Borys Hrinchenko

Borys Hrinchenko

Borys Dmytrowytsch Hrintschenko ( Ukrainian Борис Дмитрович Грінченко * 9. December 1863 in Wilchowyj Jar at Ruski Tyschky , Kharkov Governorate , Russian Empire ; † 6. May 1910 in Ospedaletti , Liguria , Kingdom of Italy ) was a Ukrainian writer , teacher , linguist , ethnographer , Politician and cultural activist . He compiled the first dictionary in Ukrainian and took an active part in the Ukrainian national movement .

biography

Borys Hrintschenko was born in 1863 on the Vilchowyj Yar estate ( Вільховий Яр ) in the Kharkov governorate as the son of a large landowner. From 1874 he attended the middle school in Kharkov . At this time he began to be interested in revolutionary populism and collected poetic works by writers such as Victor Hugo and Alexander Pushkin . On December 29, 1879, Hrinchenko was arrested for "distributing and reading" the banned books of the socialist writer Serhiy Podolynskyi .

He returned home for a year and then came back to Kharkiv. There he took tuition in order to be able to study at Kharkiv University . In 1881 he passed the entrance examination there. From then on he worked as a teacher of local history, language and culture. In 1883 he worked as a teacher in the village of Alexejewka near Smiyiv . There he met the young teacher Marija Hladylina , whom he married a year later. In 1887, on the initiative of the renowned teacher and writer Chrystyna Altschewska , Hrinchenko and his wife were employed as teachers at a Sunday school she had founded in Mychajliwka . Altschewska was very satisfied with Hrintschenko's work. At the time, this school was considered the best in Slavic Serbia . During his time as a teacher, he published several collections of poetry and wrote journalistic reviews that led the historian Mychajlo Drahomanow to exchange letters with Hrintschenko. The two came to the conclusion that they were in agreement in their endeavor to bring Ukrainian literature to the same level as European. From 1894 Hrintschenko worked as a member of the Zemstvo in Chernihiv . He also wrote a pamphlet for the Taras Brotherhood , an illegal underground organization that opposed the autocracy and of which he was a founding member. In 1898 he published another collection of poetry. Since he openly represented the ideas of Ukrainian national romanticism , education, social justice, and democracy in his works , the authorities forced him to leave the Zemstvo.

Due to financial difficulties, Hrinchenko's friends helped him work at the Museum of Local History in Chernihiv, which at that time housed one of the largest collections of history, art and literature in Ukraine. In 1900, with the help of his wife, he compiled a large “museum catalog of Ukrainian antiques”. He also put together a collection of Ukrainian folklore written in the Ukrainian language , which had been sold over 200,000 times by 1902. In 1902 he was invited to move to Kiev to help create a Ukrainian dictionary. The book, entitled Kievskaya starina , was published in four volumes from 1907 to 1909 and contained 68,000 words of the Ukrainian language. The dictionary received an award from the Russian Academy of Sciences . During his time in Kiev, Hrintschenko also worked on the organization of the Proswita (lit. "Enlightenment") society, which was first founded in Lviv in 1868 and which was dedicated to the preservation and development of Ukrainian culture and education among the population. He was also a founding member of the "Ukrainian Radical Party" founded in 1904.

In September 1909 Hrinchenko fell ill and traveled to Italy for treatment . He died on May 6, 1910 in Ospedaletti and was buried three days later in the Baikowe cemetery . His funeral sparked a demonstration of several thousand people against autocracy.

legacy

Commemorative coin with Hrintschenko's portrait

The Borys-Hrinchenko University in Kiev is named after him. In 1988, a museum dedicated to Hrinchenko was opened in Mychajlivka. On July 4, 2012, the Verkhovna Rada declared Hrintschenko's 150th birthday on December 9, 2013 a national holiday. On October 22, 2012, a meeting was held in the building of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, at which a commemoration ceremony for Hrintchenko's 150th birthday was planned. It was also suggested that middle schools, libraries, and streets be named after him. The National Bank of Ukraine launched two new coins with Grintchenko's portrait on November 22, 2013 in commemoration of his 150th birthday.

Web links

Commons : Borys Hrinchenko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Грінченко Борис Дмитрович. ukrlit.org. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
2. ↑ Borys Hrinchenko . ( Memento of the original from November 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Boris Hrinchenko University of Kiev (website). Retrieved September 1, 2014. 
3. ↑ Борис Дмитрович Грінченко. ( Memento of July 14, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) library.lg.ua. Retrieved September 1, 2010.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Борис Грінченко. ( Memento of July 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) library.lg.ua. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
5. ^ History . ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Boris Grintschenko University of Kiev (website). Retrieved September 1, 2014. 
6. ↑ Історія музея. ( Memento from August 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) library.lg.ua. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
7. ↑ Про відзначення 150-річчя з дня народження Бориса Грінченка. ( Memento from December 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) zakon4.rada.gov.ua. July 4, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
8. ↑ Construction of a dormitory for university students will be devoted by the 150th anniversary of the birth of Borys Grinchenko . kmu.gov.ua. October 22, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
9. ↑ До 150-річчя Бориса Грінченка Нацбанк вводить в обіг пам'ятну монету. kmu.gov.ua. November 22, 2013. Retrieved September 1, 2014.