Savytsky, Oleksii

Savytsky, Oleksii [Савицький, Олексій; Savyc'kyj, Oleksij; pseudonyms: Yukhym Hedz, Oles Yasny), b 30 March 1896 in Zolotonosha, Poltava gubernia, d 15 July 1937 in Kyiv. Popular humorist and playwright of the 1920s and 1930s. He studied at the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv and was a member of the Pluh peasant writers’ association. His humorous and satirical stories and feuilletons of rural life in Soviet Ukraine were published in many Soviet Ukrainian papers and magazines and separately as the collections Avtor Troiandenko (Author Troiandenko, 1927), Buvaie i take (Such Things Happen, 1927), Pryntsypiial'no (On Principle, 1929), Trohlodyty (Troglodytes, 1929), Bubna—kozyr (Diamonds—Trump, 1930), Zavziatyi seredniak (The Zealous Middle Peasant, 1930), Konkurs na hopak (Hopak Contest, 1930), Ti zh i Myron Hrechka (They and Myron Hrechka, 1931), Stolychnyi hist' (Guest from the Capital, 1930), Pershyi ispyt (First Exam, 1931), and Tykhoiu sapoiu (With a Quiet Hoe, 1933). He also wrote several plays, and an edition of his comedies was published in 1931. Savytsky was arrested in 1936 and was executed by the NKVD.

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