Samiilenko, Vladimir

(pen names Iva-nenko, Poltavets, Syven’kii, and others). Born Jan. 22 (Feb. 3), 1864, in the village of Velikie Sorochintsy, in what is now Mirgorod Raion, Poltava Oblast; died Aug. 12, 1925, in the village of Boiarka, near Kiev. Ukrainian poet.

Samiilenko graduated from the University of Kiev in 1890. He published his first works in 1886. He is the author of the collections From the Poems of Vladimir Samiilenko (1890) and To the Ukraine (1906; foreword by I. Franko). Samiilenko was well known for his satirical feuilletons and pamphlets in verse. He caustically ridiculed the pseudopatriotism of the Ukrainian nationalists and liberals (“Ivan the Patriot,” “On the Stove”) and satirized the leaders of the Stolypin reaction (“A New Order,” “An Arrogant Duma”). Failing to understand the significance of the Revolution of October 1917, Samiilenko emigrated to Galicia. However, he became disillusioned with the bourgeois-nationalist environment and in 1924 returned to his native land. Samiilenko also wrote dramatic works, for example, Marusia Churaivna. He translated works of classical, Western European, and Russian writers.