Lypa, Ivan

Lypa, Ivan [Липа, Іван] (pseuds: Petro Shelest, I. Stepovyk), b 24 February 1865 in Kerch, Tavriia gubernia, d 13 November 1923 in Vynnyky, Lviv county, Galicia. Civic and political figure, writer, and physician; the father of Yurii Lypa. As a student at Kharkiv University he helped found the Brotherhood of Taras and was imprisoned (1893) for over a year for his activity in it. After completing his studies at Kazan University he practiced medicine in the Kherson region, Poltava, and then (1902–18) Odesa, where he published the Ukrainian paper Narodnyi stiah and organized a Ukrainian club, a Prosvita society, and the Odesa Literary Association. During the Ukrainian struggle for independence (1917–20) he was elected Ukrainian commissioner of Odesa and sat on the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Independentists. Under the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic he served as minister of religious affairs in Volodymyr Chekhivsky's and Serhii Ostapenko's cabinets. After emigrating to Tarnów (Poland) in 1921, he chaired the Council of the Republic and became minister of health in the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic. In 1922 he settled in Vynnyky, near Lviv. As a writer Lypa is known for his symbolic-philosophical poetry and short stories, which appeared in various journals, such as Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk and Ukraïns’ka khata, and various almanacs. They were collected posthumously in Opovidi pro smert’, Viinu i liubov (Stories about Death, War, and Love, 1935) and Trynadtsiat’ prytch (Thirteen Parables, 1935). His stories for children were published in Dzvinok, and his numerous articles, in leading Ukrainian periodicals, such as thejournal Pravda, Dilo, and Bukovyna.

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