Rusnak, Vasyl

Rusnak, Vasyl [Руснак, Василь], b 23 February 1899 in Nepolokivtsi, Kitsman county, Bukovyna, d 24 July 1981 in Bucharest. Bukovynian political activist. He graduated in law (1924) and history (1926) from Chernivtsi University and then established a legal practice in Chernivtsi. He headed the workers society Volia and the Ukrainian faction of the Romanian Social Democratic Party of Bukovyna, for which he edited Robitnyk (1919–23) and later Borot'ba. Rusnak also edited Zoria (Chernivtsi). He was a Sovietophile and cofounder of an underground committee of communist organizations in Bukovyna. A 1928 trip to Soviet Ukraine left him largely disillusioned with radical politics, and his major activities through the 1930s were in the cultural field, particularly in theater. He is the author of a history of Ukrainian theater in Bukovyna (1975). After the Second World War he was arrested by the Soviets. Following his release in 1956, he lived in Romania, where he helped compile Romanian-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Romanian dictionaries (1963–4).

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