Ivan Franko

Ukrainian author and scholar

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History

Ivan Franko (born Aug. 27, 1856, Nahuyevychi, Galicia, Austrian Empire [now Ivana-Franka, Ukraine]—died May 28, 1916, Lemberg, Galicia [now Lviv, Ukraine]) was a Ukrainian author, scholar, journalist, and political activist who gained preeminence among Ukrainian writers at the end of the 19th century. He wrote dramas, lyric poetry, short stories, essays, and children’s verse, but his naturalistic novels chronicling contemporary Galician society and his long narrative poems mark the height of his literary achievement.

At an early age, Franko began composing poetry and plays. In 1875 he entered the university in Lemberg (later Lviv State Ivan Franko University), where he became a socialist and contributed to political and literary journals and to populist newspapers. Active political involvement and occasional imprisonment interrupted his studies, which were completed at the University of Vienna in 1891. In his later years he grew critical of Marxist socialism and supported Ukrainian nationalism.

Franko’s literary career was characterized by a gradual shift from Romanticism to realism. He wrote more than 40 long poems, notably Panski zharty (1887; A Landlord’s Jests), Ivan Vyshensky (1900; Ivan Vyshensky), and Moysey (1905; Moses). His collections of verse include Ziv’yale lystya (1896; “Withered Leaves”), Miy izmarahd (1897; “My Emerald”), and Iz dniv zhurby (1900; “From the Days of Sorrow”). He wrote some 100 works of prose, including the novels Boryslav smiyetsya (1882; “Boryslav Laughs”), Zakhar Berkut (1883), Osnovy suspilnosti (1895; “Pillars of Society”), and Perekhresni stezhky (1900; “The Crossroads”). Collections of his works in translation include Selected Poetry (1976), Short Stories (1977), Selections: Poems and Stories (1986), and Moses and Other Poems (1987).