Léger, Louis-Paul-Marie

Léger, Louis-Paul-Marie, b 13 January 1843 in Toulouse, France, d 30 April 1923 in Paris. Pioneering French Slavist; member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences from 1884 and the Académie Française from 1900. Through his research, travels in Ukraine, and correspondence with Mykhailo Drahomanov he developed an interest in Ukrainian folklore and literature, particularly in the poems of Taras Shevchenko, some of which he translated. He also translated several Ukrainian folk tales and the Primary Chronicle (1884). He was the first to teach Ukrainian language and literature in France, in the years 1904–6 at the Collège de France in Paris. He wrote many works in Slavic studies, including articles and encyclopedia entries about Shevchenko and other Ukrainian writers and a study of Nikolai Gogol.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]