Volodymyr Kyrylovych Vynnychenko

artist playwright Political activist writer

July 26, 1880 (age 70)

Kropyvnytskyi, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine

In 1902 Volodymyr Kyrylovych published in Kievskaya starina his first novel Beauty and strength, after which he became known as a writer. Afterward, due to a new arrest, he was forcibly drafted into a punitive battalion in the Russian Imperial army where he began to agitate soldiers with revolutionary propaganda. Later he illegally fled to eastern Galicia, Austria-Hungary. When trying to return to Russian Ukraine with revolutionary literature, Volodymyr Kyrylovych was arrested and jailed in Kiev for two years with a threat to spend the rest of his life in katorga. After his release in 1905, Volodymyr Kyrylovychpassed his exams for a law degree in Kiev University. In 1906 Volodymyr Kyrylovych was arrested for a third time, again for his political activities, and jailed for a year; before his scheduled trial, however, the wealthy patron of Ukrainian literature and culture, Yevhen Chykalenko, paid his bail, and Volodymyr Kyrylovych fled Ukraine again, effectively becoming an émigré writer abroad from 1907 to 1914, living in Lemberg (Lviv), Vienna, Geneva, Paris, Florence, Berlin. From 1914 to 1917 he lived illegally near Moscow throughout much of World War I and returned to Kiev in 1917 to assume a leading role in Ukrainian politics. After the Russian revolution in February 1917, Volodymyr Kyrylovych served as the head of the General Secretariat, a representative executive body of the Russian Provisional Government in Ukraine. He was authorized by the Central Rada of Ukraine (a de facto parliament) to conduct negotiations with the Russian Provisional Government, 1917. He resigned his post in the General Secretariat on August 13 in protest against the Russian government's rejection of the Universal of Central Rada. Volodymyr Kyrylovych was offered to return, form a cabinet, and redesign the Second Universal to petition a federal union with the Russian Republic. His second government was confirmed by Alexander Kerensky on September 1. After the October Revolution and the Kiev Bolshevik uprising, many of his secretaries resigned after the Central Rada disapproved of the Bolsheviks' actions in Petrograd with the ongoing confrontations in Moscow as well as the other cities in the country.[citation needed] On January 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed its independence due to the Bolshevik intervention headed by Antonov-Ovseyenko. The country was squeezed between the abandoned German-Russian front-lines to its western border and the advancing Bolshevik forces of Muravyov along the eastern border. Within days, Mikhail Muravyov managed to invade Kiev, forcing the government to evacuate to Zhytomyr whose retreat was secured by the efforts of the Yevhen Konovalets Sich Riflemen. During the evacuation, the Ukrainian government managed to secure military assistance in the face of the Central Powers. The government of the Ukrainian People's Republic signed the highly criticized treaty with the Germans to repel the Bolshevik forces in exchange for a right to expropriate food supplies. That treaty also required the Russian SFSR to recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic. Around that time Vynnychenko's government established an economic agreement with the government of the Belarus People's Republic through the Belarus Chamber of Commerce in Kiev. Alas, Vynnychenko's was replaced as well by the Socialist-Revolutionary government of Vsevolod Holubovych. After the coup d'etat of Hetman Skoropadsky in April 1918, Volodymyr Kyrylovych left Kiev. Later, after forming the Directorate of Ukraine he took an active part in organizing a revolt against the Hetman. The revolt was successful and he returned to the capital on December 19, 1918. The Directorate, a temporary executive council of five, proclaimed the restoration of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The Directorate was put in charge by the Labor Congress until the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly would convene to elect a permanent body of government. Volodymyr Kyrylovych stepped down on February 10, 1919 and emigrated abroad. In a brief period while in Vienna, in 1920, he wrote his three-volume work Rebirth of the Nation. At the same time, at the end of 1919, Vynnychenko resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party and formed the Foreign Group of Ukrainian Communists. Volodymyr Kyrylovych formed the Foreign Group of the Ukrainian Communist Party, which was mainly made up of other former members of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party, to promulgate this position. In June 1920 Volodymyr Kyrylovych himself traveled to Moscow in an attempt to come to an agreement with the Bolsheviks. After four months of unsuccessful negotiations, he had become disillusioned with the Bolsheviks: he accused them of Great Russian Chauvinism and insincerity as socialists. In September 1920 he returned to émigré life, where he revealed his impressions of Bolshevik rule. These actions produced a split in the Foreign Group of the Ukrainian Communist Party: some remained pro-Bolshevik and indeed returned to Soviet Ukraine; others supported Vynnychenko, and with him conducted a campaign against the Soviet regime in their organ Nova Doba (New Era). Volodymyr Kyrylovych spent the following thirty years in Europe, residing in Germany in the 1920s, then moving to France. As an émigré, he resumed his career as a writer; in 1919 his writing was republished in an eleven-volume edition in the 1920s. In 1934 he moved from Paris to Mougins, near Cannes, on the Mediterranean coast, where he lived on a homestead type residence as a self-supporting farmer and continued to write, notably a philosophical exposition of his ideas about happiness, Concordism. Volodymyr Kyrylovych died in Mougins, near Cannes, France in 1951.

