On April 26, 1945, Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky, former Hetman of Ukraine and lieutenant general of the Russian Imperial Army, passed away. After the events of 1917, he became a Ukrainian military and political figure, serving as Hetman of Ukraine from April 29 to December 14, 1918.

Skoropadsky came from a hereditary noble family in the Poltava province, which also included the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, Ivan Skoropadsky. He was Orthodox and a large landowner in the Poltava and Chernihiv provinces.

His father, Pyotr Ivanovich Skoropadsky, was a retired colonel of the Cavalry Guard Regiment and the county leader of the nobility in Starodub. His mother, Maria Andreevna, was the daughter of porcelain manufacturer A. M. Miklashevsky. His grandfather, Ivan Mikhailovich Skoropadsky, was a wealthy landowner and patron, held the position of county leader of the nobility, and had the rank of court councilor.

Until the age of five, Pavel lived with his mother and relatives in Wiesbaden, Germany, and then in the family estate in Trostyanets, Ukraine. At the age of twelve, he lost his father.

In April 1945, during evacuation, Pavel Skoropadsky was mortally wounded during a bombing by Anglo-American aviation at the Platling station near Regensburg. He died a few days later in the hospital of the Metten Monastery, where he was buried and later reburied in Oberstdorf, Bavaria.