Alma mater Kharkiv University Nationality Ukrainian Children Anastasia Hrinchenko | Language Ukrainian Role Prose writer Pen name Vasyl Chaichenko Name Borys Hrinchenko | |
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Born December 9, 1863
Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire ( 1863-12-09 ) Occupation prose writer, poet, pedagogue, ethnographer, historian, publicist, activist, politician Died May 6, 1910, Ospedaletti, Italy Spouse Maria Hladylina (m. 1884–1910) Education National University of Kharkiv Parents Polikseniia Litariova, Dmytro Hrinchenko | ||
Resting place Baikove Cemetery, Kiev Organizations founded Brotherhood of Tarasovs | ||
Borys Dmytrovych Hrinchenko (Grinchenko) (December 9, 1863 – May 6, 1910) was a classical Ukrainian prose writer, political activist, historian, publicist, and ethnographer. He was instrumental in the Ukrainian cultural revival of the late 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
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Hrinchenko was an editor of various Ukrainian periodicals. He was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Radical Party. Hrinchenko also was an author of seminal ethnographic, lexicographic, and pedagogical works, literary studies, historical reviews, the first textbooks in the Ukrainian language, particularly Native word, the school-book for reading. He was an editor of the four-volume Словарь української мови (Ukrainian Dictionary; Kievskaya starina, 1907–1909). One of the organizers and directors of the Prosvita Society.
Borys Hrinchenko was born on December 9, 1863 in the khutir of Vilkhovy Yar, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (today: Sumy Oblast, Ukraine). His father was a retired army officer of an impoverished noble heritage. His family possessed 19 desyatinas of land, mostly forest and a water mill. His father knew Ukrainian well and used it only when talked with neighboring peasants, whereas at home everyone in the family spoke Russian. Before enrolling in the Kharkiv city secondary school, young Hrinchenko was home schooled. While in school he was first arrested on December 29, 1879 "for possession and distribution" of Serhiy Podolynsky's banned book Парова машина (Steam Machine, 1875). At 16 he was prohibited a further higher education. After about a year of exile to his father's estate, he returned to Kharkiv and worked as a tutor, earning money to obtain a diploma from Kharkiv University as a people's educator.
He died on May 6, 1910 in the town of Ospedaletti in Liguria, Italy.
English Translations
English translations of Borys Hrinchenko's works include: