Khalansky, Mykhailo

Khalansky, Mykhailo [Халанський, Михайло; Xalans'kyj, Myxajlo], b 13 November 1857 in Raskhovets, Shchigry county, Kursk gubernia, Russian Empire, d 12 April 1910 in Kharkiv. Literary historian and ethnographer; corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He studied at Kharkiv University and Saint Petersburg University. In 1891 he was appointed professor of the Chair of Russian Language and Literature at Kharkiv University. His research was greatly influenced by Oleksander Potebnia and dealt with the bylyny, South and East Slavic epic poetry and legends, dumas, and literary monuments of the Kyivan Rus’ period. His many publications include Velikorusskie byliny Kievskogo tsikla (Russian Bylyny of the Kyivan Cycle, 1885), ‘Iuzhno-slavianskie skazaniia o Kraleviche Marke v sviazi s proizvedeniiami russkogo bylevogo eposa’ (South Slavic Legends about Prince Mark in Relation to the Works of the Russian Bylyna Epic, Russkii filologicheskii vestnik, 1892–6), and Ekskursiia v oblast' drevnikh rukopisei i staropechatnykh izdanii (An Excursion into the Realm of Early Manuscripts and Old Printed Works, 1900–2).

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