Desniak, Vasyl

Desniak, Vasyl [Десняк, Василь; Desnjak; pseudonym of Vasyl Vasylenko], b 19 March 1897 in Semypolky, Oster county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 20 October 1938. Marxist critic and Soviet publicist. Educated at the Chernihiv teachers' seminary and the Moscow Institute of Journalism, Desniak was a member of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine. He was a writer for several journals and newspapers in Kyiv and Kharkiv, including Hlobus and Zhyttia i revoliutsiia, and editor of the journal Krytyka (1928–32). He wrote articles on Marxist methodology in literature and on Lesia Ukrainka, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Olha Kobylianska, and other authors. He was arrested in 1933 and died in the Stalinist terror. He was ‘rehabilitated’ in 1965.

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