Orkan, Władysław

Orkan, Władysław (pseudonym of Franciszek Smreczyński; other pseud: Smaciarz), b 27 November 1875 in Poręba Wielka, Poland, d 4 May 1930 in Cracow. Polish writer; member of the Polish modernist group Młoda Polska. Orkan wrote short stories capturing the life of poor mountain folk in a naturalistic manner (see Naturalism). He befriended the Ukrainian writers Bohdan Lepky and Vasyl Stefanyk and was instrumental in furthering good relations between Ukrainian and Polish writers. Together with Lepky and V. Yarosh he translated Ukrainian prose into Polish and published it in a collection entitled Młoda Ukraina (Young Ukraine, 1908). He helped to publish and wrote the introductions to an anthology of Ukrainian poetry translated into Polish by Sydir Tverdokhlib, Antologia współczesnych poetów ukraińskich (An Anthology of Contemporary Ukrainian Poets, 1911), and Mykhailo Yatskiv’s collection of short stories, Wieczorne psoty (Evening Pranks, 1910). Some of his works were also translated into Ukrainian. Hryhorii Verves wrote a monograph on Orkan, Vladyslav Orkan i ukraïns’ka literatura (Władysław Orkan and Ukrainian Literature, 1962).

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