Sabaldyr, Hryhorii [Сабалдир, Григорій], b 11 October 1883 in Pokrovska Bahachka, Khorol county, Poltava gubernia, d 3 April 1957 in Kyiv. Linguist and lexicographer. He wrote a handbook of Ukrainian orthographic rules (with Mykola Hrunsky, 1924), a dictionary of useful words in administrative circles (1925), a Ukrainian grammar and dictionary (with Hrunsky, 4 editions, 1926–7), a practical Russian-Ukrainian dictionary (30,000 words, 1926), and an orthographic dictionary (with O. Kolomatska, 25,000 words, 1930). In 1934 an abusive review of books by Hrunsky, Panteleimon Kovaliv, and Serhii Smerechynsky appeared under his name in Movoznavstvo. He was arrested during the Stalinist terror in 1935 and sent to GULAG labor camp. Released in 1938, he was compelled to live in the RSFSR and not allowed to return to Ukraine until 1956.

[This article was updated in 2022.]


Encyclopedia of Ukraine