Cyryl Czarkowski-Golejewski

Cyryl Czarkowski-Golejewski was born at Lviv which before 1939 was part of Poland.[3] His father, Tadeusz Czarkowski-Golejewski (1850-1945) was also a land owner: Tadeusz Czarkowski-Golejewski had, in addition, become involved in politics, serving as a member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria between 1908 and 1913, during the time when the entire region was still part of the Austrian empire.[4] His mother, born Marii Zaleskiej (1862-1893), also had an aristocratic background.[3] Cyryl's younger brother, Wiktor Czarkowski-Golejewski, was a cavalry officer who in 1940, also fell victim to the Katyn massacre.[5]

In 1903 he graduated from the presitious Wincenty Pol state secondary school[lower-alpha 1] at Ternopil, obtaining high marks in his school final exams. His father now entrusted him with management of the family estates at Wysuczka in the hill country south of Ternopil, and at that time still in the Austrian province of Galicia.[6][7][8] Here he ran a vineyard which, at approximately 30 hectares, was the largest in the so-called eastern borderlands of what became, after 1918 the Polish Republic.[9] By the time the Polish Republic met its end the Wysuczka winery was one of just two such enterprises in the entire country.[10]

During the 1920s and 1930s Czarkowski-Golejewski played an active role in the local business community and more widely. Along with his family estates, he owned land and properties in the adjacent village of Wołkowce.[11] He was a member of the Arab Horse-breeding Association in Poland.[12] A dedicated countryman, in 1927 he published his book entitled (loosely) "Memories of Rutting Country"[lower-alpha 2] which contained personal narratives involving hunting adventures between 1904 and 1919.[13] During the 1930s he served as president of the Podolsko-Pokuckiego orchard holders' association.[lower-alpha 3][14]

War came to eastern Poland with the Soviet invasion of 17 September 1939.[15] Czarkowski-Golejewski was arrested on his estate at Wysuczka by officers of the Soviet security service on 21 September 1939. His younger brother had already been arrested four days earlier.[16] He was one of those detained in the camp at Kozelsk.[2][17] There remains a lack of precision over the dating of the massacres grouped together in sources and defined collectively as the Katyn massacre, but the operation is believed to have been approved by the Soviet party politburo in March 1940. Of those killed, approximartely 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests".[18] Cyryl Czarkowski-Golejewski and his younger brother were among those killed. Their names are among the 3,435 included on the so-called Ukrainian Katyn List dated 25 November 1940 and forwarded to Poland's then deputy Prosecutor General, Stefan Śnieżko, by General Andrija Chomicza, a senior member of the Ukraine security service, on 5 May 1994.[2][5][19] Physical remains of Katyn massacre victims are believed to be among those buried at the unmarked mass grave site known as the Bykivnia graves, a short distance from the centre of Kyiv."[20]