Career
Born as Mykola Fitilyov in Trostyanets, Kharkov Governorate to a Russian laborer father and Ukrainian schoolteacher mother, Khvylovy joined the Communist Party in 1919. In the same year he became the chief of local Extraordinary Commission Against Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation in Bohodukhiv povit. He moved to Kharkiv in 1921 and involved himself with writers connected to Vasyl Blakytny and the paper Visti VUTsVK (news from All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee).
In 1921, he also published his first poetry collection.
In 1922, he began to focus more on prose writing. His initial collections Syni etiudy (Blue Etudes, 1923) and Osin’ (Autumn, 1924) generated approval from critics like Serhiy Yefremov, Oleksander Biletsky, Volodymyr Koriak, Yevhen Malaniuk and Dmytro Dontsov.
His impressions of the work as a CheKa officer are reflected in his 1924 novel "I (Romance)", the hero of which - the head of the local Extraordinary Commission Against Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation - sentenced his mother to death in the name of the ideals of the revolution. Because of Stalin"s repressions against his friends in the pro-Ukrainian Communist movement, Khvylovy committed suicide on 13 May 1933 in front of his friends in his apartment in Kharkiv.
His suicide note said: "Arrest of Yalovy - this is the murder of an entire generation.
Foreign what? Because we were the most sincere Communists? I don"t understand. The responsibility for the actions of Yalovy"s generation lies with me, Khvylovy. Today is a beautiful sunny day.
I love life - you can"t even imagine how much.
Today is the 13th. Remember I was in love with this number? Terribly painful. Long live the Communist Party.".