Vasyl Shchurat


Vasyl Shchurat was a Ukrainian educator, literary critic, poet and translator. In 1895, he completed a full translation of "Song of Roland" into Ukrainian. He was the author of the best verse translation of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" into modern Ukrainian before 1914. He was the father of the scholar and literary critic.

Biography

He was a native of the village of Vysloboky in the Lviv Oblast. He completed his studies in Slavic philology in 1895 at the universities of Lviv and Vienna, and he passed his pedagogical exam at the Chernivtsi University in 1898.
Ivan Franko introduced Shchurat to the literary, scientific, civic, and journalistic life of Lviv and Vienna. Shchurat remained under his influence until 1896. Shchurat published articles, poetic translations, and original poems in the Austrian, Polish, Czech, and Western Ukrainian press. He was a co-editor of the newspaper "Bukovyna" in Chernivtsi, and the editor of the magazines "Moloda Muza", "Svit", and the weekly "Nedilia". For political reasons, he supported the "Dilo" organization.
From 1898 to 1934, he taught at state gymnasiums in Przemyśl, Brody, and Lviv. In 1921, he refused to pledge allegiance to the Polish state and became the director of the private women's gymnasium of the Basilian Sisters in Lviv.
In 1914, Shchurat was elected a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, and he served as its chairman from 1915 to 1923. He was actively involved in the struggle for a Ukrainian university, and after its failure, he became the initiator and first rector of the Secret Ukrainian University. In 1930, due to the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine process and subsequent repressions in Ukraine, he renounced his status as a full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, which he had been granted in June 1929 along with and F. M. Kolessa for "language and literature". In the final years of his life, he worked as the director of the Lviv Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and as a professor at University of Lviv.
Ivan Franko wrote a poetic response, the poem "Dekadent", to Shchurat's accusations.
He died on 24 April 1948, in Lviv. He is buried in Lychakiv Cemetery.

Creativity

Shchurat's literary criticism was thematically diverse, ranging from old Ukrainian literature to 19th-century literature, including works on Taras Shevchenko, Markiian Shashkevych, Panteleimon Kulish, Ivan Kotliarevsky, Yuriy Fedkovych, Ivan Franko, Volodymyr Samiilenko, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, and others.
His collections of poetry include:Lux in tenebris Moi lysty Raz do mene molodist pryishla, Na trembiti Istorychni pisni Vybir pisen
  • The poem V suzdalskii tiurmi
From 1898 to 1900, he published a series of artistic works called Artystychno-literaturni novyny. In 1900 and 1905, Shchurat published the verse prayer book Iz hlybyny vozzvakh, and in 1902, the poem Zarvanytsia, which were examples of Ukrainian religious poetry.
In addition, he translated extensively from ancient poets, French, German, Polish, and others.
Shchurat dedicated a great deal of attention to Ukrainian-Polish relations, particularly in literature.
Shchurat's works were primarily published in the "Notes of the NTSH". Posthumous editions of Shchurat's works include: "Poetry", "Selected Works on the History of Literature". He is credited with the translation of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" into modern Ukrainian.
He is the author of the historical and local history article "Churches of the Greek Catholic Parish in Brody" and "" by Dr. Vasyl Shchurat.