Yevhen Hrebinka

Who was Yevhen Hrebinka?

Yevhen Pavlovych Hrebinka was a Ukrainian romantic writer and poet. He wrote in both the Ukrainian and Russian languages.

His works first started being published in 1831. In 1834 he published "Little Russian Fables" in Moscow which, because of its vivid and pure language, wit, laconic style, and attention to ethnographic detail, ranks among the best collections of fables in Ukrainian literature. Many of his lyrical poems, such as A Ukrainian Melody became folk songs. Hrebinka is recognized as a leading representative of the so-called "Ukrainian school" of Russian literature. Many of his Russian language works include Ukrainian themes, such as Stories of a Pyriatynian, the historical poems Getman Svirgovskii and Bogdan, the novelette The Nizhen Colonel Zolotarenko, and the novel Chaikovskii. In 1843 he wrote a poem Dark Eyes that would later become a famous Russian song with the same name.

In Saint Petersburg in 1841, he compiled and published one of the first Ukrainian almanacs, called Lastôvka. It had 382 pages and contained works by many famous Ukrainian authors, along with Ukrainian folk songs, popular proverbs, and folktales.