Muzychenko, Oleksander

Muzychenko, Oleksander [Музиченко, Олександер; Muzyčenko], b 18 August 1875 in Stanyslav, Kherson county, Kherson gubernia, d 12 October 1937 in Kyiv. Pedagogue. After graduating from Odesa University he taught pedagogy at the Nizhyn Lyceum until 1917. After the Revolution of 1917 he was a leading member of the All-Ukrainian Teachers' Association and campaigned actively for the establishment of labor schools. Many of his ideas can be found in his monograph Suchasni pedahohichni techiï v Zakhidnii Ievropi i Amerytsi (Contemporary Pedagogical Trends in Western Europe and America, 1919). Under the Central Rada he was the chief instructor of teachers for the Ministry of Education and a proponent of the Ukrainization of the education system. He was also a member of the faculty of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Academy. In the 1920s he was a professor of pedagogy at the Kyiv Institute of People's Education and director of a local labor school. Renowned as an expert on elementary education, Muzychenko wrote several works about methodology in Vil’na ukraïns’ka shkola and elsewhere, and the monographs Chtenie i kul'tura slova v sovremennoi shkole (Reading and the Culture of Language in Contemporary Schools, 1930) and Chto takoe pedagogika i chemu ona uchit? (What Is Pedagogy and What Does It Teach? 1912).

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