Rudnyckyj, Jaroslav

Rudnyckyj, Jaroslav [Рудницький, Ярослав; Rudnyc’kyj], b 28 November 1910 in Peremyshl, Galicia, d 19 October 1995 in Montreal. Slavist, linguist, and civic figure; husband of Maryna Rudnytska; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society since 1947. After studying at Lviv University (MA, 1934; PH D, 1937) he became a research associate of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin (1938–40), docent (1940–3) and professor (1943–80) at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague and Munich, lecturer at Prague (1941–5) and Heidelberg (1947–8) universities, and professor and first head of the department of Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (1949–77). As a member of the Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–71) he made an important contribution to Canada's policy of multiculturalism. He served as president of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in Canada (1955–70), the Canadian Linguistic Association (1958–60), the Canadian Association of Slavists (1959), the American Name Society (1959), the Canadian Institute of Onomastic Sciences, the Canadian Comparative Literature Association, the Canadian Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, the Ukrainian Language Association (in Canada), and the Ukrainian Mohylo-Mazepian Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a co-founder and long-time vice-president of the Ukrainian Shakespeare Society. He was also founding editor of Slavistica (1948), Onomastica (1951), Ukrainica Canadiana (1953–73), Ukrainica Occidentalia (1956–66), and Slovo na storozhi (1964–89). He was appointed member of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1978, and he served as its head in 1980–9. His numerous articles and reviews on Ukrainian language, dialects, linguistics, onomastics, folklore, and literature have appeared in Ukrainian émigré and Western periodicals, and over 50 of his works have been separately published, including Ukraïns’ka mova ta ïï hovory (The Ukrainian Language and Its Dialects, 1937; 4th rev edn 1977), Lehrbuch der ukrainischen Sprache (1940; 4th edn 1964), Lemberger ukrainische Stadtmundart (1943), The Term and Name ‘Ukraine’ (1951), Canadian Place Names of Ukrainian Origin (1952), An Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (2 vols [22 fascicles], 1962–82), Geographical Names of Boikovia (1939; repr 1962), and Manitoba Mosaic of Place Names (1970). He is the coauthor of Ukrainische Mundarten: Südkarpatoukrainisch (Lemkisch, Bojkisch, Huzulisch) (1940), Ukrainisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (1943), and A Modern Ukrainian Grammar (1949; 7th printing 1978). His papers are preserved at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa. The most recent bibliography of his works was published in 1984.

Roman Senkus

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