The family of Serhii Oleksandrovich Yefremov belonged to the clergy. One of the ancestors of the family, after the destruction of the autonomy of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1764, to receive a parish, had to change his original Ukrainian surname Okhrimenko to the Russian Yefremov (Okhrim – Yefrem).[2]
Political activity started during student years becoming the member of the Ukrainian Universal non-Party Democratic Organization. In 1904 became co-founder of the Ukrainian Radical Party, which in 1905 out of his initiative united together with the Ukrainian Democratic Party and establishing the Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party. In 1905 became the leader of the Ukrainian Social Union (USU) Peasant Union. In 1908 became the co-founder of the Society of Ukrainian Progressionists. He worked in the variety of Ukrainian periodicals such as Zoria, Pravda, Kyivan Past, Ukraina etc. In 1885–1918 he was the head of publishing Vik.
Secretariat
He was arrested numerous times by the Russian authorities for pressing public speeches in defense of national culture and political freedoms in pre-revolutionary period. In March 1917 Yefremov entered the staff of the Central Rada. In April 1917, at the Ukrainian National Congress was elected as the deputy of the Head of the Rada and the member of the Mala Rada. On June 15, 1917 became the general secretary of the International Affairs in the newly formed Ukrainian government, General Secretary of the Ukrainian People's Republic.[3] On July 17, 1917 he was replaced by Oleksandr Shulhyn from the same political party. From September 1917 heads the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists. From April 1918 and until 1920 he did not hold any official positions.
With the installation of Soviet power in Ukraine he was forced to go into hiding. In spring 1919, at the request of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, he was amnestied. From 1922 until 1928, he was one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Academy of Science. He was the chief defendant in the 1929 public show trial of the leaders of the supposed Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. In 1930, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison. He died in 1939 while in Vladimir Central Prison.[4]
^Агатангел Кримський. Життєпис і літературна діяльність С. О. Єфремова // Записки історико-філологічного факультету відділу ВУАН. Книги II—III (1920—1922). Частина офіційна — Київ, 1923. — С. 42. (in Ukrainian)
^M. Mintz, "The Secretariat of Internationality Affairs (Sekretariiat mizhnatsional’nykh spray) of the Ukrainian General Secretariat 1917–1918", Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Volume VI Number 1 March 1982, pp.25-42
