Epik, Hryhorii

Epik, Hryhorii, b 17 January 1901 in the village of Kamianka, Katerynoslav gubernia, d 3 November 1937 in Sandarmokh, Karelia region, RSFSR. Writer and critic. In 1920–5 he worked in the Communist Youth League of Ukraine and as an editor. In 1925–9 he studied in the department of Ukrainian history at the Kharkiv Institute of Red Professors. After graduating, he became director of the Derzhlitvydav publishing house. His writings began to appear in print in 1923. Epik was a member of the literary organizations Pluh, Vaplite, and Prolitfront. Among his publications are the collections of short stories Na zlomi (At the Break, 1926), V snihakh (In the Snows, 1928), Obloha (The Siege, 1929), and Tom satyry (A Tome of Satire, 1930); and the novels Bez gruntu (Without Soil, 1928), Zustrich (The Meeting, 1929), and Nepiia (NEPia, 1930). In his prose of the 1920s he sharply criticized certain aspects of the Soviet regime, particularly in Bez gruntu (5th edn, 1932). But his last novels—Persha vesna (The First Spring, 1931) and Petro Romen (1932)—were written in the Stalinist spirit. In 1934 Epik was arrested; he perished during mass executions of prisoners marking the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917.

Ivan Koshelivets

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]