Volodymyr Kirillovich Vynnychenko is a politician and statesman, prose writer and playwright.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on July 26, 1880 in Yelysavetgrad (now Kropyvnytskyi) in a family of peasants.
When Vynnychenko was 7 years old, he was sent to a public school. Later, he became a student of the Elisavetgrad Men’s Classical Gymnasium, which was considered very prestigious, but education there was paid. Later, due to financial difficulties, he could not complete it.
Later, he passed the exams for the high school course as an external student and in 1901 became a student of the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University.
Early years
In 1902, Vynnychenko published the work “Strength and Beauty”.
The following year, in 1903, he was arrested as a member of the local Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and placed in the Lukyanivska prison in Kyiv. After his arrest, he was also expelled from the university. Subsequently, he managed to escape from prison and to avoid being re-incarcerated, he left the country. For some time he lived in France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Sometimes he came to Ukraine, but was there illegally.
During this time, he was actively engaged in literary activities and wrote many works that raised social and ethical issues, including “Disharmony”, “Steps of Life” and “Contrasts”.
With the outbreak of the First World War, he was in Moscow, where from 1914 to 1917 he lived under an assumed name. During this period, he was engaged in publishing, in particular, he published the magazine “Promin”.
In 1917, he returned to Ukraine, where he joined the formation of the Central Rada, becoming one of its leaders. Later, he headed the first Ukrainian government – the General Secretariat. He became one of the leaders of the Directory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
Emigration
In 1918, Vynnychenko was arrested by officers of the hetman’s army, but thanks to the protests of the Ukrainian public, he was released. Due to differences of opinion with most members of the Directory and the government, he decided to go abroad.
In 1920, he came to Ukraine again, but on September 23, 1920, he finally left it, refusing to work in the government of Soviet Ukraine.
In the period from 1924 to 1928, the publishing house “Rukh” published the “Collected Works” of the writer in 23 volumes. And in 1930 – 1932, “Knigospilka” prepared for publication a new edition of his works in 28 volumes.
In September 1933, Vynnychenko addressed the Politburo of the Communist Party of Ukraine with an open letter, in which he accused Joseph Stalin and Pavel Postyshev of organizing the Holodomor and mass repressions against Ukrainians. After that, his books began to be seized and destroyed, his name was no longer mentioned, and the writer himself was declared an enemy of the Soviet government.
He spent the last years of his life with his wife in France, in the town of Mougins near Cannes, in their own small house, which they called “The Corner”.
Vynnychenko died on March 6, 1951. Even before his death, he was not allowed to return to Ukraine.
Volodymyr Vynnychenko: interesting facts
Here are some interesting facts from Vynnychenko’s life:
- Since childhood, he was fond of dangerous entertainment. Once he swam across a large pond on a dispute and almost drowned. Another time he was injured due to a fall from a horse;
- From an early age, he stood out among his peers for his memory and love of reading;
- after entering the men’s gymnasium in Elisavetgrad, he mastered several languages: Russian, Latin, Greek, German and French;
- during World War II, he was offered to head a puppet government in occupied Ukraine, but he refused. After that, he was arrested and placed in a concentration camp, from where he was released two weeks later.
- He wrote constantly. He wrote more than 100 stories, plays and pamphlets, 14 novels, 40 notebooks, as well as 10 novels, although part of his work remained unfinished.
Marital Status
In 1911, while in Paris, he met Rosalia Lifshitz, who later became his wife.
