Tobilevych, Sofiia

Tobilevych, Sofiia [Тобілевич, Софія; Tobilevyč, Sofija; née Ditkovska], b 15 October 1860 in Novoselytsia, Lityn county, Podilia gubernia, d 7 October 1953 in Kyiv. Character actress, writer, and ethnographer; wife of Ivan Karpenko-Kary. She sang in Mykola Lysenko’s choir (1880–3) and in the choir in Mykhailo Starytsky’s theater troupe (1883–4) and then acted in the troupes of Panas Saksahansky (1890–1907; see Saksahansky's Troupe) and Mykola Sadovsky (1888–90) and in Sadovsky's Theater (1908–16), the Franko New Drama Theater (1920–2), and the Shevchenko First Theater of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic (1924). She toured with Saksahansky and Sadovsky (1926–30). In 1935 she appeared on stage for the last time, as Natalka’s mother in Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Natalka Poltavka (Natalka from Poltava). Sofiia Tobilevych translated many plays into Ukrainian (mostly from French and Polish) and wrote Zhyttia Ivana Tobilevycha (The Life of Ivan Tobilevych, 1945) and her memoirs, Moï stezhky i zustrichi (My Paths and Meetings, 1957).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]