Svientsitsky, Pavlyn

Svientsitsky, Pavlyn [Свєнціцький, Павлин; Svjencic'kyj; Polish: Święcicki, Paulin; pseudonyms: Pavlo Svii, Danylo Lozovsky, Pavlyn Stakhursky, S. Holod, Pevny, Liakh z Ukrainy), b 1841 in Varshytsia, Vinnytsia county, Kyiv gubernia, d 12 September 1876 in Lviv. Ukrainian writer of Polish descent. He studied at Kyiv University. During the Polish Insurrection of 1863-4, which he supported, he emigrated to Austrian-ruled Lviv. There he worked as an actor with the Ruska Besida Theater, collected folklore, and contributed to Nyva (1865), the monthlyMeta, and Lastivka. He also published the Polish-Ukrainian miscellany Sioło (1866–7) and edited the weekly Nowiny (1867–9). From 1869 he taught the Ukrainian language at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv. In Ukrainian Svientsitsky wrote articles, stories, the novel Kolys' bulo (Once upon a Time; in Polish as Przed laty, 1865), the plays Halia (1866), Mishchanka (The Bourgeoise, 1866), and Kateryna (1866, based on Taras Shevchenko’s poem), some poems, and the fable collections Baiky: Darunok malym ditiam (Fables: A Gift for Small Children, 1864) and Baiky v nauku molodym i starym (Fables as a Lesson for Young and Old, 1874, 1891). A book of his stories based on Ukrainian history and folklore, Opowieśći stepowe (Steppe Tales), was published in Lviv in 1871. He translated Shevchenko’s and Yurii Fedkovych’s poems and Marko Vovchok’s stories into Polish, and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Molière’s George Dandin, and Adam Mickiewicz’s sonnets into Ukrainian. He also prepared a Ukrainian grammar (unpublished) and wrote a brochure on 19th-century Ukrainian literature (1871). Volodymyr Radzykevych’s 119-page article about him was published in Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka in 1911, and many of his fables were reprinted in the 1971 Soviet Ukrainian anthology Ukraïns'koiu muzoiu natkhnenni (Inspired by the Ukrainian Muse).

Roman Senkus

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