Background
MIKITENKO, Ivan was born on September 6, 1897 in village Rovnoye, now Kirovograd Oblast.
MIKITENKO, Ivan was born on September 6, 1897 in village Rovnoye, now Kirovograd Oblast.
1914 graduate Kherson Military Medical Orderlies College. 1922-1926 studied at Odessa Medical Institute. 1927 graduate Khar’kov Medical Institute.
From 1914 served at the front. From 1918 medical orderly in Kherson Province. Also active in cultural and educational work.
1927-1932 helped lead All-Ukraine Union of Proletarian Writers. 1932-1934 member, Organization(s) Bureau, Ukraine and Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Writers’ Union. Member, International Bureau for the Struggle Against Fascism.
1935 and 1937 attended World Anti-Fascist Congresses in Defense of Peace. From 1931 also member, Ukraine Central Executive Committee. 1924 first work published.
In the 1930's his plays were staged throughout the Ukraine, and also in Moscow and Leningrad. Concentrated on building of socialism in the villages, mines and Communist Youth League construction projects. Also dealt with training of “new” Soviet intelligentsia, establishment of Soviet regime in the Ukraine and struggle against Ukraine “bourgeois nationalism”.
Arrested by State Security organs.
Board member, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Writers’ Union from 1934. Communist Party member from 1925.