Vasylevsky, Teofan

Vasylevsky, Teofan [Василевський, Теофан; Vasylevs’kyj] (pseud: Софрон Крут; Sofron Krut), b 1855 in Selezenivka, Kyiv gubernia, d 13 April 1915. Populist activist and publicist; husband of Dniprova Chaika. As a student at Odesa University he belonged to the Odesa Hromada. Later he studied at Prague University but interrupted his studies to fight as a volunteer in the Hercegovinian uprising against Turkey in 1876 and to help Mykhailo Drahomanov publish Hromada (Geneva) in 1877. He published several articles about the Balkan situation in Galician periodicals, such as Molot, the journal Pravda, and the monthly S’vit (1878–81). In 1879 he returned to Ukraine and worked as a village scribe. From the 1880s on he was a zemstvo statistician in Kherson. A book about his experiences in the Balkans was published in Lviv in 1905 with a preface written by Ivan Franko. Vasylevsky committed suicide.

[This article was updated in 2013.]