Le, Ivan

Le, Ivan [Ле, Іван; pseudonym of Іван Мойся; Ivan Moisia], b 22 March 1895 in Moisyntsi, Zolotonosha county, Poltava gubernia, d 9 October 1978 in Kyiv. Writer. One of the founders of Soviet Ukrainian socialist-realist literature, he began to be published in the early 1920s. He wrote collections of short stories and novels, such as Budni (Weekdays, 1926), Iukhym Kudria (1926), and Tanets' zhyvota (The Belly Dance, 1928). His most popular work was Roman mizhhir"ia (The Intermountain Novel, 1929), which was published many times and later somewhat modified because of the treatment of the problem of national relations between Russians and the peoples of Asia in the original. Later he wrote the novel Integral (1931) in the official vein. His historical novels Nalyvaiko (1940) and Khmel'nyts'kyi (3 vols, 1957–65) were written in accordance with official Soviet historiography.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]