Ivan Franko
Encyclopedia
Ivan Yakovych Franko ( – ) was a Ukrainian
poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, political activist, doctor of philosophy, the author of the first detective novel
s and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language
.
He was a political radical, and a founder of the socialist and nationalist movement in western Ukraine
. In addition to his own literary work, he also translated the works of such renowned figures as William Shakespeare
, Lord Byron, Pedro Calderón de la Barca
, Dante
, Victor Hugo
, Adam Mickiewicz
, Goethe and Schiller into the Ukrainian language
. Along with Taras Shevchenko
, he has had a tremendous impact on modern literary and political thought in Ukraine.
kronland
Galicia
, today part of Drohobych Raion, Lviv Oblast
, Ukraine
. As a child he was baptized as Ivan by Father Yosyp Levytsky known as a poet and the author of the first Galician-Ruthenian Hramatyka and who was exiled to Nahuyevychi for a "sharp tongue". At home, however, Ivan was called Myron because of a local superstitious belief that naming a person by different name will dodge a death. Franko's family in Nahuyevychi was considered "well-to-do", with their own servants and 24 hectares (59.3 acre) of their own property.
Franko senior was reportedly to be a Ukrainized German colonist, or at least Ivan Franko himself believed. That statement is also supported by Timothy Snyder
in his book The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, which claims that Yakiv Franko was a village blacksmith of German
descent. Snyder however stated that Ivan Franko's mother was of Polish
petty noble origin, while other sources state that she came from an impoverished Ukrainian
noble background and was remotely related to Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny.
Ivan Franko attended school in the village Yasenytsia Sylna from 1862 until 1864, and from there attended a Basilian
monastic school in Drohobych
until 1867. His father passed away before Ivan was able to graduate from the gymnasium
(realschule
, but his stepfather supported Ivan in continuing his education. Soon, however, Franko found himself completely without parents after his mother died as well and later the young Ivan stayed with totally unrelated people. In 1875 he graduated from the Drohobych realschule, and continued on to Lviv University
, where he studied classical philosophy, Ukrainian language
and literature
. It was at this University that Franko began his literary career, with various works of poetry and his novel Petriï i Dovbushchuky published by the students' magazine Druh (Friend), whose editorial board he would later join.
A meeting with Mykhailo Drahomanov
at Lviv University
made a huge impression on Ivan Franko and later developed into a long political and literary association. Franko's own socialist writings and his association with Drahomanov led to his arrest in 1877, along with (among others) Mykhailo Pavlyk and Ostap Terletsky. They were accused of belonging to a secret socialist organization, which did not in fact exist. However, the nine months in prison did not discourage his political writing or activities. In prison Franko wrote the satire Smorhonska Akademiya (The Smorhon Academy). After release, he studied the works of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels
, contributed articles to the Polish newspaper Praca (Labor) and helped organize workers' groups in Lviv
. In 1878 Franko and Pavlyk founded the magazine Hromads'kyi Druh (Public friend). Only two issues were published before it was banned by the government; however, the journal was reborn under the names Dzvin (Bell) and Molot (Mallet
). Franko published a series of books called Dribna Biblioteka (Petty Library) from 1878 until his second arrest for arousing the peasants to civil disobedience in 1880. After three months in the Kolomyia
prison, the writer returned to Lviv. His impressions of this exile are reflected in his novel Na Dni (At the Bottom). Upon his release Franko was kept under police surveillance. At odds with the administration, Franko was expelled from Lviv University
- an institution that would be renamed Ivan Franko National University of Lviv after the writer's death.
Franko was an active contributor to the journal Swit (The World) in 1881. He wrote more than half of the material, excluding the unsigned editorials. Later that year, Franko moved to his native Nahuievychi where he wrote the novel Zakhar Berkut, translated Goethe's Faust
and Heine's
poem Deutschland: ein Wintermärchen into Ukrainian. He also wrote a series of articles on Taras Shevchenko
, and reviewed the collection Khutorna Poeziya (Khutir poetry) by Panteleimon Kulish. Franko worked for the journal Zorya (Sunrise), and became a member of the editing board of the newspaper Dilo (Action) a year later.
