Rudchenko, Ivan

Rudchenko, Ivan [Рудченко, Іван; Rudčenko; pseudonyms: Ivan Kyvaiholova, Ivan Ruina, I. Yakovenko, I. Bilyk], b 2 September 1845 in Myrhorod, Poltava gubernia, d 1 June 1905 in Kyiv. Folklorist, literary critic, writer, and publicist; brother of Panas Myrny. His first articles and folklore materials appeared in Osnova (Saint Petersburg) in 1862. Beginning in 1867 the Lviv journal Pravda published many of his poems, articles of literary criticism, reviews, and literary translations from Russian, German, English, and Polish. His chief contributions to folklore studies were Narodnye iuzhno-russkie skazki (South Russian Folktales, 2 vols, 1869–70) and Chumatskie narodnye pesni (Folk Songs of the Chumaks, 1874). The Ems Ukase prevented him from publishing other works on folklore. With Myrny he cowrote the famous novel Khiba revut' voly iak iasla povni? (Do Oxen Low When Mangers Are Full? 1880). He left a great number of manuscripts, including 1,000 folktales, which are preserved in the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]