Vasyl Stefanyk

• Name — Vasyl Stefanyk • Native Name — Василь Семенович Стефаник • Birth Name — Vasyl Semenovych Stefanyk • Born — 14 May 1871 • Birthplace — Rusiv, Galicia, Austro-Hungary • Died — 7 December 1936 • Place of death — Rusiv, Stanisławów Province, Second Polish Republic • Occupation — prose writer and political activist • Language — Ukrainian, Polish, German • Education — Krakow University • Period — Young Poland • Genre — Expressionism • Notable Works — The Stone Cross (1900)

• 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. • Illustration — Monument to Vasyl Stefanyk in Lviv • Illustration — Stefanyk portrayed on a Ukrainian stamp of 1996

Vasyl Stefanyk was born on May 14, 1871, in the village of Rusiv in the family of a well-to-do peasant. He was born in the historical region of Pokuttia, then part of Austria-Hungary. Today it is part of Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. He died on December 7, 1936, in the same village, Rusiv, at that time the part of Poland. His primary education Stefanyk was at the Sniatyn City school. He later studied at Polish gymnasia in Kolomyia and Drohobych. He was expelled from the Kolomyia gymnasium for the participation in a revolutionary group. He eventually graduated from the Drohobych gymnasium, and enrolled in the University of Kraków in 1892.

Stefanyk's "Blue Book" was republished in Ukraine in 1966 under the title "The Maple Leaves" in an edition lavishly illustrated by Mykhaylo Turovsky. Three stories from the "Blue Book" were the basis of the classic Ukrainian 1968 film "The Stone Cross" by Leonid Osyka.

Stefanyk was deeply concerned with the destiny of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada and often mentioned them in his many writings. One of his stories, The Stone Cross (Kaminnyi Khrest), (later made into a movie) is a stirring account of an immigrant's departure from Stefanyk's native village, Rusiv. The man upon whom it is based died in 1911, in Hilliard, Alberta. The monument that was erected to commemorate Vasyl' Stefanyk is located at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, east of Edmonton, Alberta. That is a statue that was a gift from Ukraine to the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians. The statue was sculpted by W. Skolozdra in 1971 to mark the 100th anniversary of Vasyl Stefanyk.