He married Olha Khorunzhynska from Kiev
in May 1886, to whom he dedicated the collection Z vershyn i nyzyn (From tops and bottoms), a book of poetry and verse. The couple for sometime used to live in Vienna
where Ivano Franko met with such people as Theodor Herzl
and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. His wife was to later suffer from a debilitating mental illness due to the death of the first-born son, Andrey, one of the reasons that Franko would not leave Lviv
for a treatment in Kiev
in 1916, shortly before his death.
In 1888 Franko was a contributor to the journal Pravda, which, along with his association with compatriots from Dnieper Ukraine
, led to a third arrest in 1889. After this two-month prison term, he co-founded the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical Party with Mykhailo Drahomanov
and Mykhailo Pavlyk. Franko was the Radical party's candidate for seats in the Parliament
of Austria-Hungary
and the Galicia Diet, but never won an election.
In 1891, Franko attended Chernivtsi University
(where he prepared a dissertation on Ivan Vyshensky), and afterwords attended Vienna University to defend a doctoral dissertation on the spiritual romance Barlaam and Josaphat under the supervision of Vatroslav Jagić
, who was considered the foremost expert of Slavic languages
at the time. Franko received his doctorate of philosophy from University of Vienna
on July 1, 1893. He was appointed lecturer in the history of Ukrainian literature
at Lviv University in 1894; however, he was not able to chair the Department of Ukrainian literature there because of opposition from Vicegerent
Kazimierz Badeni and Galician conservative circles.
One of his articles, Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm (Socialism and Social Democracy), a severe criticism of Ukrainian Social Democracy and the socialism of Marx
and Engels, was published in 1898 in the journal Zhytie i Slovo, which he and his wife founded. He continued his anti-Marxist stance in a collection of poetry entitled Mii smarahd (My Emerald) in 1898, where he called Marxism "a religion founded on dogmas of hatred and class struggle." His long time collaborative association with Mykhailo Drahomanov were strained due to their diverging views on socialism and the national question. Franko would later accuse Drahomanov of tying Ukraine's fate to that of Russia
in Suspil'nopolitychni pohliady M. Drahomanova (The Sociopolitical Views of M. Drahomanov), published in 1906. After a split in the Radical Party, in 1899, Franko, together with the Lviv historian, Mykhailo Hrushevsky
, founded the National Democratic Party where he worked until 1904, when he retired from political life.
In 1902 students and activists in Lviv, embarrassed that Franko was living in poverty, purchased a house for him in the city. He lived there for the remaining 14 years of his life. The house is now the site of the Ivan Franko Museum.
In 1914, his jubilee collection, Pryvit Ivanovi Frankovi (Greeting Ivan Franko), and the collection Iz lit moyeyi molodosti (From the Years of My Youth) were published.
The last nine years of his life Ivan Franko rarely wrote himself as he suffered from rheumatism
of joints that later led to a paralization of his right arm. He was greatly assisted by his sons to write his latter works, particularly Andrey.
These events caused Heinrich Wigeleiser of the Academic Gymnasium to tell his Ukrainian students:
Franko was buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery
in Lviv.
Soon after his death the world witnessed the creation of two Ukrainian republics.
Olha Fedorivna Khorunzhynska (m. 1886-1916), a graduate of the Institute of Noble Dames in Kharkov and later the two-year higher courses in Kiev
, she knew several languages and played a piano, died in 1941
Children
According to Roland Franko his grandfather was 1.74 metres (5.7 ft) tall, had a red hair, always wore mustache and the Ukrainian embroidered shirt (vyshyvanka
) even with a dress-coat.
Some of Franko's descendants emigrated to the USA and Canada. His grand-nephew, Yuri Shymko
, is a Canadian politician and human rights activist living in Toronto, who was elected to Canada's Parliament as well as the Ontario Legislature during the 1980s.
In 1876, Lesyshyna Cheliad and Dva Pryiateli (Two Friends) were published in the literary almanac Dnistrianka. Later that year he wrote his first collection of poetry, Ballads and Tales. His first of the stories in the Boryslav series were published in 1877.
