Svidzinsky, Vladimir Efimovich

The second child in the family, had 4 brothers and a sister. Father - Efim (Euphemius) Aksentyevich, priest. Mother - Natalia Prokhorovna (nee Stopakevich), popovna.

In 1899 he graduated from the Tyvrov Theological College. He studied at the Podolsk Theological Seminary ( Kamenetz-Podolsky ). He was expelled on August 25, 1904 from 4th grade at the request of his father, transferred to Lyantskorun . In 1906 (as Svidzinsky notes in the questionnaire, according to other documents in 1907) he entered as a volunteer to the economic department of Kiev higher commercial courses, reorganized in 1908 into a commercial institute. In 1912, in the journal Ukrainian Hut (No. 1), he first published poetry. On January 26, 1913 he graduated from the institute, but did not pass state exams and therefore did not receive a diploma of higher education.

He returned to his father in with. Bubchintsy . At the invitation of the Podolsky Zemstvo Council, weaving was examined and collected information on 1607 weaving farms. Svidzinsky's essay “Weaving” was included in the book “Handicraft crafts of the Podolsk province” (K., 1916).

In March 1915 he moved to Zhytomyr , worked in the Volyn Control Chamber: first, on a self-employed basis, from June 3, 1915, as a clerk, and since October, as an acting account officer.

By order of March 23, 1916, he was appointed assistant to the 7th grade controller in the field control department at the headquarters of the seventh army. In 1916, he fought in the territory of Galicia ( Terebovlya , Chortkov , Buchach ), in 1917 - mainly in the territory of the Podolsk province. From the fall of 1917 until the spring of 1918 with the headquarters of the seventh army he was in Bar . On March 14, 1918 he was demobilized at his own request “to a place of peaceful service in the Volyn Control Chamber”, but did not go to Zhitomir. By order of June 10, 1918, he was dismissed from service in the ward.

After moving to Kamenetz-Podolsky, from October 1918 he worked as the "editor of the Ukrainian language" in the publishing department of the Podolsk People's Council.

In the historical archive of the Khmelnitsky region, Svidzinsky’s request dated January 26, 1919 to enroll him as a volunteer of the historical and philological faculty of the Kamenetz-Podolsk State Ukrainian University , where at that time Ivan Ogienko , Mikhail Drei-Khmara , Yevgeny Timchenko and other famous scientists and writers taught. University students were the younger brothers of Vladimir, Oleg and Pavel. The literary environment of the then Kamenets was Yuri Lipa , Lyudmila Staritskaya-Chernyakhovskaya , Osip Nazaruk and others. Svidzinsky was a free-listener of the university for 5 semesters. Published in the journal "Education" (1919. No. 3) the article "Ukrainian Folk Songs of the Last World War", in the literary and scientific supplement to the newspaper Our Way (1920, No. 7) - the poem "Dream Lake", in literary -scientific journal "New Thought" (1920. No. 3) - poetry.

With the establishment of Soviet power in Kamenetz-Podolsky in November 1920, he worked as an editor in the publishing department of public education. The Publishing Society "Dniester" in 1920 published the cultural-historical essay of I. Ivanov translated by Svidzinsky, "Chaldeans."

In Kamenetz-Podolsky, he married the teacher Zinaida Iosifovna Sulkovskaya (d. July 12, 1933). In 1921 they had a daughter, Miroslav.

From January 1921 he worked as an archivist at the Kamenetz-Podolsky University (soon - the Institute of Public Education). In November 1921 he became head of the archives of the county committee for the protection of monuments of antiquity, art and nature.

On December 25, 1922 he was appointed archivist, on January 10, 1923 - secretary of the newly created archival administration, since July 1923 he was acting as head.

In 1922 he was involved in the research department of the history and economy of Podillia at the INO to identify in the archives and museums of Kamenetz-Podolsk graphic material from Podolsk Uniate metrics, manuscripts and old printed books. Registered 337 metrics, of which 150 had highly artistic intros, letters, ornaments, drawings. Several issues of the publication “Metrics of the 18th Century.” Were lithographed in the workshop of the Kamenetz-Podolsk Art and Industrial College named after Skovoroda under the direction of Vladimir Hagenmeister.