Volodymyr Kyrylovych Vynnychenko

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artist playwright Political activist writer

Background

Volodymyr Kyrylovych Vynnychenko was born on July 26, 1880 in Kropyvnytskyi, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine. His father Kyrylo Vasyliovych Vynnychenko earlier in his life was a peasant-serf who moved from a village to the city of Yelisavetgrad, where he married a widow, Yevdokia Pavlenko (nee Linnyk). From her previous marriage, Yevdokia had three children: Andriy, Maria, and Vasyl, while from the marriage with Kyrylo only one son, Volodymyr.

Education

The Vynnychenko family managed to enroll Volodymyr at the Yelyzavetgrad Male Gymnasium (today the building of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine). In later grades of the gymnasium, he took part in a revolutionary organization and wrote a revolutionary poem for which he was incarcerated for a week and excluded from school. That did not stop him from continuing his studies as he was getting prepared for his test to obtain the high school diploma (Matura). Volodymyr Kyrylovych successfully took the test in the Zlatopil gymnasium from which obtained his attestation of maturity.

In 1900 Volodymyr Kyrylovych enrolled in the law department at Kiev University, but in 1902 or 1903 he was expelled for participation in revolutionary activities.

Career

In 1902 Volodymyr Kyrylovych published in Kievskaya starina his first novel Beauty and strength, after which he became known as a writer. Afterward, due to a new arrest, he was forcibly drafted into a punitive battalion in the Russian Imperial army where he began to agitate soldiers with revolutionary propaganda. Later he illegally fled to eastern Galicia, Austria-Hungary. When trying to return to Russian Ukraine with revolutionary literature, Volodymyr Kyrylovych was arrested and jailed in Kiev for two years with a threat to spend the rest of his life in katorga. After his release in 1905, Volodymyr Kyrylovychpassed his exams for a law degree in Kiev University.

In 1906 Volodymyr Kyrylovych was arrested for a third time, again for his political activities, and jailed for a year; before his scheduled trial, however, the wealthy patron of Ukrainian literature and culture, Yevhen Chykalenko, paid his bail, and Volodymyr Kyrylovych fled Ukraine again, effectively becoming an émigré writer abroad from 1907 to 1914, living in Lemberg (Lviv), Vienna, Geneva, Paris, Florence, Berlin.

From 1914 to 1917 he lived illegally near Moscow throughout much of World War I and returned to Kiev in 1917 to assume a leading role in Ukrainian politics. After the Russian revolution in February 1917, Volodymyr Kyrylovych served as the head of the General Secretariat, a representative executive body of the Russian Provisional Government in Ukraine. He was authorized by the Central Rada of Ukraine (a de facto parliament) to conduct negotiations with the Russian Provisional Government, 1917. He resigned his post in the General Secretariat on August 13 in protest against the Russian government's rejection of the Universal of Central Rada. Volodymyr Kyrylovych was offered to return, form a cabinet, and redesign the Second Universal to petition a federal union with the Russian Republic. His second government was confirmed by Alexander Kerensky on September 1.