Franko depicted the harsh experience of Ukrainian workers and peasants in his novels Boryslav Laughs (1881–1882) and Boa Constrictor (1878). His works deal with Ukrainian nationalism
and history (Zakhar Berkut, 1883), social issues (Basis of Society, 1895 and Withered Leaves, 1896), and philosophy (Semper Tiro, 1906).
He has drawn parallels to the Israelite search for a homeland and the Ukrainian desire for independence in In Death of Cain (1889) and Moses (1905). Stolen Happiness (1893) is considered as his best dramatic masterpiece. In total, Franko has written more than 1,000 works.
He was widely promoted in Ukraine during the Soviet period particularly for his poem Kamenyari (Stonemasons) that carries some revolutionary political ideas, hence earning him a name Kamenyar.
in the poet's honor.
He also is associated with the name Kamenyar for his famous poem, Kamenyari (The Stonemasons) on the "permanent revolutionary" (relating to one of the socialist ideologies
), particularly during the Soviet regime, although his political views mostly did not correspond to the Soviet ideology. In the late 1970s astronomer Nikolai Chernykh named an asteroid
which honored Franko in this manner, 2428 Kamenyar
.
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, political activist, doctor of philosophy, the author of the first detective novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
.
He was a political radical, and a founder of the socialist and nationalist movement in western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. In addition to his own literary work, he also translated the works of such renowned figures as William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Lord Byron, Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...
, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, Goethe and Schiller into the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. Along with Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
, he has had a tremendous impact on modern literary and political thought in Ukraine.
Life
Franko was born in the Ukrainian village of Nahuievychi located then in the AustrianAustria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
kronland
Kronland
Kronland may refer to:* the German name of Lanškroun, a town in the Czech Republic* a "crown land", a constituent territory of Cisleithania, the Austrian half of former Austria–Hungary...
Galicia
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria–Hungary from 1772 to 1918 .This historical region in eastern Central Europe is currently divided between Poland and Ukraine...
, today part of Drohobych Raion, Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Lviv.-History:The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on December 4, 1939...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. As a child he was baptized as Ivan by Father Yosyp Levytsky known as a poet and the author of the first Galician-Ruthenian Hramatyka and who was exiled to Nahuyevychi for a "sharp tongue". At home, however, Ivan was called Myron because of a local superstitious belief that naming a person by different name will dodge a death. Franko's family in Nahuyevychi was considered "well-to-do", with their own servants and 24 hectares (59.3 acre) of their own property.
Franko senior was reportedly to be a Ukrainized German colonist, or at least Ivan Franko himself believed. That statement is also supported by Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder
Timothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
in his book The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, which claims that Yakiv Franko was a village blacksmith of German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
descent. Snyder however stated that Ivan Franko's mother was of Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
petty noble origin, while other sources state that she came from an impoverished Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
noble background and was remotely related to Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny.
Ivan Franko attended school in the village Yasenytsia Sylna from 1862 until 1864, and from there attended a Basilian
Order of Saint Basil the Great
The Order of St. Basil the Great also known as the Basilian Order of Saint Josaphat is an monastic religious order of the Greek Catholic Churches that is present in many countries and that has its Mother House in Rome. The order received approbation on August 20, 1631...
monastic school in Drohobych
Drohobych
Drohobych is a city located at the confluence of the Tysmenytsia River and Seret, a tributary of the former, in the Lviv Oblast , in western Ukraine...
until 1867. His father passed away before Ivan was able to graduate from the gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
(realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...
, but his stepfather supported Ivan in continuing his education. Soon, however, Franko found himself completely without parents after his mother died as well and later the young Ivan stayed with totally unrelated people. In 1875 he graduated from the Drohobych realschule, and continued on to Lviv University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
, where he studied classical philosophy, Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and literature
Ukrainian literature
Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature had a difficult development because, due to constant foreign domination over Ukrainian territories, there was often a significant difference between the spoken and written language...
