Bilodid, Ivan

Bilodid, Ivan [Білодід, Іван], b 29 August 1906 in Uspenske near Kremenchuk, Kherson gubernia, d 21 September 1981 in Kyiv. Linguist specializing in the standardization of the Ukrainian literary language (see Standard Ukrainian), stylistics, and lexicography; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1957, and of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1972. Bilodid graduated from Kharkiv University in 1932. During the Second World War he taught at higher educational institutions in Kharkiv and Lviv. From 1946 he taught at Kyiv University and was an associate of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR; he was the institute’s director, as well as the academy’s vice-president, in 1962–78. In 1957–62 Bilodid was minister of education of the Ukrainian SSR, and in 1960–6, candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He edited and contributed to many collectively written publications, such as Kurs istoriï ukraïns'koï literaturnoï movy (A Course in the History of the Ukrainian Literary Language, 2 vols, 1958–61) and Suchasna ukraïns'ka literaturna mova (The Contemporary Ukrainian Literary Language, 5 vols, 1969–73). He also edited Movoznavstvo, the bimonthly journal of the Institute of Linguistics, from 1967. The most typical feature of Bilodid’s writings is their conformity to the Party line on linguistic and other questions, with little respect for facts.

George Yurii Shevelov

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