Mokh, Rudolf

Mokh, Rudolf [Мох, Рудольф; Mox, Rudol’f], b 16 April 1816 in Berezhany, d 12 February 1892 in Ostriv, Stanyslaviv county, Galicia. Galician priest, writer, and community figure. He studied at the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Lviv and became involved in circles close to the Ruthenian Triad. He is the author of Motyl’ (The Butterfly, 1841), the second collection of poetry published in the Ukrainian vernacular in Western Ukraine, and of the first Ukrainian-language secular plays staged in Galicia, among them Sprava v seli Klekotyni (The Affair in the Village of Klekotyn, 1849), ‘Terpen-spasen’ ([He Who] Suffers [Is] Saved, 1849), and ‘Opikunstvo’ (Guardianship). In 1848 he was a spokesman of the Drohobych committee of the Supreme Ruthenian Council and participated in the Congress of Ruthenian Scholars in Lviv, where he advocated the abandonment of etymological spelling.

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