Mordovets, Danylo

Mordovets, Danylo [Mordovec’] (Mordovtsev, Daniil), b 19 December 1830 in Danylivka sloboda, now a town in Volgograd oblast, Russia, d 23 June 1905 in Kislovodsk, Stavropol region. (Photo: Danylo Mordovets.) Ukrainian and Russian writer, publicist, and historian. He began his literary career with a versified translation of the Králové Dvůr manuscript from Czech into Ukrainian. He wrote in Ukrainian the romantic poem ‘Kozaky i more’ (The Cossacks and the Sea, 1854, pub in Malorusskii literaturnyi sbornik, 1859); the historical narratives ‘Dzvonar’ (The Bell Ringer, 1859), ‘Soldatka’ (The Soldier's Wife, 1859), and ‘Startsi’ (The Beggars, 1855, pub 1886), the novels Dvi doli (Two Fates) and Semen Palii (1882); and other works. His novels in Russian on Ukrainian themes include Sagaidachnyi (Sahaidachny, 1882) and Tsar’ i getman (The Tsar and the Hetman). Mordovets was greatly influenced by his two visits to Ukraine, in 1883 and 1886, and by his acquaintance with Taras Shevchenko (he reviewed Shevchenko's Kobzar in 1860 and described their meetings in his memoirs Iz proshlogo i perezhytogo [From the Past and the Experienced, 1902]) and with Mykhailo Drahomanov and Mykola Kostomarov. The more important of Mordovets's historical works are Haidamachchyna (Haidamaka Uprisings, 1870) and a publicistic attack on Panteleimon Kulish's views on the historical past of Ukraine, Za krashanku—pysanka: P.O. Kulishevi (A Pysanka in Exchange for a Krashanka: For P.O. Kulish, 1882). Mordovets did a great deal to help Ukrainian writers in Saint Petersburg publish their works, and he defended Ukrainian theater from the attacks of the Russian press. The fullest edition of Mordovets's works is Tvory (Works, 2 vols, 1958).

 I. Koshelivets