Vladimir Korolenko
Outstanding Ukrainian and Russian writer and democrat, progressive public figure Vladimir Korolenko may be comparable to Leo Tolstoy in humanitarianism. According to his Russian adherent Gorbunov-Posadov,
the both were driven by great, everlasting things, they have been leading the way with the colors of Great Humanity way ahead of us, and we mark time in our devastation and darkness and blood, and imagine that we have left them behind... Only after falling down the totalitarian system, it became clear to everyone that Vladimir Korolenko had not been mistaken in its assessment of pernicious ideology and practice of Bolshevism, as most clearly expressed in his Letters to A. Lunacharsky (1920).
Vladimir Korolenko was born on July 27, 1853 into Ukrainian family in Zhytomyr. He spent his childhood and youth in the native town and that of Rivne. He studied at the Petrovskaya Agriculture and Forestry Academy of Moscow which he was excluded in 1876 and exiled to Kronstadt. In 1879 he was banished to Vyatka Governorate, then to town of Perm. For his refusing to swear to the new tsar in 1881 Korolenko was exiled to Yakutia, where he served the exile term of three years. Afterwards he lived in Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg. Since 1896 Korolenko was “Russian Wealth” magazine writer.
In autumn 1900 року Vladimir Korolenko moved to Poltava where he carried on literary and social activities started since 1897. This is in Poltava where he finished his Russian short stories “Frost”, “The last ray”, “Sovereign's coachmen”, essays “Among the Cossacks”, wrote “Rumanian essays”, “Blind musician”, “Children of the Underground”, literary critical articles “Reminiscences about the writers”. In 1905 to 1917 the writer lived in his cottage in the village of Khatky near village of Velyki Sorochintsi, Shyshaky County, every summer, continued working on his largest piece “The History of My Contemporary” that was being written from 1905 up to almost his death date, wrote essays “Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy”, “Features of the military justice”, "War, fatherland and mankind", " The fall of tsarist power", etc. Korolenko took an active part in public life of Poltava land. In 1906 he made public "Open letter to Councillor Filonov of State" in the Poltavshchina (Poltava land) newspaper which he angrily condemned the autocracy’s massacre of the Ukrainian peasantry like did it in his series of articles titled Sorochintsi Tragedy (1907).
V. Korolenko is known as author of narratives such as "Makar’s dream" (1885), "Marusia’s hunters lodge" (1899), "The forest is noisy" (1886), "Without Language" (1895), etc. The writer wrote about 700 articles, essays and so on. He showed the starvation of the peasants as a consequence of the anti-popular autocratic regime in his series of articles "In the famine year" (1892 to 93). He has always stood for the defense of human dignity, against chauvinism and anti-Semitism ("Multan's Sacrifice", 1895; "The Beilis Case", 1913).
V. Korolenko didn’t accept the October Revolution, did not recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat. While living in Poltava during the Civil War Korolenko opposed terror and violence of the belligerent powers continually coming there in turn, consistently advocated humanistic ideals. In addition to his journalistic works, he wrote a range of literary-critical works and memories of N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, A. Chekhov and others.
Life and creation of Korolenko have been closely connected with Ukraine, Ukrainian literature and culture. He spoke to M. Kotsyubynsky, Panas Myrny, H. Khotkevych, M. Kropywnytsky and others. The Ukrainian themes occupy a significant place in the works by Korolenko ("Blind Musician”, “In the Bad Company", "Without Language”, “The History of My Contemporary”, etc.). In 1918 the writer welcomed the opening of the first Ukrainian high school in Poltava. He published his literary-critical materials about Taras Shevchenko, translations of the Ukrainian writers in the magazine “Russian Wealth”.
The house that the writer lived in Poltava was on the Malo-Sadova Street (now, Korolenko Street). In 1928 the Literary-Memorial Museum of Korolenko directed by the writer’s daughter Sofia Korolenko up to the mid 1950s has been opened there. He was buried in the Old Town Cemetery next to the grave of his son-in-law Kostyantyn Lyakhovych whom he couldn’t rescue from the Bolshevist prison and thereby was morally broken down. On August 29, 1936 Korolenko’s remains were reburied in the Town Park near his home due to the elimination of the Old Town Cemetery. In 1962 a monument to the writer made by sculptor N. V. Krandiyevska has been set at the grave. V. Korolenko’s heart and brain have been kept in the Museum of Kyiv Medical Institute.
