Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan

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Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan [Nečuj-Levyc’kyj]

(pseud of Ivan Levytsky; other pseuds: I.
Nechui, I. Bashtovy, Hr. Hetmanets, O.
Krynytsky), b 25 November 1838 in Stebliv,
Kaniv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 15 April 1918
in Kyiv. (Photo: Ivan Nechui-Levytsky.)
Writer. Upon graduating from the Kyiv
Theological Academy (1865) he taught
Russian language, history, and geography in

the Poltava Theological Seminary (1865–6)

and, later, in the gymnasiums in Kalisz,
Siedlce (1867–72), and Kishinev (1873–4). He
began writing in 1865, but because of Russian
imperial censorship his works appeared only
in Galician periodicals, such as the journal
Pravda, Dilo, and Zoria (Lviv). The first to be
published were two stories, ‘Dvi moskovky’ (Two Muscovite Women) and
‘Horyslavs’ka nich, abo Rybalka Panas Krut’ (A Night in Horyslav, or Panas
Krut the Fisherman), both of which appeared in Pravda in 1868. He mainly

wrote stories, in which he combined the styles of the novel and the folkloric
narrative. His works about the lives of peasants and laborers established him
as a master of Ukrainian classical prose and as the creator of the Ukrainian
realist narrative. They include Mykola Dzheria (1878), Kaidasheva sim'ia
(Kaidash's Family, 1879), Burlachka (The Wandering Girl, 1880), Ne toi stav
([He] Changed, 1896), and the cycle of short stories Baba Paraska ta baba
Palazhka (Granny Paraska and Granny Palazhka, 1874–1908). The Ukrainian
clergy was described and satirized in Starosvits’ki batiushky ta matushky (Old-
World Priests and Their Wives, 1888), Pomizh vorohamy (In the Midst of
Enemies, 1893), and Afons’kyi proidysvit (The Vagabond from Athos, 1890). The Polish
aristocracy and the Polonized Ukrainian middle class are portrayed in Prychepa (The Hanger-
on, 1869) and Zhyvtsem pokhovani (Buried Alive, 1898). Nechui-Levytsky was the first to

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Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan

provide fictional characterizations of various classes of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, ranging

from students and teachers to high-ranking members of the Russian civil service. Against a
background of colonial repression and thoroughgoing Russification Nechui-Levytsky sought
to depict the stirrings of national consciousness in the Ukrainian intelligentsia and their
attempts to ‘place first on the agenda the inevitability of national liberation’ (Oleksander
Biletsky). Those attempts on the part of his protagonists usually bring about their downfall.
Such is the theme of Khmary (Clouds, 1874), the first Ukrainian work of fiction to address the
problem, of Nad Chornym Morem (On the Black Sea Coast, 1890), of Navizhena (The
Madwoman, 1891), and of many other works. Nechui-Levytsky also wrote historical fiction
(mainly under the influence of Mykola Kostomarov), including Zaporozhtsi (The
Zaporozhians, 1873), Kniaz’ Ieremiia Vyshnevets’kyi (Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, 1897, first
pub 1932), and Het’man Ivan Vyhovs’kyi (Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky, 1899). His plays included
the historical dramas Marusia Bohuslavka (1875) and V dymu ta polum'ï (In the Smoke and the
Flames, 1911), the comedies Na Kozhum'iakakh (In Kozhumiaky; adapted by Mykhailo
Starytsky in 1875 and published as Za dvoma zaitsiamy [Chasing After Two Hares]) and
Holodnomu i open’ky m'iaso (For a Starving Man Even Mushrooms Are Meat, 1887), and
children's interludes.

Nechui-Levytsky also wrote popular works on Ukrainian mythology, history, and

ethnography, and numerous articles about Ukrainian theater and the various people active in
it. In his articles on Ukrainian literature, such as ‘S'ohochasne literaturne priamuvannia’ (The
Contemporary Literary Trend, 1878, 1884) and ‘Ukraïnstvo na literaturnykh pozvakh z
Moskovshchynoiu’ (The Ukrainian Community in Literary Litigation with Russia, 1891), he
championed the idea of a national literature formed independently of outside influences, and
asserted that ‘Russian literature is useless [as a model] for Ukraine.’

In the field of linguistics Nechui-Levytsky was categorically opposed to the dissemination of

the Galician variant of the literary Ukrainian language and to the orthography adopted in
Galicia in the 1890s and 1900s. His polemical brochures S'ohochasna chasopysna mova na
Ukraïni (Contemporary Language of the Press in Ukraine, 1907) and Kryve dzerkalo ukraïns’koï
movy (The Distorted Mirror of the Ukrainian Language, 1912) were written in the spirit of
conservative romanticism. He argued for a pure national lexicon and phraseology that was
to be kept clean of all neologisms and foreign expressions. In his own works, however, he
frequently used the grammatical and lexical dialectal forms of the nearby Russian territories,
and he refused to allow any corrections. His inconsistency is most evident in his amateurish
Hramatyka ukraïns’koho iazyka (A Grammar of the Ukrainian Language, 1914).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
‘Zhyttiepys’ Ivana Levyts’koho (Nechuia), napysana nym samym,’ S’vit, no. 7 (1888)
Iefremov, Serhii. Nechui-Levyts’kyi (Kyiv 1924)
Mezhenko, Iurii. ‘Ivan Semenovych Nechui-Levyts’kyi,’ Tvory, 1 (Kyiv 1926)
Bilets’kyi, Oleksander. ‘Ivan Semenovych Levyts’kyi (Nechui),’ Tvory v chotyr’okh tomakh, 1
(Kyiv 1956)
Pokhodzilo, M. Ivan Nechui-Levyts’kyi (Kyiv 1960)
Krutikova, N. Tvorchist’ I.S. Nechuia-Levyts’koho (Kyiv 1961)

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Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan

Ivanchenko, R. Ivan Nechui-Levyts’kyi: Narys zhyttia i tvorchosti (Kyiv 1980)

Bohdan Kravtsiv, Oleksa Horbach

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan entry:

1 Bible
2 Biletsky, Oleksander
3 Chumak songs
4 Dosvitni ohni
5 Film
6 Grammar

7 Horlenko, Vasyl
8 Komarov, Mykhailo
9 Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi
10 Kotsiubynsky, Mykhailo

11 Kulish, Panteleimon
12 Kyiv Literary-Artistic Society
13 Kyiv Theological Academy

14 Literary criticism
15 Literary memorial museums
16 Literature
17 Literature studies

18 Nikovsky, Andrii
19 Nyva (1885)
20 Ohonovsky, Omelian

+ 20 Records >>

A referral to this page is found in 41 entries.

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