Glebov, Leonid

Born Feb. 21 (Mar. 5), 1827, in the village of Veselyi Podol, Poltava Province; died Oct. 29 (Nov. 10), 1893, in Chernigov. Ukrainian poet and writer of fables.

Born into the family of an estate steward, Glebov graduated from the Nezhin Lyceum in 1855. He became a teacher at a Gymnasium. From 1861 to 1863 he published the Chernigovskii listok, which was suppressed for its “anti-government agitation.” Glebov was excluded from the teaching profession and placed under police surveillance. His first collection of writings, Poems, was published in Russian in 1847. Some of his poems (for example, “There Stands a High Mountain …”) became folk songs. Glebov gained fame for his original fables, which were directed against serfdom, litigiousness, corruption, and toadying (“The Wolf and the Lamb,” “The Wolf and the Cat,” “The Pike,” “The Commune,” “The Bear-Beekeeper,” and “The Proprietress and Her Servants”). A collection of his fables (Fables) appeared in 1863 (3rd ed., 1882). Glebov was one of the founders of Ukrainian children’s literature.