Veretenchenko, Oleksa

Veretenchenko, Oleksa [Веретенченко, Олекса; Veretenčenko], b 25 October 1918 in Bilyi Kolodiaz, Vovchansk county, Kharkiv gubernia, d 15 March 1993 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Poet. From 1925 he lived in Kharkiv, where he studied at the Kharkiv Pedagogical Institute. A postwar displaced person, in 1949 he moved to the United States of America and settled in Detroit. He began publishing in 1935 and is the author of the poetry collections Pershyi hrim (First Thunder, 1941), Dym vichnosty (The Smoke of Eternity, 1951), and Zamors'ki vyna (Overseas Wines, 1974) and the historical narrative poem Chorna dolyna (The Black Valley, 1953). He also translated George Byron’s Mazeppa into Ukrainian (1959) and edited the first posthumous edition of Volodymyr Svidzinsky’s poetry (1975).

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