Kovalenko, Oleksa

Kovalenko, Oleksa [Коваленко, Олекса], b 22 March 1880 on the Vlasov khutir (now Khreshchatov, Belgorod oblast), d 13 March 1923 in Vienna, Austria. Poet. He lived in Kyiv. From 1903 his poetry appeared in Ukrainian periodicals and in over 10 large prerevolutionary anthologies of Ukrainian literature, three of which he edited: Rozvaha (Amusement, 2 vols, 1905–6), Ternovyi vinok (Crown of Thorns, 1908), and Ukraïns'ka muza (The Ukrainian Muse, 1908). Published separately were his collections Zolotyi zasiv (The Golden Sowing, 1910), Spiv solov’ia (The Nightingale’s Singing, 1911), and Sribni rosy (Silver Dews). He also translated foreign and Russian works into Ukrainian, including Nikolai Gogol’s Revizor (Inspector General) and Kondratii Ryleev’s Voinarovskii. In 1906 he founded the Ranok publishing house in Kyiv.

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