Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko

Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko was born in 1778 in the village of Osnova [uk], Sloboda Ukraine Governorate (now within the city of Kharkiv), to a family of Ukrainian nobility.^[3] His uncle Illia Kvitka researched the settlement of Sloboda Ukraine, becoming a pioneer of historical studies in the region.^[4] He adopted the pen name "Osnovianenko," a reference to the village of his birth, when he embarked on his literary career.^[5]

A deeply religious person, at the age of 23 Kvitka entered a monastery, but returned to civil life four years later.^[1] Starting from 1812, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko began his social activities, being appointed the director of a new regular lay theatre which opened in Kharkiv. The love for theatre, which he preserved through all his life, led him to become an author of theatrical drama works. In 1841 he wrote his "Kharkiv Theatre History".^[6] Along with his theatrical activities, Kvitka-Osnovianenko also engaged in philanthropy and became the founder of an Institute for Noble Maidens. He also served as the local Marshal of the Nobility and headed the chamber of Kharkiv's criminal court.^[1]

Starting his career as an author, in 1820-1822 Kvitka-Osnovianenko published his first works in Russian language.^[1] In this he followed the steps of the majority of his contemporaries in the Ukrainian literary scene.^[7] However, with time Kvitka-Osnovianenko became one of the earliest proponents of Ukrainian as a literary language and began publishing in the first Ukrainian literary journals printed in Kharkiv.^[8] He corresponded respectfully with Taras Shevchenko, keeping up constantly with literary life. He was a friend of Nikolai Gogol, and it is possible that Gogol's play The Government Inspector was inspired by Kvitka-Osnovianenko's satiric drama The Visitor from the Capitol or Turmoil in a District Town, which has a very similar plot and cast of characters.^[9]

In his works Kvitka-Osnovianenko initially followed Ivan Kotliarevsky's travesty tradition.^[1] His Ukrainian-language works were mostly burlesque and satirical in nature, but he also wrote more serious prose, such as his sentimentalist novella Marusia,^[7] which initiated the genre of Ukrainian classicist prose.^[2] According to Kvitka's own statement about the novella, he wrote it "to prove to one unbeliever that something gentle and touching can be written in the Ukrainian language."^[10]

He also tried his hand at the gothic genre with his "Dead Man's Easter"^[11] (1834).

Films based on his works:

• The Courtship at Honcharivka (1958)
• Shelmenko the Batman (1910, 1911, 1957)
• Shelmenko the Batman (1971)
• The Witch (1990, 2 a; based on the story "The Witch of Konotop")

Kvitka-Osnovianenko's literary achievement has tended to be a polarizing subject for critics of Ukrainian culture. On the one hand, as one of the first popular writers to use the Ukrainian language, he is viewed a founding figure of Ukrainian literature and the "father of Ukrainian prose".^[1] On the other hand, many prominent Ukrainian scholars, including Ivan Franko, Mykola Zerov, and Dmytro Chyzhevsky, viewed his work as reactionary and conservative and were skeptical of the sentimental, pastoral image that he painted of Ukraine and Ukrainians.^[8]

• List of Ukrainian-language writers
• List of Ukrainian literature translated into English