Franchuk, Vira
Franchuk, Vira [Франчук, Віра; Frančuk], b 17 January 1932 in Tyraspil, Moldavian ASSR, d 22 March 2019 in Kyiv. Linguist, specialist in the history of East Slavic languages and Slavic linguistics, engaged in the study of early medieval Ukrainian written records. A graduate of Kharkiv University, she worked for over sixty years, from 1958, in the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv (formerly Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR). She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the participial adverbs in the Russian literary language of the eighteenth century (defended in 1961). She completed her postdoctoral thesis on the composition of the Kyiv Chronicle from a linguistic point of view in 1989 and was promoted to full professor in 1992.
She co-edited the Russian-Ukrainian dictionary (3 vols, 1969), the dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (11 vols, 1970–80), and the collection Dilova mova Volyni i Naddniprianshchyny XVII st. (The Administrative Language of Volhynia and the Dnipro Region of the SEventeenth Century, 1981). The results of her detailed research on the linguistic and textual parallels between the old Kyivan Rus’ chronicles and Slovo o polku Ihorevi were published in her Kievskaia letopis': Sostav i istochniki v lingvisticheskom osveshchenii (The Kyiv Chronicle: Contents and Sources from a Linguistic Perspective, 1986) and Litopysni opovidi pro pokhid kniazia Ihoria (Chronicle Tales about the Campaign of Prince Ihor, 1988). She also co-edited the publication of the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle based on a 16th-century manuscript: Halyts'ko-Volyns'kyi litopys: Doslidzhennia. Tekst. Komentar (2002). One of the main foci of her research was the legacy of Oleksander Potebnia; she was the first to publish in 1975 his critical biography Oleksandr Potebnia (revised edition in 2012 under the title Oleksandr Opanasovych Potebnia: Storinky zhyttia i naukovoї dial'nosti) and was one of the compilers of a bibliography of his works and writings about him: Oleksandr Opanasovych Potebnia (Do 170-richchia z dnia narodzhennia): Biobibliohrafichnyi pokazhchyk (2005). She also published and provided with commentaries a number of Potebnia’s manuscripts, including Obshchii literaturnyj jazyk i mestnye narechia (The Commom Literary Language and Local Dialects, 1962). Engaged in organizing a series of colloquia on Potebnia (from 1977) and other prominent 19th-century linguists, she subsequently edited the proceedings of these academic events. The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine awarded her with the first ever Potebnia Prize in Linguistics, Philosophy, and Folklore for her works Stylistyka litopysannia (The Style of Chronicle Writing, 1999) and O. O. Potebnia i ioho doba (O. O. Potebnia and His Times, 1999) and the Kostomarov Prize in History for source research and publication of the chronicle Halyts'ko-Volyns'kyi litopys: Doslidzhennia. Tekst. Komentar (2004).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Skliarenko, V. (ed.). Instytut movoznavstva im. O. O. Potebni NAN Ukraїny – 75 (1930–2005): materialy do istoriї (Kyiv 2005)
Lazarenko, O. ‘Vira Yuriїvna Franchuk – litopysets' vitchyznianoї movoznavchoї nauky (do 80-richchia vid dnia narodzhennia)’ in Zbirnyk Kharkivs'koho istoryko-filolohichnoho tovarystva, Nova seriia, vol 14 (2011)
Honcharenko, A. ‘Vira Yuriїvna Franchuk (17.01.1932 – 22.03.2019)’ in Drynovs'kyi zbirnyk, vol 12 (2019)
Lazarenko, O. ‘Vira Yuriїvna Franchuk – doslidnytsia pysemnoї spadshchyny kozats'koї doby’ in Novi doslidzennia pam"iatok kozats'koї doby v Ukraїni, vyp. 29 (2020)
Honcharenko, A. and O. Lazarenko (eds.). Vira Yuriїvna Franchuk: Biobibliohrafiia do 90-richchia (Kyiv 2022)
Alina Honcharenko, Olesia Lazarenko
[This article was written in 2025.]