Hynylevych, Hryhorii

Hynylevych, Hryhorii [Гинилевич, Григорій; Hynylevyč, Hryhorij], b 5 February 1809 in Yavoriv, Galicia, d 30 November 1871 in Peremyshl. Clergyman, writer, and leader of the Greek Catholic church. A member of the church consistory, he was in charge of schools in the Peremyshl eparchy and rector of the Peremyshl Greek Catholic Theological Seminary. On behalf of the Supreme Ruthenian Council, he headed the Ukrainian delegation to the Slavic Congress in Prague, 1848, at which he defended the distinctiveness of the Ukrainian people from the Poles and the Russians. As a deputy to the Galician Diet, he demanded the division of Galicia into Ukrainian and Polish parts and obtained the first government subsidy for a Ukrainian cultural institution—the Ruska Besida Theater. The graduates of the Peremyshl seminary dedicated their first almanac, titled Lirvak z nad Siana (The Lira Player from the Sian, 1852), to Hynylevych.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]