From the beginning of 1923 until July 1925, he was a graduate student of the department (subsection of social history), he worked on the topics “Peasants of private ownership estates of Podolia in the first half of the XIX century”, “Agricultural movements in Podolia in the XX century”, wrote the study “Economic evolution of the economy of peasants of Tarnorod estate” , prepared a report “The struggle of Podolsk peasants with Polish legionaries in 1918” (read in October 1925 at a meeting of the Kamenetz-Podolsk Scientific Society at the UAE), took part in a comprehensive (socio-economic, geographical, linguis matic, art) examination Panovtsy village.

In connection with the reorganization of the Kamenetz-Podolsky district archival administration on August 29, 1925, he handed over the affairs to the newly appointed head Dmitry Pryadiy, for some time (formally - until November 1925) worked as an inspector.

In October 1925 he moved to Kharkov , where he worked as a literary editor in the magazine "Red Way", from November 1930 - in the newspaper of the political administration of the Ukrainian military district "Red Army". In Kharkov, the Svidzinsky family broke up: the wife and daughter moved to her sister in Vinnitsa .

In January-September 1932 he worked in the Tehizdat, then returned to the editorial office of the Red Way (since 1936 - Literary Journal).

He translated a lot from the literature of the peoples of the USSR, from French, Spanish, Polish. Among the translations - " The Word of Igor's Campaign " (1938), the comedy of Aristophanes (published 1939). Member of the Union of Writers of the USSR since 1936.

In October 1941, when German troops were approaching Kharkov, the NKVD arrested those Kharkov citizens who had not yet been evacuated, in particular representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Svidzinsky knew that he was doomed to arrest, so he was hiding from friends. But on September 27, 1941 he was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. Together with other prisoners, he was driven to the east under escort. When there was a threat of encirclement by German troops, in the village of Uncovered the prisoners were driven into an abandoned farm building, which was doused with gasoline and set on fire ^[1] .

In the first collections, Svidzinsky was inclined to symbolism , in the last two there are elements of surrealism in combination with a good classical form. As a poet, Svidzinsky formed somehow secretly, leisurely, wrote a little, was printed even less. But in retrospect he appears in his work to be very demanding of himself, extremely stable and completely detached from his contemporary literary life. Such a position condemned him to the ill-will of criticism, and this, in turn, precluded access to readers, for criticism in Soviet literature to a certain extent served as censorship.

The first collection of Svidzinsky's “Lyric Poems” was published in 1922 in the Kamenetz-Podolsk branch (formed in May 1921) of the State Publishing House of Ukraine. Reviews of the collection were published by Ivan Dneprovsky (Krasnaya Pravda newspaper, Kamenetz-Podolsky, 1922, No. 74; signature by G. Kobzarenko) and Valerian Polishchuk (Red Way magazine, Kharkov, 1923, No. 2; signature by Vasily Sonzvit). The first saw in the collection chamberness, purely intimate poetry and processing of folk songs, and generally expressed dissatisfaction with the isolation of the author, the "dreamer" from public life. The second also noted the narrowness of topics and the lack of civic motives, but favorably noted the sincerity of this lyrics.

The next book by Svidzinsky “September”, published in 1927, received a sharp negative assessment in the press. Well-known and authoritative critic Yakov Savchenko then considered Svidzinsky a poet who was many years late: “I don’t want to guess how many years he was late to come to literature Svidzinsky, but it is clear that his work, attitude and worldview are completely outside our era.”

The poet’s last public report to contemporaries was the 1940 collection “Poems”, published in Lviv through the efforts of Yu. Yanovsky and under his editorship. Of the verses that Svidzinsky proposed in the collection, 43 were returned to the author, dozens remained outside the collection. Poems that were not included in the 1940 collection and should have been composed as follows - “Medobor”, were widely known to Kharkov poets. However, almost all the manuscripts of the poet burned in the fire of war. Not a single poem of 1941 has reached us. Only 96 poems by Svidzinsky were taken into emigration by the poet Oleksa Veretenchenko , who published them in 1975 with the addition of other poems in a separate collection under the author's title “Medobor”. In 1961, a collection of selected Svidzinsky poems compiled by Yar Slavutich was published in Edmonton.

• Bear B. Vladimir Svidzinsky: poet of the 21st century // Ukrainian Word. - 1995. - April 27. - S. 7.
• Ovcharenko V. The flame of poetry by V. Svidzinsky // Word and time. - 1995. - No. 11-12. - S. 41.

• Volodymyr Svіdzinsky (Ukrainian)