Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi

• Name — Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky • Native Name — Михайло Михайлович Коцюбинський • Pen Name — Zakhar Kozub • Born — 17 September 1864 • Birthplace — Vinnitsa, Russian Empire • Died — 25 April 1913 • Place of death — Chernigov, Russian Empire • Spouse — Vira Ustymivna Kotsiubynska • Children — 4, including Yuriy • Occupation — Writer • Notable Works — Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Intermezzo

• Illustration — The house in Vinnytsia where Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky was born. Kotsiubynsky grew up in Bar, Vinnitsa region and several other towns and villages in Podolia, where his father worked as a civil servant. He attended the Sharhorod Religious Boarding School from 1876 until 1880 and continued his studies at the Kamenets-Podolskii Theological Seminary, but in 1882 he was expelled from the school for his political activities within the populist movement. Influenced by the awakening Ukrainian national idea, Kotsiubynsky started his first attempts at writing prose in 1884 with the Ukrainian language story Andriy Soloveiko (Ukrainian: Андрій Соловейко). This first attempt by the young author was met with skepticism, and he did not make new attempts at writing for several years.

From 1888 to 1890, Kotsiubynsky was a member of the Vinnitsa Municipal Duma. In 1890, he visited Galicia, where he met several other Ukrainian cultural figures including Ivan Franko and Volodymyr Hnatiuk. It was there in Lviv that his first story Nasha Khatka (Ukrainian: Наша хатка) was published. Later Kotsiubynsky worked as a private tutor in and near Vinnitsa. There, he could study life in traditional Ukrainian villages, which was something he often came back to in his stories including the 1891 Na Viru (Ukrainian: На віру) and the 1901 Dorohoiu tsinoiu (Ukrainian: Дорогою ціною). During large parts of the years 1892 to 1897, Kotsiubynsky worked for a commission studying the grape pest phylloxera in Bessarabia and Crimea. During the same period, he was a member of the secret Brotherhood of Taras. In 1898 Kotsiubynsky moved to Chernigov, where he worked as a statistician at the statistics bureau of the Chernigov zemstvo. He also was active in the Chernigov Governorate Scholarly Archival Commission and headed the Chernigov Prosvita society from 1906 to 1908. • Illustration — A group of Ukrainian writers gathered in Poltava to inaugurate a monument to Ivan Kotliarevsky, 1903. From left: Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Vasyl Stefanyk, Olena Pchilka, Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Starytsky, Hnat Khotkevych, Volodymyr Samijlenko.

Due to heart disease, Kotsiubynsky spent long periods at different health resorts on Capri from 1909 to 1911. During the same period, he visited Greece and the Carpathians. In 1911 he was granted a pension from the Society of Friends of Ukrainian Scholarship, Literature, and Art that enabled him to quit his job and solely concentrate on his writings, but he was already in poor health and died only two years later.

English translations of Mykhaylo Kotsyubynsky’s works include: • Short stories, “On the Road” and “The Unknown One” (Tr. from Ukrainian by Roma Franko.); • "Fata Morgana" (Tr. from Ukrainian by Arthur Bernhard.).

Serving as an ordinary clerk in the statistical department of the Chernigov administration, Kotsiubynsky always went to work with a flower in a boutonniere. In January 1896, Kotsiubynsky married Vira Ustymivna Kotsiubynska (nicknamed "Deisha"; 1863–1921). One of his sons, Yuriy Mykhailovych Kotsiubynsky (1896–1937), was the Bolshevik and the Red Army commander during the 1917–1921 Civil War. Later, he held several high positions within the Communist Party of Ukraine, but in 1935, he was expelled from the party. In October 1936, he was accused of having counter-revolutionary contacts and together with other Bolsheviks have organized a Ukrainian Trotskyist Centre. The year after, he was sentenced to death and executed. He was rehabilitated in 1955. Yuri had a son Oleh. His daughter, Oksana Kotsyubynska, was married to Vitaliy Primakov. The fate of his other children, Roman and Iryna, is not known. His niece, Mykhailyna Khomivna Kotsiubynska (1931–2011), was a Ukrainian philologist and literary specialist. She was an honorary doctor of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

He also worked under the names Захар Козуб and Zakhar Kozub. The authorities additionally record the headings Zakhar Kozub, Mykhailo Mykhailovych Kotsiubynskyi and Mykhaylo Kotsyubynskyy. His recorded languages were Ukrainian and Russian. He married Vira Kotsiubynska. 3 children are recorded: Yuriy Kotsiubynsky, Iryna Kotsiubynska and Roman Kotsiubynsky.