Rudnytsky, Mykhailo

Rudnytsky, Mykhailo [Рудницький, Михайло; Rudnyc’kyj, Myxajlo], b 7 January 1889 in Pidhaitsi, Galicia, d 1 February 1975 in Lviv. Literary critic, literary scholar, and teacher; brother of Ivan Kedryn, Milena Rudnytska, and Antin Rudnytsky. He concluded his studies at Lviv University (PH D, 1914) and studied Western European literatures in Paris (between 1910 and 1911, where he was active in the Circle of Ukrainians in Paris) and London (1919–22). He was a professor at the Lviv (Underground) Ukrainian University (1922–5) and contributed to the newspaper Dilo and the journal Nazustrich (1934). In 1939 he became a professor of foreign literatures, and in 1948, of Ukrainian literature at Lviv University. Rudnytsky was the author of literary criticism and original literary work, including Mizh ideieiu i formoiu (Between Concept and Form, 1932), Vid Myrnoho do Khvyl’ovoho (From Myrny to Khvylovy, 1936), a collection of poetic prose titled Ochi ta usta (Eyes and Lips, 1922), collections of short stories, and literary portraits. He wrote memoirs, including Nahody i pryhody (Opportunities and Adventures, 1929), Tvorchi budni Ivana Franka (Ivan Franko's Creative Days, 1956), Pys’mennyky zblyz’ka (Writers at Close Range, 3 vols, 1958–64), Zmarnovanyi siuzhet (A Wasted Plot, 1961), Nenapysani novely (Unwritten Novellas, 1966), and Neperedbacheni zustrichi (Unforeseen Meetings, 1969). Together with V. Bieliaiev he wrote several pamphlets directed against ‘bourgeois nationalists’ titled ‘Pid chuzhymy praporamy’ (Under Foreign Flags, pub in Russian in 1954, in Ukrainian in 1956, and in Chinese in 1957). He also translated William Shakespeare, Honoré de Balzac, Prosper Mérimée, and Gustave Flaubert into Ukrainian, Vasyl Stefanyk, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, and Mykhailo Yatskiv into French.

Ivan Koshelivets

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