Lukych, Vasyl

Lukych, Vasyl [Лукич, Василь; Lukyč, Vasyl’] (pseud of Volodymyr L. Levytsky [Володимир Левицький]), b 2 September 1856 in Belzka, now Honcharivka, Zolochiv raion, Lviv oblast, d 6 October 1938 in Vynnyky, now a suburb of Lviv. Writer and civic figure; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1926; honorary member of the Prosvita society from 1925. His literary activities began in 1875. He coedited the student journal Druh and the almanac Dnistrianka (1876). He collaborated with Ivan Franko in compiling an anthology of Ukrainian poetry (1881) and edited many publications, including the almanacs of the Prosvita society for 1880–5, 1890, 1893, and 1916–18; a popular handbook for peasants, Rus’kyi pravotar domovyi (The Ruthenian Home Judge, 1885, which he coedited with Yu. Selsky); the almanac Vatra (1887); and the journal Zoria (Lviv) (1890–6), in which he introduced the phonetic orthography. Under his editorship the journal assumed an all-Ukrainian character. He edited the works of some Ukrainian writers, particularly writers from the Dnipro River region. In 1919 he edited the official legislative bulletin Vistnyk derzhavnykh zakoniv i rozporiadkiv Zakhidnoï Oblasty Ukraïns’koï Narodnoï Respubliky. He wrote ethnographic studies, surveys of national and cultural life in central Ukraine, short stories, and tales.

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