Kolomyiets, Avenir

Kolomyiets, Avenir [Коломиєць, Авенір; Kolomyjec'], b 19 February 1906 in Horodets, Volhynia, d 22 July 1946 in Salzburg, Austria. Journalist and poet. After graduating from Warsaw University in 1930, he contributed literary criticism and poetry to Novi shliakhy and other pro-Soviet periodicals in Lviv until he broke with the Sovietophiles in 1933. He studied theater directing at the Warsaw Institute of Theater Arts for three years and traveled abroad. From 1936 he worked in education and theater in Volhynia, promoted Esperanto, and contributed poetry and articles to Western Ukrainian journals. His varied legacy consists of the poem ‘Deviatyi val’ (The Ninth Wave, 1930), the poetry collection Provisni kadry (Prophetic Cadres, 1932), unpublished novellas, Ieretyk (The Heretic, 1936) and other plays, stories and plays for children, a libretto, school textbooks, and the essay collection Shevchenkova era (Taras Shevchenko’s Era, 1942).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]