Bida, Constantine

Bida, Constantine [Біда, Костянтин; Bida Kostiantyn], b 24 September 1916 in Lviv, d 11 April 1979 in Ottawa, Canada. Literary scholar, full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Bida received his PhD in Slavic Studies from the University of Vienna in 1943, and from 1952 he taught in the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Ottawa. His works include Soiuz Het'mana Ivana Mazepy z Karlom XII (The Alliance of Hetman Ivan Mazepa with Charles XII, 1959), a monograph on Lesia Ukrainka, Lesya Ukrainka: Life and Work (1968), Ioanikii Galiatovs'kyi i ioho ‘Kliuch' razumienniia’ (Yoanikii Galiatovsky and His ‘Key to Understanding,’ 1975), Kyïvs'ka ‘Gramatyka’ z 1705 r. (The Kyiv ‘Grammar’ of 1705, 1978), and numerous articles. He had a particular interest in the works of William Shakespeare, studying his influence on Slavic literatures and heading the Ukrainian Shakespeare Society (from 1964). A posthumous festschrift to Bida, edited by Irena Makaryk, was published in 1991 as Living Record: Essays in Memory of Constantine Bida. It includes a selected bibliography of his works.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]