After the October Revolution and the Kiev Bolshevik uprising, many of his secretaries resigned after the Central Rada disapproved of the Bolsheviks' actions in Petrograd with the ongoing confrontations in Moscow as well as the other cities in the country.[citation needed] On January 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed its independence due to the Bolshevik intervention headed by Antonov-Ovseyenko. The country was squeezed between the abandoned German-Russian front-lines to its western border and the advancing Bolshevik forces of Muravyov along the eastern border. Within days, Mikhail Muravyov managed to invade Kiev, forcing the government to evacuate to Zhytomyr whose retreat was secured by the efforts of the Yevhen Konovalets Sich Riflemen. During the evacuation, the Ukrainian government managed to secure military assistance in the face of the Central Powers. The government of the Ukrainian People's Republic signed the highly criticized treaty with the Germans to repel the Bolshevik forces in exchange for a right to expropriate food supplies. That treaty also required the Russian SFSR to recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic. Around that time Vynnychenko's government established an economic agreement with the government of the Belarus People's Republic through the Belarus Chamber of Commerce in Kiev. Alas, Vynnychenko's was replaced as well by the Socialist-Revolutionary government of Vsevolod Holubovych.

After the coup d'etat of Hetman Skoropadsky in April 1918, Volodymyr Kyrylovych left Kiev. Later, after forming the Directorate of Ukraine he took an active part in organizing a revolt against the Hetman. The revolt was successful and he returned to the capital on December 19, 1918. The Directorate, a temporary executive council of five, proclaimed the restoration of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The Directorate was put in charge by the Labor Congress until the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly would convene to elect a permanent body of government.

Volodymyr Kyrylovych stepped down on February 10, 1919 and emigrated abroad. In a brief period while in Vienna, in 1920, he wrote his three-volume work Rebirth of the Nation. At the same time, at the end of 1919, Vynnychenko resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party and formed the Foreign Group of Ukrainian Communists.

Volodymyr Kyrylovych formed the Foreign Group of the Ukrainian Communist Party, which was mainly made up of other former members of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party, to promulgate this position. In June 1920 Volodymyr Kyrylovych himself traveled to Moscow in an attempt to come to an agreement with the Bolsheviks. After four months of unsuccessful negotiations, he had become disillusioned with the Bolsheviks: he accused them of Great Russian Chauvinism and insincerity as socialists.

In September 1920 he returned to émigré life, where he revealed his impressions of Bolshevik rule. These actions produced a split in the Foreign Group of the Ukrainian Communist Party: some remained pro-Bolshevik and indeed returned to Soviet Ukraine; others supported Vynnychenko, and with him conducted a campaign against the Soviet regime in their organ Nova Doba (New Era).

Volodymyr Kyrylovych spent the following thirty years in Europe, residing in Germany in the 1920s, then moving to France. As an émigré, he resumed his career as a writer; in 1919 his writing was republished in an eleven-volume edition in the 1920s.

In 1934 he moved from Paris to Mougins, near Cannes, on the Mediterranean coast, where he lived on a homestead type residence as a self-supporting farmer and continued to write, notably a philosophical exposition of his ideas about happiness, Concordism.

Volodymyr Kyrylovych died in Mougins, near Cannes, France in 1951.

Works

Zapiski kurnosogo Mefistofelya Zapiski kurnosogo Mefistofelya

book
- Zapiski kurnosogo Mefistofelya
  (Russian edition)
  1920
- Vozrozhdenie nacii
  (Russian edition)
  1920
novel
- Zolotye rossypi
  (Russian edition)
  1927

Politics

In 1900 Volodymyr Kyrylovych joined the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP). As a member of the RUPhe provided political agitation and propaganda among the Kievan workers and peasants from Poltava and was jailed for several months in Lukyanivska Prison. He managed to escape from his incarceration.

Connections

In 1911 Volodymyr Kyrylovych married Rosalia Lifshitz, a French Jewish doctor.

Father:: Kyrylo Vasyliovych Vynnychenko
Mother:: Yevdokia Pavlenko
Spouse:: Rozalia Vynnychenko

References

Russian writers. 1800-1917. Biographical Dictionary. Volume 1
1989

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