Korolenko Vladimir

   On the first anniversary of death of Korolenko, in January 1922, his ideological follower I. Gorbunov-Posad, speaking at the evening of memory of the writer-humanist in Poltava, said: "One man said recently in a speech in Moscow, and the second wrote here in his article that Korolenko was a handsome man and a writer, but that he was behind the age, because he did follow such and such a party, that is why he did not understand the wisdom of our days. But this is a great deception of their vision. He was not behind the age, and went before him, as even further ahead went Leo Tolstoy. They lived a great and eternal. They walked and go ahead with banners of great humanity, and we are marking time in this ruin, in darkness and blood, and imagine that we are ahead, and they have fallen behind..." Only after the collapse of totalitarian system, it became clear to everyone that V.G. Korolenko was not mistaken in his assessment of pernicious ideology and practice of Bolshevism, especially outspoken in the "Letters to A.V. Lunacharsky" (1920).

   Vladimir Korolenko was born July 27, 1853, in a Ukrainian family in Zhitomir. In this city, and also in Rivne, he spent childhood and teenage years. He studied at the  Peter Agriculture and Forestry Academy in Moscow, where in 1876 he was expelled and sent to Kronstadt. In 1879, exiled in Vyatka province, then in Perm. For refusing to swear allegiance to new king in 1881 exiled to Yakutia, where spent three years. After lived in Nizhniy Novgorod and St. Petersburg. Since 1896 - member of "Russian Wealth".

   The autumn of 1900, Vladimir Galaktionovich moved to Poltava, where he continued started back in 1897 literary and social work. Here completed the story "Frost", "Last beam of light", "Sovereign's coachmen," Essays "At the Cossacks". In 1905 - 1917 writer every summer lived at his dacha in the village Hatky, near Big Sorochintsy, worked on "The history of my contemporary", wrote the article "Lev Tolstoy", "Traits of Military Justice", "War, homeland and humanity," "The fall of imperial authority" etc. In Poltava region Korolenko never stayed on the sidelines of public life. 1906 in the newspaper "Poltava", he published "An Open Letter to State Councillor Filonov", where, as in a series of articles "Sorochinskaya Tragedy" (1907), angrily condemned the massacre of autocracy over the Ukrainian peasantry.

   V.G. Korolenko is known as the author of works: "Makar's Dream" (1885),"Marusya's squatting"(1899),"Forest murmures"(1886), "Without a Tongue" (1895), etc. The writer has written nearly 700 articles, essays, etc. In a series of essays "In a year of famine" (1892 - 93) showed the hunger of the peasantry as a consequence of anti-national autocratic order. He always acted to defend human dignity, against chauvinism and anti-Semitism ("Multan's sacrifice", 1895; "Case of Bayliss", 1913, etc.)

   V.G. Korolenko did not take the October Revolution, did not recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat. Living in Poltava during the Civil War, spoke out against terror and violence of the authorities, which were constantly changing, has consistently defended the humanistic ideals. In addition to nonfiction works, wrote a series of literary-critical works and memoirs of Nikolai Gogol, L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, and others.

   Life and Works of Vladimir Korolenko are closely linked to Ukraine, Ukrainian literature and culture. He associated with H. Kotsjubinsky, P. Mirny, G. Khotkevych, G. Kropiwnicki and other. Ukrainian topic occupies a significant place in the works by Korolenko ("The Blind Musician", "In poor societies," "Without a Tongue", "History of My Contemporary", etc). 1918 writer congratulated the opening of the first Ukrainian high school in Poltava. In the journal "Russian Wealth" was printing literary-critical articles about Shevchenko, translations of Ukrainian writers.

    1928 in Poltava was opened Vladimir Korolenko literary memorial museum, which in the mid-50 years, led the daughter of the writer Sofia Korolenko. Writer was buried in the town cemetery next to the grave of his son-in-law - Constantine Liakhovich, whom he could not release from the Bolshevik prison and it overtaxed him morally. August 29, 1936 in connection with the liquidation of the cemetery, ashes of Korolenko were reburied in the city park near the museum. In 1962, on the grave was built a monument to the writer, made by sculptor N. Krandievskaya. Heart and brain of V.G. Korolenko stored in the Museum of the Kiev Medical Institute.

http://welcome-to-poltava.com.ua