Granovsky, Alexander

Granovsky, Alexander [Грановський, Олександр; Hranovs'kyj, Oleksander; full name: Неприцький-Грановський; Neprytsky-Hranovsky), b 4 November 1887 in Berezhtsi, Kremianets county, Volhynia gubernia, d 4 November 1976 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Zoologist, publicist, community leader, and poet. Granovsky studied at the Kyiv Commercial Institute (1909–10) before emigrating to the United States in 1913. He continued his studies at the Sorbonne and University of Wisconsin (PH D, 1926) and taught entomology and economic zoology at the universities of Wisconsin (1922–30) and Minnesota (1930–56). He wrote numerous scientific articles and was a worldwide authority on the biology and taxonomy of the Aphididae, two species of which were named after him: Calaphis granovskyi and Drephanaphis granovskyi. He also pioneered in studies of insect transmission of plant diseases and was the first entomologist in the United States to carry out large-scale field testing of the insecticide DDT for control of potato insects.

Granovsky was a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US, president (1935–63) of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine, and member of the senate of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. He was a founding member of and held various positions (from 1944) in the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. He is the author of many political essays and books, including Ukraine’s Case for Independence (1940), Vil'na Ukraïna neobkhidna dlia postiinoho myru (A Free Ukraine Is Necessary for a Lasting Peace, 1945), and Na shliakhu do derzhavnosty (On the Road to Statehood, 1965). His modernist poetry first appeared in the Kyiv journals Ukraïns’ka khata and Ridnyi krai. He wrote seven collections of poetry (1910–14, 1953–64).

C. Spolsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]