Kurdydyk, Anatol

Kurdydyk, Anatol [Курдидик, Анатоль], b 24 July 1905 in Pidhaitsi, Galicia, d 25 June 2001 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Journalist and writer, brother of Yaroslav Kurdydyk. Kurdydyk completed his law studies at Lviv University in 1928. He coedited the Peremyshl newspaper Ukraïns’kyi holos (Peremyshl) (1928–9), then worked as a writer with the weekly Nedilia (1929–34) and Dilo (1934–9) in Lviv. During the Second World War he was a correspondent for Krakivs’ki visti in Vienna. Settling in Canada after the war, he founded and edited Vil’ne slovo (1956–9) in Toronto and then edited Novyi shliakh (1959–62) and Postup (Winnipeg) (1962–70).

Kurdydyk was the organizer and head of the literary group ‘12’ in Lviv and debuted as a writer in 1924. His collection of legends, Iasni vohni (Bright Fires), appeared in Lviv in 1929; it was followed by a collection of stories, Taina odnoho znaiomoho (The Secret of an Acquaintance, 1935); the novelette Try koroli i dama (Three Kings and a Queen, 1943); and several volumes of publicistic prose. Together with L. Lisevych he wrote the operetta Zalizna ostroha (The Iron Stirrup, 1934) and the comedy Oi, ta Prosvita (Oh, That Prosvita, 1938). He edited the biobibliographic anthology Knyha mysttsiv (A Book of Artists, 1954) as well as Toma Kobzei’s memoirs (2 vols, 1972, 1974). His poems, articles, novellas, and short stories were published in various newspapers in the interwar period.

Danylo Husar Struk

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