Vakulenchuk, Grigorii Nikitich

Born 1877; died June 14 (27), 1905. Participant in the revolutionary movement in the Black Sea Fleet. One of the organizers of the Sevastopol Seamen’s Central. Member of the RSDLP from 1903.

Vakulenchuk was born in the village of Bol’shaia Korovintsa, now Zhitomir Oblast, into a peasant family. In 1898 he was called up for duty in the Black Sea Fleet. After completing mine and artillery school in 1900, he was appointed gunlayer on the ironclad Potemkin, where he subsequently headed the social democratic organization. On the instructions of the central committee of the social democratic organization of the Black Sea Fleet, he prepared for an uprising on the Potemkin as part of a general uprising of the Black Sea Fleet. On June 14, 1905, he was fatally wounded by senior officer Giliarovskii during the first moments of the uprising, which had begun spontaneously. Vakulenchuk’s funeral in Odessa turned into a mass demonstration.