Vladimir Gzhitskii

Born Oct. 3 (15), 1895, in the village of Ostrovets, in present-day Terebovlia Raion, Ternopol’ Oblast. Soviet Ukrainian author. Born into the family of a teacher. During World War I, 1914-18, a soldier in the Austrian army.

In 1926, Gzhitskii graduated from the Forestry Institute in Kharkov. He began publishing his work in 1924. The theme of his novel Black Lake (1929; Russian translation, 1930) is the socialist transformation of Altai Krai. The work was criticized for inaccurately portraying the nationality problem in the Altai region. In 1957, Gzhitskii published a new edition of Black Lake. In 1962 he wrote the historical novel Oprishki about the western Ukrainian popular hero Oleksa Dovbush. His trilogy of novels, Great Hopes, is about historical events in the Ukraine from 1914 to 1941. Gzhitskii writes short stories and tales for children and young people—for example, “The Boxwood Grove,” “The Deserted Shore,” and “Petia’s Storks.” His novel Word of Honor appeared in 1968.