Vrazhlyvy, Vasyl

Vrazhlyvy, Vasyl [Вражливий, Василь; Vražlyvyj, Vasyl'; pseudonym of Василь Штанько; Vasyl Shtanko], b 1903 in Opishnia near Zinkiv, Poltava gubernia, d 8 December 1937 in Sandarmokh, Karelia region, RSFSR. Writer and translator. He was a member of the literary organizations Vaplite and Prolitfront. His first collection of short stories was V iaru (In the Ravine, 1924). Subsequently he published Zemlia (Earth, 1925), Zhyttia biloho budynku (The Life of a White Building, 1927), Vovchi bairaky (The Wolf Thickets, 1927), Molodist' (Youth, 1927), Shist' opovidan' (Six Stories, 1930), Hlyboki rozvidky (Deep Inquiries, 1932), Peremoha (Victory, 1932), a long novelette, Bat'ko (Father, 1929), and a novel, Sprava sertsia (A Matter of the Heart, 1933). He translated works by Honoré de Balzac and Alain-René Lesage. In December 1934 he was arrested, and in 1935 he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in a concentration camp. He was subsequently resentenced, to death by firing squad.

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