. It was at this University that Franko began his literary career, with various works of poetry and his novel Petriï i Dovbushchuky published by the students' magazine Druh (Friend), whose editorial board he would later join.
Mykhailo Drahomanov
Mykhailo Petrovych Drahomanov was a Ukrainian political theorist, economist, historian, philosopher, ethnographer and public figure in Kiev. Born to a noble family of Petro Yakymovych Drahomanov who was of a Cossack descent. Mykhailo Drahomanov started his education at home, then studied at the...
at Lviv University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
made a huge impression on Ivan Franko and later developed into a long political and literary association. Franko's own socialist writings and his association with Drahomanov led to his arrest in 1877, along with (among others) Mykhailo Pavlyk and Ostap Terletsky. They were accused of belonging to a secret socialist organization, which did not in fact exist. However, the nine months in prison did not discourage his political writing or activities. In prison Franko wrote the satire Smorhonska Akademiya (The Smorhon Academy). After release, he studied the works of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
, contributed articles to the Polish newspaper Praca (Labor) and helped organize workers' groups in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
. In 1878 Franko and Pavlyk founded the magazine Hromads'kyi Druh (Public friend). Only two issues were published before it was banned by the government; however, the journal was reborn under the names Dzvin (Bell) and Molot (Mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...
). Franko published a series of books called Dribna Biblioteka (Petty Library) from 1878 until his second arrest for arousing the peasants to civil disobedience in 1880. After three months in the Kolomyia
Kolomyia
Kolomyia or Kolomyya, formerly known as Kolomea , is a city located on the Prut River in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast , in western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative centre of the Kolomyia Raion , the city is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
prison, the writer returned to Lviv. His impressions of this exile are reflected in his novel Na Dni (At the Bottom). Upon his release Franko was kept under police surveillance. At odds with the administration, Franko was expelled from Lviv University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
- an institution that would be renamed Ivan Franko National University of Lviv after the writer's death.
Franko was an active contributor to the journal Swit (The World) in 1881. He wrote more than half of the material, excluding the unsigned editorials. Later that year, Franko moved to his native Nahuievychi where he wrote the novel Zakhar Berkut, translated Goethe's Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
and Heine's
Heine
Heine is a German family name. The name comes from "Heinrich" or the Hebrew "Chayyim" . When mentioned without a first name it usually refers ti the poet Heinrich Heine...
poem Deutschland: ein Wintermärchen into Ukrainian. He also wrote a series of articles on Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
, and reviewed the collection Khutorna Poeziya (Khutir poetry) by Panteleimon Kulish. Franko worked for the journal Zorya (Sunrise), and became a member of the editing board of the newspaper Dilo (Action) a year later.
He married Olha Khorunzhynska from Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
in May 1886, to whom he dedicated the collection Z vershyn i nyzyn (From tops and bottoms), a book of poetry and verse. The couple for sometime used to live in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
where Ivano Franko met with such people as Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. His wife was to later suffer from a debilitating mental illness due to the death of the first-born son, Andrey, one of the reasons that Franko would not leave Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
for a treatment in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
in 1916, shortly before his death.
In 1888 Franko was a contributor to the journal Pravda, which, along with his association with compatriots from Dnieper Ukraine
Dnieper Ukraine
Dnieper Ukraine , was the territory of Ukraine in the Russian Empire , roughly corresponding to the current territory of Ukraine, with the exceptions of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and Galicia in the west, which was a province of the Austrian Empire. Galicians sometimes call it Great Ukraine...
, led to a third arrest in 1889. After this two-month prison term, he co-founded the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical Party with Mykhailo Drahomanov
Mykhailo Drahomanov
Mykhailo Petrovych Drahomanov was a Ukrainian political theorist, economist, historian, philosopher, ethnographer and public figure in Kiev. Born to a noble family of Petro Yakymovych Drahomanov who was of a Cossack descent. Mykhailo Drahomanov started his education at home, then studied at the...
and Mykhailo Pavlyk. Franko was the Radical party's candidate for seats in the Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
and the Galicia Diet, but never won an election.
In 1891, Franko attended Chernivtsi University
Chernivtsi University
The Chernivtsi National University is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in northern Bukovina, in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine....
