Tsehlynsky, Hryhorii

Tsehlynsky, Hryhorii [Цеглинський, Григорій; Cehlyns'kyj, Hryhorij; pseud: Григорій Григорієвич; Hryhorii Hryhoriievych], b 9 March 1853 in Kalush, Galicia, d 23 October 1912 in Vienna. Writer, teacher, and civic figure. As a student at Vienna University (1874–9) he was active in the Sich student society of Vienna. After graduating he was a teacher at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv (1880–8), the person in charge of the Ruska Besida Theater’s repertoire (1882–8), editor of the biweekly Zoria (Lviv) (1887–8), and director of the Peremyshl State Gymnasium’s Ukrainian classes (1888–95) and its principal (1895–1910). In Peremyshl he helped to found the Saint Nicholas Bursa society, the Ukrainian Girls' Institute in Peremyshl, the Vira and Ukrainska Shchadnytsia credit co-operatives, and the People's Home, and he prepared textbooks for use in Galicia’s Ukrainian gymnasiums. In 1907 he was elected to the Austrian parliament, and became a member of the presidium of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Club in Vienna. He was buried in Peremyshl. Tsehlynsky’s poems, short stories, reviews, political articles, and literary criticism appeared in Dilo and Zoria in the 1880s and 1890s. In the years 1883–5 he wrote a column called ‘Z teky Padury’ (From Padura’s Portfolio) in Zerkalo. For the Ruska Besida Theater he wrote the first (albeit commonplace and superficial) Ukrainian comedies about the contemporary Galician bourgeoisie, nobility, and intelligentsia: Na dobrodiini tsily (For Good Causes, 1884), Sokolyky (The Falconets, 1885), Tato na zaruchynakh (Father at the Betrothal, 1885), Lykhyi den' (A Terrible Day, 1886), Shliakhta khodachkova (The Petty Nobility, 1886), Torhovlia zhemchuhamy (Trade in Pearls, 1895), and Argonavty (Argonauts, 1898). He also wrote the didactic dramas Vorozhbyt (The Soothsayer, 1902) and Kara sovisty (Punishment of the Conscience, 1903). He was the most popular playwright in Galicia in the years 1883–95.

Roman Senkus

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