Klym Polishchuk was a Ukrainian journalist, poet and writer.
Biography
Klym Polishchuk was born into a peasant family. As a child he was home-schooled, along with his brother Fedir and sister Nastia, by their father. At a young age Klym was forced to work as a hired worker. In addition to being interested in literature, Klym Polishchuk was a skilled artist. In 1909, with the support of the Hromada benevolent organisation and a few individuals, Klym Polishchuk enrolled at the Art Drawing College, Art Academy, St Petersburg, Russia. In 1912, due to a lack of funds, Polishchuk withdrew from the college and returned to Zhytomyr. In August 1914 Klym Polishchuk was arrested for "separatism" activities and exiled to Russia. In 1916 he was deployed to fight in World War I. In 1920 Klym Polishchuk moved to Lviv, where in 1921 married an upcoming writer, Halyna Mnevska. The following year their daughter Lesia was born. Klym Polishchuk and Halyna Mnevska divorced in 1927. On 4 November 1929, following the falsified charges, Klym Polishchuk was accused of 'bourgeois nationalism' and sentenced to exile and 10 years of hard labour in concentration camps. Klym Polishchuk's last place of imprisonment, along with 289 other representatives of Ukrainian intelligentsia, was the Solovki island prison in the White Sea. He was executed at the peak of the Great Purge in Sandarmokh, Karelia, Russia, on 3 November 1937. The executions of various categories of offender and "enemy" - anti-social elements, bourgeois nationalists, former kulaks and White Army officers, foreign saboteurs and spies - were carried out according to quotas assigned to each Region and Republic in the Soviet Union. Enthusiastic subordinates made several requests for increasing their quota of executions and arrests as the targets were reached and exceeded.
Literary career
Klym Polishchuk's literary career began with poetry. At the age of fifteen his poem Watching God's World was published in the Volyn newspaper. Soon after that his first short story appeared in Dzvinok magazine. In 1914 Klym Polishchuk's first book, Faraway Stars, was published. In 1919, in Kyiv, Klym Polishchuk joined other Ukrainian authors such as Pavlo Tychyna, Yakiv Savchenko, Les Kurbas, Pavlo Phylypovych, Dmytro Zahul, Oleksa Slisarenko, Mykhailo Ivchenko and Mykhailo Zhuk in establishing Muzahet, a literature and art group that focused on the characteristics of Ukrainian national literature. In 1920 Muzahet was banned and most of its members were later sentenced and executed. Thematically, Klym Polishchuk's prose works are divided into two major groups. The first group consists of works incorporating Ukrainian folklore and legends, including Handful of Earth: Halychyna Legends and Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends. The second group is composed of historical stories and novels, featuring revolutionary and war events, such as Red Mirage: Essays and Short Stories of the Revolution Period and Otaman Zelenyi. Klym Polishchuk's literary style is often characterised by artful application of symbolism and gothic elements.
Major works
1921 – Handful of Earth: Halychyna Legends 1921 – Red Mirage: Essays and Short Stories of the Revolution Period 1921 – Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends 1921 – Voyenko 1921 – Zvukolirnist 1921 – Folk Tale of the Palace 1922 – A Crucified Soul 1923 – Huliaypole Father 1923 – Otaman Zelenyi 1929 – Polissya Sounds .
Works translated into English
Polishchuk, K 2015, Treasure of the Ages: Ukrainian Legends , trans. S Chornomorets, Sova Books, Sydney, original work published 1921
