Aleksandrov, Volodymyr

Aleksandrov, Volodymyr [Александров, Володимир], b 2 July 1825 in the village of Buhaivka, Kharkiv gubernia, d 1 October 1894 in Kharkiv. (Photo: Volodymyr Aleksandrov.) Poet, playwright, translator, and ethnographer. Aleksandrov studied medicine at Kharkiv University and, after graduating in 1853, became an army doctor. In 1861 he began publishing poems in the journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg), the almanac Skladka, the Galician Zoria (Lviv), and other journals. He published Narodnyi pisennyk z naikrashchykh ukraïns’kykh pisen’ (A Folk Songbook of the Best Ukrainian songs, 1887), and the tales ‘Ivashechko’ (Little Ivas), ‘Chyzhykove vesillia’ (The Finch's Wedding), and ‘Koza-dereza’ (Billy Goat's Bluff). His operettas, Za Neman’ idu (Beyond the Nemunas I Go, 1872) and Ne khody, Hrytsiu, na vechornytsi (Don't Go to Parties, Hryts! 1873), are well known from Mykhailo Starytsky's reworkings. Aleksandrov also translated works by Heinrich Heine, Adam Mickiewicz, Mikhail Lermontov, and others.

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