Makhnovets, Leonid

Makhnovets, Leonid [Махновець, Леонід; Maxnovec'], b 31 May 1919 in Ozera, Kyiv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 19 January 1993 in Kyiv. Literary scholar. In 1950 he defended his candidate of sciences dissertation on Ivan Franko as a scholar of 16th- to 18th-century Ukrainian literature. He wrote a book on satire and humor in 16th- 18th-century Ukrainian prose (1964) and large parts of volumes 1 and 2 of the history of Ukrainian literature published by the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (8 vols, 1967–71; he was the editor responsible for volume 1 and a member of the editorial board of the entire history). He compiled volume 1 of the biobibliographical dictionary of Ukrainian writers (1960). He edited, with introductions, annotated compilations of old Ukrainian humor and satire (1959) and fables in 17th- and 18th-century Ukrainian literature (1960), a collection of articles on Ukrainian intermedes (1960), and a book of poetic translations and renderings of the medieval Slovo o polku Ihorevi (The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign, 1967). In 1972 he published a biography of Hryhorii Skovoroda in which he used many new archival sources; his interpretation was condemned by neo-Stalinist critics, and his annotated modern translation of the medieval Kyiv Chronicle was published in nos 6–8 of the literary monthly Kyïv for 1984. His annotated translation of the entire Hypatian Chronicle was published in 1989.

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