Petrenko, Mykhailo

Petrenko, Mykhailo [Петренко, Михайло], b 1817 in Sloviansk, Izium county, Kharkiv gubernia, d 25 December 1862 in Lebedyn, Kharkiv gubernia. Poet of the Kharkiv Romantic School. After graduating from Kharkiv University in 1841, he worked as a civil servant. He wrote lyrical and elegiac poetry, genres uncommon at that time. Nineteen of his poems appeared in three literary almanacs, Oleksander Korsun's Snip (The Sheaf, 1841), Ivan Betsky's Molodyk (The New Moon, 1843), and Amvrosii Metlynsky's Iuzhnyi russkii sbornik (South Russian Collection, 1848). Some of them became folk songs (eg, ‘Dyvlius' ia na nebo’ [I Gaze at the Sky]). Petrenko's poetry was published in an edition with Viktor Zabila's in 1960.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dobrovols'kyi, O. And V. Miakushev. Ioho taiemnytsia. Nevidomyi Mykhailo Petrenko (Sloviansk 2008)

[This article was updated in 2011.]