Kashchenko, Adriian

Kashchenko, Adriian [Кащенко, Адріян; Kaščenko, Adrijan], b 1 October 1858 on the Veselyi khutir, Oleksandrivske county, Katerynoslav gubernia, d 29 March 1921 in Katerynoslav. Writer. He began writing in 1883, but became known only after the Revolution of 1905, when the ban on Ukrainian publishing in Russian-ruled Ukraine was lifted. He is the author of many stories and novellas, most set in the Cossack period. Although they have little literary value and are historically inaccurate, because of their easy and romantic representation of Ukraine’s past they became extremely popular and played an important didactic role, instilling a fundamental sense of Ukrainian patriotism in their peasant and young readers. Consequently they were banned in Soviet Ukraine; numerous editions, however, appeared in interwar Galicia.

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