Radzykevych, Volodymyr

Radzykevych, Volodymyr [Радзикевич, Володимир; Radzykevyč], b 17 October 1886 in Vyshenka near Horodok (Lviv region), Galicia, d 14 September 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Pedagogue, literary scholar, and writer; brother of Yuliian Radzykevych. In 1908 he completed philological studies at Lviv University and became a teacher at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv (1908–39). He was also a founder of and a teacher at the Second Ukrainian Gymnasium in Lviv (1941–4), and from 1945 to 1950 he taught at various gymnasiums in displaced persons camps in Germany. He was a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1932, head of the Teachers' Hromada (1929–39), and, from 1950, an active member of the Association of Ukrainian Writers for Young People in Cleveland. Under the pseudonym Vuiko Vlodko he wrote poems, plays, and historical tales for children. Most famous, and republished several times, was his verse adventure Pryhody Iurchyka kucheriavoho (Adventures of Curly George). As a literary scholar Radzykevych wrote articles for Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka and a monograph on Pavlyn Svientsitsky (1911). His most important work was Istoriia ukraïns'koï literatury (History of Ukrainian Literature), a widely used text for secondary schools which was published in Lviv in 1922, reissued there in 1937 and 1942, published in 1947 in Germany, and published in 1955–6 in the United States of America.

Danylo Husar Struk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]