Hlibov, Leonid

Hlibov, Leonid, b 5 March 1827 in Veselyi Podil, Khorol county, Poltava gubernia, d 10 November 1893 in Chernihiv. Writer, teacher, and civic figure. After graduating from the Nizhyn Lyceum in 1855, he taught at the Chornyi Ostriv gymnasium and Chernihiv gymnasium from 1858. He was active in the Chernihiv Hromada and the Sunday-school movement, published popular educational books, and contributed to the Saint Petersburg Ukrainian journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg). In 1861 he founded and edited the weekly Chernigovskii listok, in which he published articles, poetry, and stories in Ukrainian. In 1863 the tsarist authorities closed down the paper and banned his works, and Hlibov lost his teaching job and was forced to live in Nizhyn under police surveillance. From 1867 to his death he was the director of the Chernihiv zemstvo printing house.

Hlibov wrote over 40 Romantic lyrical poems in Ukrainian (mostly elegies); one, ‘Zhurba’ (Sorrow), was put to music by Mykola Lysenko and became a popular folk song. His most important works are his 107 fables, which appeared from 1853 in the press and have been published since 1863 in many editions. They are written in the vernacular and satirize contemporary life and conditions from a liberal perspective using Ukrainian motifs and folklore. Hlibov also wrote several dozen rhymed riddles for children and the farce Do myrovoho (To the Justice of the Peace, 1862). Studies of his life and works have been written by M. Zahirnia (see Mariia Hrinchenko) and Borys Hrinchenko (1900) and B. Huriev (1965), among others.

Ivan Koshelivets

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]