Yanchuk, Mykola

Yanchuk, Mykola [Янчук, Микола; Jančuk], b 29 November 1859 in Kornytsia, in the Podlachia region of Lublin gubernia, Congress Kingdom of Poland, d 6 December 1921 in Moscow. Folklorist, ethnographer, and playwright. After graduating from Moscow University (1885) he served as editor of Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (1889–1916) and custodian of the ethnographic departments at the Dashkov and Rumiantsev museums. In 1921 he became a professor of Belarusian literature and ethnography at Minsk University. He wrote in Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian. He is the author of Malorusskaia svad'ba v Kornytskom prikhode, Konstantinovskogo uezda Sedletskoi gubernii (The Little Russian Wedding in Kornytsia Parish, Konstantynów County, Siedlce Gubernia, 1886). In 1901 he set up the Musical Ethnography Commission at the ethnographic section of the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography, which popularized Ukrainian musical folklore. The members of its expedition to Poltava gubernia recorded, in May 1912, over 300 Ukrainian folk songs. Yanchuk wrote some plays in Ukrainian, such as ‘Pylyp muzyka’ (Pylyp the Musician, 1887), ‘Vykhovanets'’ (The Pupil, 1899), and ‘Ne pomozhut' i chary’ (Even Charms Will Not Help, 1891).

Mykola Mushynka

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