About Ilya Shrag

A lot has been written about our glorious compatriot Ilya Ludvigovich Shrag. Part of his archive, which consists of correspondence, stored in the Chernihiv Historical Museum named after Vasyl Tarnovsky. The second part is from our collection, despite the museum's protests, was handed over to the Chernihiv Literary Memorial Museum-Reserve of Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi.

Ilya Shrag was constantly in the field of view of the gendarmerie offices, including Chernihiv. The library of the Chernihiv Historical Museum named after Vasyl Tarnovsky preserves a fragment of the publication "Z. Davydov. Secrets of the royal secret police. Archive of the Chernihiv Gendarmerie Administration. Issue 2", which was born in Chernihiv 1919 year. There is a section in the "Ukrainians" section, dedicated to Ilya Shrag. "Ukrainian (and previously not only Ukrainian) name, which was especially often mentioned in the dwelling of the Chernihiv gendarmes, this is the honorable name of the now deceased Ilya Ludwigovich Shrag, consisting in the continuation of almost half a century at the head of the Chernihiv public ...

I watched I.L. Shragom in those years, Deineko's filler ...

In 1916 Petersburg, in an extremely limited number of copies and only "for the elite" "Note" on the Ukrainian movement for 1914-1916 was published (which is not in the archives of the Chernihiv gendarme department).

Of all the Ukrainian figures in the Chernihiv province, the Note only mentions I.L.. Shrage.

“According to the information available in the Chernigov gendarme department, the Ukrainian-Mazepa movement in the Chernigov province had some revival even before the war, when its main leader was the local attorney at law Ilya Lyudvigovich Shrag, 80 years, famous Ukrainophile…”.

Amazingly, that the photo of Ilya Shrag was missing from the gendarmerie, but the description and nickname remained, which the gendarmes gave him.

"Signs: tall, gray-haired, big drooping eyebrows, swollen eyelids, wrinkled face, shaves his beard, mustache big.

"Bald" (nickname I.L. Шрага) all his long and dignified life he was a thorn in the eye of the Chernihiv gendarmes".

Director of the museum Serhiy Laevsky