1894–1967

Khrystyna Sushko

Lieutenant and doctor of the UNR Army

Soldier, Physician

A princess who hid behind a borrowed surname and became a lieutenant. Khrystyna Sushko treated Sich Riflemen on the battlefield, escaped Bolshevik captivity and stayed in service after severe wounds. She is called the first, and perhaps the only, woman officer of the UNR Army.

Key accomplishments

  • Doctor of the 6th Sich Rifle Division of the UNR Army, with the rank of lieutenant
  • Escaped Bolshevik captivity (1919) and returned to the army
  • Stayed at the front after several wounds, including in the battle of Perha (1920)
  • Led a branch of the union of war invalids at the Szczypiorno internment camp
  • US Army doctor in displaced persons camps in Germany (1945–1950)

A princess under a borrowed name

Why did one woman have so many surnames? Khrystyna was born in 1894 in Kyiv, the daughter of Prince Yevhen Trubetskoi, a religious philosopher. She studied medicine, and in the First World War she went to the Southwestern Front as a nurse. In 1915 she married General Mykola Dolgorukov, and in 1917 she had a daughter. After her husband’s death and the Bolshevik coup, the princess fled to Kyiv. There she was helped by Symon Petliura, who knew her family: he advised her to hide her noble birth under the surname Skachkivska.

A doctor on the battlefield

In 1918 Khrystyna became a military medic with the Sich Riflemen, and later a doctor of the UNR Army’s 6th Sich Rifle Division, commanded by Marko Bezruchko. Colonel Roman Sushko, her second husband, served in the same force. On 5 June 1919, near the village of Mala Salykha, she was taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, who abused her. Khrystyna escaped and told the Ukrainian units where the enemy positions were.

Wounded, but still in the ranks

That summer two machine-gun bullets hit her right hand, yet she stayed with her unit. In August 1919 a concussion paralysed the right side of her body. In June 1920, in a battle near Perha in the Zhytomyr region, she was badly wounded again. Petliura approved money for her treatment abroad, calling it the state’s duty to “one of its best daughters”. She held the rank of lieutenant. She is called the first, and perhaps the only, woman officer of the UNR Army.

Healing her own people abroad

With the army, Khrystyna ended up in the internment camp at Szczypiorno in Poland. There she led a branch of the union of war invalids and helped wounded comrades. Later she lived in Italy and France, trained as a cardiologist in Rome and had her own practice. In 1932 she met the OUN leader Yevhen Konovalets. After the Second World War, as a US Army doctor, she cared for displaced persons camps in Germany, most of whose residents were Ukrainians. Khrystyna Sushko died on 7 February 1967 in Geneva.

Why it matters today

A woman officer in the Ukrainian army surprises no one today, but more than a hundred years ago it still had to be proved, and Khrystyna Sushko proved it. She is called the first, and perhaps the only, woman officer of the UNR Army, so the women who serve today have someone to look up to. She showed that a doctor’s courage means never leaving your own people: not in battle, not after severe wounds, not in exile. Her path is an example for anyone who serves today to protect the lives of others.