Mykhailo Poplavskyi

Biography Born to a peasant family in the Kirovohrad Oblast of Soviet Ukraine, Poplavskyi studied at a technical school in Horlivka, graduating in 1968. He later worked as an electric locomotive driver on a mine in Kirovske and served in the Soviet Army. In 1971 Poplavskyi finished his studies at an arts school in Oleksandriya, and during the following years headed village houses of culture in his native region. In 1980 Poplavskyi was appointed deputy manager of the Republican House of Folk Arts. Starting from 1985 he worked as a lecturer of the applied culturology department at the Kyiv State Institute of Culture. He was appointed to head that institution in 1995, after two years of serving as its acting rector,

During his leadership in the institute, Poplavskyi introduced new educational directions, establishing the chairs of show business management, singing, bandura and kobzar arts, sports dancing, public relations, modern and folk choreography etc. In 1998-2000 Ukraine's first chair of ancient and chamber music functioned at the institute, and in 2000 a cinema and television institute was created. In 2006 Poplavskyi headed KNUKiM's chair of hotel and restaurant service.

In April 2023, 30 years after first heading the institute, Poplavskyi declared his intention to step down from the post of KNUKiM's rector.

In February 2012 Poplavskyi took part in a benefit concert in Moscow, organized with the support of the Ukrainian embassy and cultural organizations in Russia and involving Ivo Bobul, Natalia Buchynska, Iosif Kobzon, Natasha Korolyova, Tatyana Ovsiyenko and Aleksander Serov.

On 16 January 2014 Poplavskyi voted in support of the anti-protest laws in Ukraine. As a result, in July of the same year he was legally barred from heading establishments of higher education along with other deputies who had supported the laws. However, in 2017 the changes to the educational law which introduced the ban were overturned by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

At the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Poplavskyi ran in a single-mandate constituency in Kirovohrad Oblast, winning with 31,45% of votes. In Verkhovna Rada he joined the People's Will parliamentary group, becoming member of the parliamentary Committee on Education and Science.

Poplavskyi was elected head of the charity foundation "Gifted Children of Ukraine". In 2004 he became head of the international civic organization "Union of Ukrainians of the World".

Content of songs Poplavskyi's songs, many of which are dedicated to dishes of traditional Ukrainian cuisine, have attracted accusations of primitivizing Ukrainian culture and leading to a decline of modern trends in Ukrainian music during the 2000s. His artistic creativity has been characterized as a classical example of kitsch.

Private university In 2015 prosecution dropped a case against Poplavskyi and his son Oleksandr on the accusation of irregularities during the educational process in the Kyiv University of Culture, a private university established by them on the base of KNUKiM.

Cambridge book presentation In October 2018 Poplavskyi published an Instagram post with photos from a presentation of his book of memoirs, which he claimed to have taken place at Cambridge University in the presence of one of its professors. However, a Ukrainian researcher at the university claimed that the presentation took place in a rented building at the university's territory, and had no relation to the educational establishment, with the alleged "professor" meeting Poplavskyi being a local chiropractic.

Harassment allegations In February 2025 a former KNUKiM student claimed, that in January 2021 Poplavskyi had offered her to engage in a game of billiards in his country villa, marking each scored point with a kiss. When she refused, Poplavskyi supposedly boasted with his experience in sexual harassment. Poplavskyi himself did not comment those accusations.

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Awards Golden Feather award (2000) Diploma of the festival "Schlager of the 20th century" (2001) Golden Art Olympus prize (2002) Muse of the Olympus award (2006) Person of the Year in the category "Artist of the Year" (2009)