Hordynsky, Yaroslav

Hordynsky, Yaroslav [Гординський, Ярослав; Hordyns'kyj, Jaroslav], b 22 August 1882 in Shklo, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d 29 October 1939 in Lviv. Pedagogue and literary scholar; father of Sviatoslav Hordynsky. Hordynsky received his PH D from Lviv University and worked as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in Kolomyia, and then at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv and in the Lviv (Underground) Ukrainian University. In 1914 he became a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society; in 1918 he was elected deputy to the Ukrainian National Rada of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. His numerous studies of such writers as Teofan Prokopovych, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, and Mykola Khvylovy appeared in the journals Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, Dzvony, My, Nasha kul’tura (Warsaw), and Ukraïna (1914–30). His most important work was the monograph Literaturna krytyka pidsoviets'koï Ukraïny (Literary Criticism in Soviet Ukraine, 1939), which remains the basic published work on the literary criticism and organizations and the Literary Discussion in Ukraine of the 1920s.

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