dzerzhynsk city in Donbas. Eventually after finishing some teacher classes, he worked as teacher of social sciences and Ukrainian language in village school of Bohodukhiv Raion and director of Lebedyn children home. Since 1937 he worked in Komsomol and in 1939 joined the Communist Party of Soviet Union.

In 1939 Tronko was a member of Western Ukrainian People's Assembly that voted in for the Western Ukraine to join the Ukrainian SSR. During World War II he was a member of the South-western, Stalingrad, Southern, 4th Ukrainian fronts, participated in defense of Kiev and Stalingrad and later in liberation of Rostov, Donbas, Left-bank Ukraine, and Kiev. One of the first, Tronko entered the liberated Kiev on 6 November 1943 as a major and appointed the first secretary of the city and regional Komsomol organization. In 1947 he was dismissed from the position due to accusations of Lazar Kaganovich in "nationalistic perversions".

His dismissal from Komsomol work, Tronko used for education and in 1948 he graduated from the Historical faculty of Kiev University. The same year Tronko enrolled into aspirantura of the Academy of Social Sciences (today – Russian Academy of State Service) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union defending his dissertation in three years.

In 1951-60 Tronko worked for the Kiev regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and in 1960-61 he headed the department of propaganda and ideological agitation for the party. During the next 17 years (1961–78) Tronko worked as a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR taking care of matters on culture, education, healthcare, press, book publishing, cinema, radio and television broadcasting, social sciences and archives. He was a member of Verkhovna Rada for nine convocations.

In 1968 Tronko defended his doctorate dissertation "Ukrainian people in fight against Hitlerites occupiers during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45)".

In 1969 Tronko initiated the creation of Pyrohiv scansen that was opened in 1976.