(where he prepared a dissertation on Ivan Vyshensky), and afterwords attended Vienna University to defend a doctoral dissertation on the spiritual romance Barlaam and Josaphat under the supervision of Vatroslav Jagić
Vatroslav Jagic
Vatroslav Jagić was a Croatian language researcher and a famous expert in Slavic languages in the second half of the 19th century.-Life:...
, who was considered the foremost expert of Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
at the time. Franko received his doctorate of philosophy from University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
on July 1, 1893. He was appointed lecturer in the history of Ukrainian literature
Ukrainian literature
Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature had a difficult development because, due to constant foreign domination over Ukrainian territories, there was often a significant difference between the spoken and written language...
at Lviv University in 1894; however, he was not able to chair the Department of Ukrainian literature there because of opposition from Vicegerent
Vicegerent
Vicegerent is the official administrative deputy of a ruler or head of state: vice + gerere .-Related usage:*The Byzantine Emperors held as a title "God's Vicegerent on Earth"....
Kazimierz Badeni and Galician conservative circles.
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Engels, was published in 1898 in the journal Zhytie i Slovo, which he and his wife founded. He continued his anti-Marxist stance in a collection of poetry entitled Mii smarahd (My Emerald) in 1898, where he called Marxism "a religion founded on dogmas of hatred and class struggle." His long time collaborative association with Mykhailo Drahomanov were strained due to their diverging views on socialism and the national question. Franko would later accuse Drahomanov of tying Ukraine's fate to that of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in Suspil'nopolitychni pohliady M. Drahomanova (The Sociopolitical Views of M. Drahomanov), published in 1906. After a split in the Radical Party, in 1899, Franko, together with the Lviv historian, Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Mykhailo Hrushevsky
Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian, and statesman, one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century...
, founded the National Democratic Party where he worked until 1904, when he retired from political life.
In 1902 students and activists in Lviv, embarrassed that Franko was living in poverty, purchased a house for him in the city. He lived there for the remaining 14 years of his life. The house is now the site of the Ivan Franko Museum.
In 1914, his jubilee collection, Pryvit Ivanovi Frankovi (Greeting Ivan Franko), and the collection Iz lit moyeyi molodosti (From the Years of My Youth) were published.
The last nine years of his life Ivan Franko rarely wrote himself as he suffered from rheumatism
Rheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue. The study of, and therapeutic interventions in, such disorders is called rheumatology.-Terminology:...
of joints that later led to a paralization of his right arm. He was greatly assisted by his sons to write his latter works, particularly Andrey.
Death
He died in poverty at 4 p.m. on May 28, 1916. Those who came to pay their respects saw him lying on the table covered with nothing but a ragged sheet. His burial and burial-clothes were paid for by his admirers, and none of his family came to visit him.These events caused Heinrich Wigeleiser of the Academic Gymnasium to tell his Ukrainian students:
Franko was buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery
Lychakivskiy Cemetery
-History:Since its creation in 1787 as Łyczakowski Cemetery, it has been the main necropolis of the city's inteligentsia, middle and upper classes. Initially the cemetery was located on several hills in the borough of Lychakiv, following the imperial Austro-Hungarian edict ordering that all...
in Lviv.
Soon after his death the world witnessed the creation of two Ukrainian republics.
Family
WifeOlha Fedorivna Khorunzhynska (m. 1886-1916), a graduate of the Institute of Noble Dames in Kharkov and later the two-year higher courses in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, she knew several languages and played a piano, died in 1941
Children
- Andrey Franko died at 27 from a heart failure.
- Petro FrankoPetro FrankoPetro Ivanovych Franko son of the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. Petro was a Ukrainian educator, pedagogue, writer, ethnographer, scientist, military leader, and politician...
