Voloshchak, Andrii

Voloshchak, Andrii [Волощак, Андрій; Vološčak, Andrij] (pseudonyms: Vasyl Boiko, Ivan Kos), b 31 August 1890 in Mshanets, Turka county, Galicia, d 6 August 1973 in Lviv. Poet. He studied at the Peremyshl State Gymnasium (1904–12) and at Lviv University (1912–14, 1918–19) and Prague University (1916–18). He was blinded while in the Austrian army in 1914. His first poem appeared in Dobra novyna (Lviv) in 1909. In the interwar years he lived in Drohobych, Peremyshl, Staryi Sambir, and, from 1933, Lviv. In the 1930s he belonged to the writers’ group Horno and contributed to Vikna and Znannia. His first collection, U t'mi horiu (In the Darkness I Burn), was published in 1934. Under Soviet rule (in 1941 and from 1946 on) he published over 10 poetry collections. Editions of his selected poems appeared in 1961, 1971, and 1974.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]