Sukhomlynsky, Vasyl

Sukhomlynsky, Vasyl [Сухомлинський, Василь; Sukhomlyns'kyj, Vasyl'], b 28 November 1918 in Vasylivka, Oleksandriia county, Kherson gubernia, d 2 November 1970 in Pavlysh, Onufriivka raion, Kirovohrad oblast. Pedagogue. He graduated from the Poltava Pedagogical Institute in 1939. In 1947–70 he was director of the Pavlysh secondary school. In 1957 he became a corresponding member of the RSFSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, and in 1968 a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. He wrote books and numerous articles (in both Ukrainian and Russian) devoted to questions of the education of young people, parental involvement in the educational process, and the methodology of literature and language instruction in secondary schools. He is representative of the more humanist current of Soviet pedagogical thought. Although he did not reject the collective, he emphasized the need to foster the individual development of young people. He also opposed the trend toward the vocationalization of secondary education under Nikita Khrushchev. Five volumes of his selected works were published in 1976–7. His best-known work is Sertse viddaiu ditiam (I Give My Heart to Children, 1969).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]