(1890–1941), an engineer-chemist, a veteran of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, founder of the Ukrainian Air Force, a Ukrainian politician, a people's deputyDeputy (legislator)A deputy is a legislator in many countries, particularly those with legislatures styled as a 'Chamber of Deputies' or 'National Assembly'.-List of countries:This is an list of countries using the term 'deputy' or one of its cognates....
in the Verkhovna RadaVerkhovna RadaThe Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
- Petro Franko had two daughters who after marrying changed their names
- Taras Franko, a veteran of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen
- Roland Franko (1931- ), a Ukrainian politician, diplomat, a graduate of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, by his efforts in 1996 the United Kingdom freely transferred its Antarctic station Faraday to Ukraine later renamed into Academician VernadskyVernadsky Research BaseVernadsky Research Base is a Ukrainian Antarctic Station at Marina Point on Galindez Island in the Argentine Islands, Antarctica.-United Kingdom:...
- Zinovia Irachkivska (Franko) had sons
- Daryna Franko
- Roland Franko (1931- ), a Ukrainian politician, diplomat, a graduate of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, by his efforts in 1996 the United Kingdom freely transferred its Antarctic station Faraday to Ukraine later renamed into Academician Vernadsky
- Hanna Klyuchko (Franko)
According to Roland Franko his grandfather was 1.74 metres (5.7 ft) tall, had a red hair, always wore mustache and the Ukrainian embroidered shirt (vyshyvanka
Vyshyvanka
Vyshyvanka is the Ukrainian traditional clothing which contains elements of Ukrainian ethnic embroidery. Many variations of its design were created. Usually, it was made of homemade linen which was produced by loom...
) even with a dress-coat.
Some of Franko's descendants emigrated to the USA and Canada. His grand-nephew, Yuri Shymko
Yuri Shymko
Yuri Shymko is a former politician, human rights advocate, social activist, and community leader in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Canadian House of Commons from 1978 to 1979, and in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1981 to 1987...
, is a Canadian politician and human rights activist living in Toronto, who was elected to Canada's Parliament as well as the Ontario Legislature during the 1980s.
Literary works
Franko depicted the harsh experience of Ukrainian workers and peasants in his novels Boryslav Laughs (1881–1882) and Boa Constrictor (1878). His works deal with Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...
and history (Zakhar Berkut, 1883), social issues (Basis of Society, 1895 and Withered Leaves, 1896), and philosophy (Semper Tiro, 1906).
He has drawn parallels to the Israelite search for a homeland and the Ukrainian desire for independence in In Death of Cain (1889) and Moses (1905). Stolen Happiness (1893) is considered as his best dramatic masterpiece. In total, Franko has written more than 1,000 works.
He was widely promoted in Ukraine during the Soviet period particularly for his poem Kamenyari (Stonemasons) that carries some revolutionary political ideas, hence earning him a name Kamenyar.
Legacy
In 1962 the city of Stanyslaviv in western Ukraine (formerly Stanisławów, Poland) was renamed Ivano-FrankivskIvano-Frankivsk
Ivano-Frankivsk is a historic city located in the western Ukraine. It is the administrative centre of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast , and is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast, municipality....
in the poet's honor.
He also is associated with the name Kamenyar for his famous poem, Kamenyari (The Stonemasons) on the "permanent revolutionary" (relating to one of the socialist ideologies
Permanent Revolution
Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...
), particularly during the Soviet regime, although his political views mostly did not correspond to the Soviet ideology. In the late 1970s astronomer Nikolai Chernykh named an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
which honored Franko in this manner, 2428 Kamenyar
2428 Kamenyar
2428 Kamenyar is a main-belt asteroid discovered on September 11, 1977 by N. Chernykh at Nauchnyj.- External links :*...
.
External links
- Movie about the life of Ivan Franko
- Article on Ivan Franko from the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
- Ivan Franko Lviv State University
- Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
- Ivan Franko, Russian And Eastern European Literature, Biographies from AllRefer.com. Claims of Franko being an ardent radical nationalist while relating him to Russia(?).
- One Day in Ivan Franko's House in Lviv: Photographed Essay of 30 May 2004
- Life of Ivan Franko on the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv website.
- Ukrainian art songs on Ivan Franko's poetry. http://www.orpheusandlyra.com/workshop.html Article about Franko's grandson and Ukrainian politician Roland