Rudanskii, Stepan Vasilevich

Born Dec. 25, 1833 (Jan. 6, 1834), in the village of Khomutintsy, now the village of Rudanskoe, Zhmerinka Raion, Vinnitsa Oblast; died Apr. 21 (May 3), 1873, in Yalta. Ukrainian poet.

Rudanskii graduated from the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy in 1861 and practiced medicine in Yalta. He began publishing his works in 1859, continuing the realistic and civic traditions of T. G. Shevchenko and N. A. Nekrasov. He denounced serfdom and the parasitism and bribe-taking of government officials. He appealed to all to work for the good of the people—for example, in the poems “Over the Cradle,” “The Drunkard,” “The Assessor,” “The Student,” and “Hey, the Bulls!” His best work is the cycle of humorous poetical pieces Spivomovki: Poeticheskie iumoreski, written in the folk kolomyika meter and permeated with satirical and antireligious motifs. Rudanskii translated The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, Homer’s Iliad, and other works into Ukrainian.