Oleksander Hnatovych Lotots’kyi (1870-1939), Ukrainian political and civil activist, scholar and professor, was born in the village of Bronnytsia near the city of Mohyliv in Podolia gubernia. In 1881, he enrolled in the Kyiv Theological Academy and graduated in 1896. In 1896, he became a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in L’viv, and was a full member from 1900.

From 1891, he led an active literary and scholarly career. He was a co-founder of the Vik publishing house. In 1899, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he lived for almost 20 years. From 1900 to 1917 he worked in the office of state controller in Kyiv and St. Petersburg. During World War I Lototsky served as a gubernial commissioner of Bukovina and Pokuttia. In 1917 he was also one of the organizers of the Ukrainian National Council in St. Petersburg. He was a secretary of the "Blahodiine tovarystvo vydannia zahal’nokorysnykh i deshevykh knyh" and a member of the Association of Ukrainian Progressionists. In 1917, he became an inspector of the Bukovina and Pokuttia provinces. His positions in the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) government included secretary general, state comptroller, and minister of religious affairs. In the latter position, he was instrumental in the proclamation of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on January 1, 1919. In 1919-1920, he was an ambassador of the UNR to Turkey.

In 1922 he moved to Prague, after brief stays in Bucharest and Vienna, and was appointed professor of Canon Law at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague. He was a founder and head of the "Respublikans’ko-demokratychnyi Klub" and a member of the "Ukrains’ke istorychno-filolohichne tovarystvo". In 1927-1930, he was a Minister of Internal Affairs in the UNR government in exile. In 1929, he was invited to work at the history department at Warsaw University. In 1930-1938, he was a founder and director of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw. In the 1930s, he was invited to become a member of Warsaw Scientific Society. Oleksander Lotots’kyi was in charge of the Committee at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw responsible for publishing Taras Shevchenko’s works in 14 volumes. Later those volumes were reprinted by the Mykola Denysiuk publishing house in Chicago.

Lotots’kyi wrote a memoir entitled “Storinky myhuloho” in three volumes, and a fourth volume "U Tsarhorodi". He also wrote many books for children, including a primer entitled “Vinok”. On October 22, 1939, a German bomb hit the fourth floor of the building where Oleksander Lotots’kyi lived. He tried to save his archives and library by moving them to the basement from his apartment. While doing so, he caught pneumonia and died in the hospital in 1939 in Warsaw.