Zakrevska, Sofiia [Закревська, Софія; Zakrevs'ka, Sofija] b 1796 or 1797 in the village of Berezova Rudka, Poltava gubernia, d no earlier than 1865. A Russian writer of Ukrainian origin; sister of Platon and Viktor Zakrevsky. She studied at the Catherine Institute in Saint Petersburg but did not complete her education because of family circumstances. She lived primarily in the villages of Lemeshivka and Berezova Rudka, Poltava gubernia, occasionally traveling to Saint Petersburg. As other members of the Zakrevsky family, she was interested in Ukrainian folklore and literature. Zakrevska maintained friendly relations with writers Yevhen Hrebinka and Oleksa Storozhenko; she was acquainted with Taras Shevchenko and Oleksander Afanasiev-Chuzhbynsky. She was the author of the epistolary novel Institutka (After Finishing School, 1841; 1-st edition Pisma sovospitannie, 1837), Iarmarka (The Fair, 1843), Krynitsa (The Well, 1847), which appeared in the journals Otechestvennye zapiski, Sovremennik, and Finskii vestnik.

Zakrevska belonged to a category of female writers living in the provinces of the Russian Empire. Vissarion Belinsky described her as an innovative, talented writer. Her works often include Ukrainian ethnographic elements, descriptions of everyday life, and autobiographical motifs. Occasionally, Zakrevska inserted Ukrainian phrases into her Russian texts. Many of her characters were modeled after real people, and her novels serve as valuable sources of information about the lifestyle of the Russified Ukrainian nobility in the first half of the 19th century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Belinskii, V. ‘Russkaia literatura v 1841 godu,’ in Belinskii, V. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 13-ti t. vol 5 (Moscow 1954)
Shahynian, M. Taras Shevchenko (Moscow 1964)
Kharchuk R. Shevchenko, ioho chytachi i nechytachi u ХІХ st. (Kyiv 2021)
Chuzhbinskii, A. ‘Vospominaniia o T.G. Shevchenke,’ in Taras Shevchenko v spohadakh, vol 1, bk 2 (Kyiv 2023)

Roksana Kharchuk

[This article was written in 2026.]