Klym Lavrynovych Polishchuk ( uk, Клим Лаврентійович Поліщук, 25 November 1891, Krasnopil, Zhytomyr region,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

– 3 November 1937,

Sandarmokh Sandarmokh (russian: Сандармох; krl, Sandarmoh) is a forest massif from Medvezhyegorsk in the Republic of Karelia where possibly thousands of victims of Stalin's Great Terror were executed. More than 58 nationalities were shot and bur ...

, Russia) was a Ukrainian journalist, poet and writer.

Biography

Klym Polishchuk was born into a peasant family. As a child he was home-schooled, along with his brother Fedir and sister Nastia, by their father. At a young age Klym was forced to work as a hired worker. In addition to being interested in literature, Klym Polishchuk was a skilled artist. In 1909, with the support of the Hromada benevolent organisation and a few individuals, Klym Polishchuk enrolled at the Art Drawing College,

Art Academy An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-second ...

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Russia. In 1912, due to a lack of funds, Polishchuk withdrew from the college and returned to

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, a ...

. In August 1914 Klym Polishchuk was arrested for "

separatism Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...

" activities and exiled to Russia. In 1916 he was deployed to fight in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In 1920 Klym Polishchuk moved to

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

, where in 1921 married an upcoming writer, Halyna Mnevska (Halyna Orlivna, pseudonym). The following year their daughter Lesia was born. Klym Polishchuk and Halyna Mnevska divorced in 1927. On 4 November 1929, following the falsified charges, Klym Polishchuk was accused of '

bourgeois nationalism In Marxism, bourgeois nationalism is the practice by the ruling classes of deliberately dividing people by nationality, race, ethnicity, or religion, so as to distract them from engaging in class struggle. It is seen as a divide-and-conquer st ...

' and sentenced to exile and 10 years of hard labour in concentration camps. Klym Polishchuk's last place of imprisonment, along with 289 other representatives of Ukrainian

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

(including,

Mykola Zerov Mykola Kostiantynovych Zerov (Ukrainian: Микола Костянтинович Зеров; 26 April 1890, in Zinkiv, Poltava Governorate – 3 November 1937, in Sandarmokh, Karelia Hryhorii Epik Hryhorii Danylovych Epik ( uk, Григорій Данилович Епік) (January 17, 1901 – November 3, 1937) was a Ukrainian writer and journalist. He supported the Soviet Ukrainization during the 1920s, which likely led to his arrest and ...

, Marko Voronyi,

Mykola Kulish Mykola Hurovych Kulish ( uk, Микола Гурович Куліш) (19 December 1892 – 3 November 1937) was a Ukrainian prose writer, playwright, pedagogue, veteran of World War I, and Red Army veteran. He is considered to be one of the le ...

Valerian Pidmohylny Valerian Petrovych Pidmohylny (Ukrainian: Валер'ян Петрович Підмогильний; 2 February 1901 - 3 November 1937) was a Ukrainian modernist, most famous for the realist novel '' Misto'' (The City). Like a number of Ukra ...

i, Yulian Shpol,

Valerian Polishchuk Valerian Lvovych Polishchuk ( uk, Валеріан Львович Поліщук, 1 October 1897 — 9 October 1937) was a Ukrainian writer and poet, a representative of the Executed Renaissance. He wrote in Ukrainian. Polishchuk was born in the ...

, Les Kurbas, and Myroslav Irchan), was the Solovki island prison in the White Sea. He was executed at the peak of the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

Karelia Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...

, Russia, on 3 November 1937. The executions of various categories of offender and "enemy" - anti-social elements, bourgeois nationalists, former kulaks and White Army officers, foreign saboteurs and spies - were carried out according to quotas assigned to each Region and Republic in the Soviet Union. Enthusiastic subordinates made several requests for increasing their quota of executions and arrests as the targets were reached and exceeded.

Literary career

Klym Polishchuk's literary career began with poetry. At the age of fifteen his poem ''Watching God's World'' (Dyvliachys na Myr Bozhyi) was published in the ''Volyn'' newspaper (1906). Soon after that his first short story appeared in ''Dzvinok'' magazine. In 1914 Klym Polishchuk's first book, ''Faraway Stars'' (Daleki Zori), was published. In 1919, in Kyiv, Klym Polishchuk joined other Ukrainian authors such as

Pavlo Tychyna Pavlo Hryhorovych Tychyna ( uk, Павло Григорович Тичина; – September 16, 1967) was a major Ukrainian poet, translator, publicist, public activist, academician, and statesman. He composed the lyrics to the Anthem of the Ukr ...

, Yakiv Savchenko, Les Kurbas, Pavlo Phylypovych, Dmytro Zahul, Oleksa Slisarenko, Mykhailo Ivchenko and Mykhailo Zhuk in establishing Muzahet, a literature and art group that focused on the characteristics of Ukrainian national literature. In 1920 Muzahet was banned and most of its members were later sentenced and executed. Thematically, Klym Polishchuk's prose works are divided into two major groups. The first group consists of works incorporating Ukrainian folklore and legends, including ''Handful of Earth: Halychyna Legends'' and ''Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends''. The second group is composed of historical stories and novels, featuring revolutionary ( October Socialist Revolution) and war (

) events, such as ''Red Mirage: Essays and Short Stories of the Revolution Period'' and ''Otaman Zelenyi''. Klym Polishchuk's

literary style In literature, writing style is the manner of expressing thought in language characteristic of an individual, period, school, or nation. As Bryan Ray notes, however, style is a broader concern, one that can describe "readers' relationships with, t ...

is often characterised by artful application of

symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...

and

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

Krys, Svitlana (2016
‘Book Review: Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska, The Living Grave: A Ukrainian Legend and Klym Polishchuk, Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends’
''EWJUS: East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies'', Vol 3, No 2, pp. 213–215. elements.

Major works

1921 – ''Handful of Earth: Halychyna Legends'' (‘Zhmenia zemli: Halytski lehendy’) 1921 – ''Red Mirage: Essays and Short Stories of the Revolution Period'' (‘Chervone marevo: narysy i opovidannia z chasiv revoliutsiyi’) 1921 – ''Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends'' (‘Skarby vikiv: Ukrainski Lehendy’) 1921 – ''Voyenko'' 1921 – ''Zvukolirnist'' (‘Zvukolirnist’) 1921 – ''Folk Tale of the Palace'' (Kazka palatsu) 1922 – ''A Crucified Soul'' (Rozpyata dusha) 1923 – ''Huliaypole Father'' (Huliaypilskyi batko) 1923 – ''Otaman Zelenyi'' (Otaman Zelenyi) 1929 – ''Polissya Sounds'' (Poliski Shumy) (Manuscript was never published due to the author's arrest).

Works translated into English

Polishchuk, K 2015, ''Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends'' karby vikiv: Ukrainski Lehendy trans. S Chornomorets, Sova Books, Sydney, original work published 1921

References

{{authority control Ukrainian male writers Great Purge victims from Ukraine Ukrainian male poets Ukrainian journalists