Vladimir Tsyganko

rdf:langString Vladimir Tsyganko

rdf:langString Vladimir Vladimirovich Tsyganko (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Цыганко; Romanian: Vladimir Vladimirovici Țîganco; also Țâganco, Tziganco, Tziganko or Țiganco; 1886/1887 – January 26, 1938) was a Bessarabian, and later Soviet, politician. The son of a distinguished architect, and himself an engineer by vocation, Tsyganko entered politics shortly before the proclamation of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, when he earned a seat in the republican legislature (Sfatul Țării). He sided with the parliamentary Peasants' Faction, which supported left-wing ideals and pushed for land reform, being generally, and radically, opposed to the more right-wing Moldavian Bloc. Tsyganko was skeptical of the Bloc's plan to unite Bessarabia with Romania, although he possibly supported a federation. His uncompromising stance divided his Faction and led the Romanian Kingdom's authorities to identify him as a major obstruction to the unionist cause. In November 1918, as the Bloc switched its support to unconditional unification and dissolved the regional government bodies, Tsyganko rejected the new regime and moved to Odessa. Allying himself to members of the White movement, with whom he set up a Committee for the Salvation of Bessarabia, attending the Paris Peace Conference to campaign for the reversal of the union. He later settled in Soviet territory, where he helped create a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Other members of his family opted to stay behind in Greater Romania—where his brother Nikolai was marginally active in the Bessarabian regionalist caucus. Vladimir eventually left politics and returned to his first profession, holding a technical position at Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. He was persecuted during the imposition of Stalinism and, in 1937, fell victim to the Great Purge.