Yevhen Sverstiuk

Yevhen Oleksandrovych Sverstiuk (; 13 December 1927 – 1 December 2014) was a Ukrainian literary critic, essayist, poet, think tank, philosopher, participant of the sixtiers movement, and political prisoner of the Soviet regime. Sverstiuk studied the work of Nikolai Gogol, Taras Shevchenko, and Ivan Franko. He was the founder and, since 1989 a permanent editor of the Orthodox newspaper Nasha Vira, president of PEN Ukraine. Doctor of Philosophy. Author of one of the most important texts of Ukrainian self-publishing About the process of Pogruzhalskyi, head of Ukrainian Association of Independent Creative Intelligentsia.

Early life and education Yevhen Sverstiuk was born on 13 December 1927 in the village of Siltse, Horokhiv County, Volyn Voivodeship, Republic of Poland, now Horokhiv Raion, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. His parents were peasants. From October 1983 to 1988, Sverstiuk worked as a carpenter at the Kyiv industrial sewing factory No. 2. In the summer of 1988, together with comrades from the Ukrainian Communist Party, Sverstiuk honored the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine near the monument of St. Volodymyr.

After the declaration of Ukraine's independence, Sverstiuk was an active ideologist of the desovietization of the country. His publications devoted to overcoming the Soviet legacy in spiritual life are widely known.

He was one of the participants of the "First of December" initiative group, an association of Ukrainian intellectuals and public figures created in 2011. In its composition, he was one of the authors of the National Act of Freedom, a social contract proposed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which was published on 14 February 2014 and was intended to find ways out of the political crisis.

Yevhen Sverstiuk died on 1 December 2014, twelve days before his 87th birthday. He was buried on 4 December 2014 at the Baikove cemetery (plot No. 33). The burial ceremony took place in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and the Teacher's House in Kyiv.

Writings Sverstiuk is an author of books, numerous articles on literary studies, psychology, and religious studies; poems, as well as translations from German, English, and Russian into Ukrainian. Some of Sverstyuk's literary and critical essays appeared (mainly in the first half of the 1960s) in the magazines "Vitchyzna," "Dnipro," "Zhovten," "Duklya" (an essay about Mykola Zerov), the newspaper "Literature Ukraine "; On the feast of hope. – Kyiv: Our faith, 1999. 784 pages. On the waves of "Freedom." Short essays. – Lutsk: VMA "Teren", 2004. Not peace, but a sword. Essays. – Lutsk: VMA "Teren", 2009. The truth is wormwood. – Kyiv, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2009. Shevchenko beyond time. Essays. / Compiled by Oleksiy Sinchenko. – Lutsk: VMA "Teren" – Kyiv: Publishing House "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy," 2011. – 277 p. Gogol and the Ukrainian night / Compiled by Oleksiy Sinchenko. – Kyiv: Clio, 2013. Bright voices of life. - Kyiv: Clio, 2015.

Awards and honors Sverstiuk was awarded the Order of Liberty "...for outstanding services in asserting the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, courage, and dedication in defending human rights and freedoms, fruitful literary and journalistic activity and on the occasion of Freedom Day..." according to the Decree of the President of Ukraine "On awarding Yevhen Sverstiuk with the Order of Freedom” dated 25 November 2008 No. 1075/2008.

Other awards include Shevchenko National Prize (1995) for the book Prodigal Sons of Ukraine,

Commemoration In 2015, streets in Kyiv and Brovary were renamed in honor of Yevhen Sverstiuk. Since May 2016, Yevgen Sverstyuk Street has also appeared in Poltava. In 2016, Evgen Sverstiuk Street appeared in the city of Kropyvnytskyi. A street in Lutsk is named after Yevhen Sverstiuk, and a commemorative plaque is dedicated to him.

On 13 December 2018, the 90th anniversary of the birth of Yevhen Sverstyuk (1928-2014) was celebrated at the state level in Ukraine.