Uzhevych, Ivan or Ioann [Ужевич, Іван or Іоанн; Uževyč], b and d ? The 17th-century author of the Latin Hrammatyka slovenskaia/Grammatica sclavonica, the first grammar of the Ruthenian bookish (non–Church Slavonic) language used by both Ukrainians and Belarusians. He studied at Cracow University (1637–ca 1641) and at the Sorbonne in Paris (1643–5). There are only two manuscripts of his grammar, one (1643) at the National Library in Paris and the other (1645) at the Municipal Library in Arras in northern France. A photoreproduction of the two manuscripts, together with a Ukrainian translation of the Paris manuscript, notes, index, and bibliography by Ivan Bilodid and Yevhen Kudrytsky, was published in Kyiv in 1970. The grammar has been studied by Aleksei Sobolevsky, Vatroslav Jagić, Elie Borschak, and Mykhailo Zhovtobriukh.

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