Vynnychenko, Volodymyr

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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr

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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr [Vynnyčenko], b

27 July 1880 in the village Velykyi Kut,
Yelysavethrad county, Kherson gubernia, d 6
March 1951 in Mougins, France. (Photo:
Volodymyr Vynnychenko.) Writer,
statesman, and politician. Vynnychenko
began to study law at Kyiv University in
1901 but, owing to his expulsion in 1902 for

‘revolutionary’ activities, he never completed

his studies. He was a member of the
Revolutionary Ukrainian party (RUP) and,
later, the executive committee of the

Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party

(USDRP) and editor of its journal Borot’ba. To
avoid arrest for his political activities
Vynnychenko fled abroad many times
between 1903 and 1917 and returned clandestinely to Ukraine or Russia. An

unsuccessful clandestine return earned him a year in prison (1903–4). During

the First World War Vynnychenko lived in Moscow illegally, and in 1917 he
returned to Ukraine to take part in the struggle for independence (1917–20).
As leader of the USDRP he was chosen one of two vice-presidents of the
Central Rada and then the first president of the General Secretariat of the
Central Rada, the autonomous government of Ukraine. During the Hetman
government he headed the oppositional Ukrainian National Union, and then,
from its creation in 1918 until February 1919, the Directory of the Ukrainian
National Republic. Upon disagreeing with the rightist and pro-Entente
politics of the Directory Vynnychenko left for Vienna, where he tried to
mobilize Ukrainian socialists abroad and to negotiate with Vladimir Lenin an independent
socialist Ukrainian state. His attempts in 1920 to reach a similar end while in Ukraine also
proved unsuccessful, and Vynnychenko emigrated and finally settled in France. Though he
maintained contact with some Soviet Ukrainian leaders he never returned to Ukraine. He

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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr

devoted himself almost exclusively to his literary career.

Vynnychenko began writing while he was a student, during which time he produced stories
depicting the working-class milieu, which he knew best. His first story, ‘Krasa i syla’ (Beauty
and Strength, 1902), created a sensation and brought him almost immediate recognition. In
both his heroes (the working class protagonists, the déclassé, petty criminals, and, finally,
revolutionaries) and his themes he abandoned the former populist didactic piety for the more
risqué contemporary revolutionary life, which is often tinged with explicit sexual tensions
and wry humor, and is presented in a dynamic, impressionistic narrative style and a
language bold enough to use the most current patois (surzhyk). His short stories were
extremely popular as a result. More a poser of problems than a stylist, Vynnychenko did not
polish his work; often it seems hurried and even tendentious. The desire to postulate
solutions to various social and moral problems led Vynnychenko to drama, where he could
more readily examine, as if in a moral laboratory, the consistency of human behavior with the
accepted morality, especially the morality of the ‘new revolutionary man.’ In the 20 plays he
wrote (many of them translated and staged in various theaters of Europe) Vynnychenko
examined closely the frequent disparity between deed and ‘noble word,’ aim and moral code.
The proclaimed equality of the sexes is debunked in Bazar (Bazaar, 1910), the notion of
spiritual love, in Dysharmoniia (Disharmony, 1906), the acceptability of ‘surrogate
motherhood,’ in Zakon (The Law, 1923), and the belief that ‘a noble end justifies the means,’
in Hrikh (The Sin, 1920). Other no less interesting plays are Velykyi Molokh (The Grand
Moloch, 1907), Brekhnia (The Lie, 1910), and Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid’ (The Black Panther
and the White Bear, 1911). Having found that moral codes were often set to protect the
interests of a dominant group, Vynnychenko sought to find a way in which humans could
live a truly moral life, and came to the notion ‘To thine own self be true’ as the only viable
moral law. Promulgated best in his novel Chesnist’ z soboiu (Honesty with Oneself, 1906), the
notion provoked misunderstanding and criticism. Vynnychenko was accused of strict
individualism and total amorality.

In all, 11 novels appeared during Vynnychenko's lifetime, of which Zapysky kyrpatoho

Mefistofelia (Notes of Pug-nosed Mephistopheles, 1917) and Soniashna mashyna (The Sun
Machine, 1928; the first Utopian novel in Ukrainian literature) stand out. Of the three novels
which appeared posthumously, Slovo za Toboiu, Staline (It's Your Word Now, Stalin, 1971) is
interesting as an example of Vynnychenko's political thinking after he developed his own
moral world order, which he called ‘concordism.’ He propagated that concept in the novel
Nova zapovid’ (The New Commandment, 1949). Throughout his life Vynnychenko kept a
detailed diary, of which two volumes have been published (Shchodennyk [Diary, vol 1, 1980;
vol 2, 1983]). They provide some insight into his artistic, personal, and political life. Of
historical interest is Vynnychenko's three-volume memoir of the struggle for independence
(1917–20), Vidrodzhennia natsiï (Rebirth of a Nation, 1920).

Until the late 1980s Vynnychenko was proscribed in Ukraine, and his collected works have
not been republished since the 24-volume edition of 1926–30. In the West interest in him was
maintained primarily as a result of the efforts of Hryhory Kostiuk, under whose guidance the
standing Commission for the Study and Publication of the Heritage of Volodymyr

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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr

Vynnychenko was established at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US.
The commission is the custodian of the Vynnychenko archives, housed at Columbia
University in New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kostiuk, H. Volodymyr Vynnychenko ta ioho doba (New York 1980)
Articles in Part III of Studies in Ukrainian Literature, ed Bohdan Rubchak. Vol 16 of AUA
(1984–5)
Stelmashenko, V. (comp). Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Anotovana bibliohrafiia (Edmonton 1989)
Hnidan, O.; Dem'ianivs’ka, L.S. Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Zhyttia, diial’nist’, tvorchist’ (Kyiv 1996)
Panchenko, V. Budynok z khymeramy: Tvorchist’ Volodymyra Vynnychenka 1900–1920 rr. u
ievropeis’komu literaturnomu konteksti (Kirovohrad 1998)

Danylo Husar Struk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Vynnychenko, Volodymyr entry:

1 All-Ukrainian military congresses

2 All-Ukrainian National Congress

3 All-Ukrainian peasant congresses

4 All-Ukrainian workers' congresses
5 Atheism

6 Barabash, Yurii
7 Bila Tserkva
8 Central Rada
9 Communism

10 Council of National Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic

11 Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic

12 Drama
13 Dzvin (Kyiv)

14 February Revolution of 1917

15 Franko, Ivan
16 General Secretariat of the Central Rada

17 History of Ukraine
18 Hlushchenko, Mykola
19 Hromads’ka dumka

20 Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

+ 20 Records >>

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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr

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