Blakytny, Vasyl

Blakytny, Vasyl [Блакитний, Василь; Blakytnyj, Vasyl'] (pseud of Vasyl Ellansky), b 12 January 1894 in Mykhailo-Kotsiubynske, Chernihiv county, d 4 December 1925 in Kharkiv. Ukrainian revolutionary and political figure, writer, poet, and journalist. Blakytny became involved with the revolutionary underground as a student at the Chernihiv seminary and later the Kyiv Commercial Institute and joined the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries in 1917. In 1918 he was one of the founders of the Borotbists and edited the newspaper Borot'ba. He advocated the merger of the Borotbists with the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine in 1920. In 1920 he became a member of the Central Committee of the CP(B)U, and in 1921 the director of the State Publishing House of Ukraine and the editor in chief of Visti VUTsVK. He was also one of the founders of the literary organizations Borotba and Hart. Blakytny published most of his poetry, stories, satire, parodies, and journalistic articles in Ukrainian journals. He also published under the names Valer Pronoza, Markiz Popeliasty, Vasyl Ellan, A. Ortal Hart, and Pronoza Mriinyk. In the 1930s his works were declared nationalist and proscribed, and his monument in Kharkiv was destroyed. Blakytny was rehabilitated after Joseph Stalin's death, and his selected works and poetry were republished in 1958 (two volumes) and 1964.

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