Lozynsky, Yosyp

Lozynsky, Yosyp [Лозинський, Йосип; Lozyns’kyj, Josyp], b 20 December 1807 in Virky, near Peremyshl, d 11 August 1889 in Yavoriv, Galicia. Ethnographer, publicist, grammarian, and Greek Catholic priest. Influenced by the Slovenian philologist J. Kopitar and the debates on South Slavic orthography, he proposed to adopt the Latin alphabet for the Ukrainian language (1834) and provoked considerable opposition from the Ukrainian intelligentsia, including Markiian Shashkevych. He wrote a valuable grammar of the Ukrainian vernacular, Gramatyka języka ruskiego (małoruskiego) (Grammar of the Ruthenian [Little Russian] Language, 1846), and published in the Latin alphabet a collection of Western Ukrainian wedding songs, Ruskoje wesile (The Ruthenian Wedding, 1835). Lozynsky consistently opposed yazychiie as literary Ukrainian and polemicized with Yosyp Levytsky on issue. He wrote a study of folk games (1860) and a biography of Ivan Snihursky (1851).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]