BIOGRAPHY

MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH MOGILYANSKY
Ukrainian and Russian writer and publicist, journalist, translator, literary scholar and critic, lawyer, public figure.
4.12 (22.11). 1873 - Chernigov  —  22.03.1942 - Bol’shaya Murta, Territory of Krasnoyarsk.

Pseudonyms:
Andriyko Mikh., Andriyko M., Valerian Chubinsky, T. Maksimovich, Gritsenko B., Pavlo Chubsky, A. Lebedinsky, Russobtovsky M., M.M., M.A.

Family History:
- connected with the Kievo-Mogilyansky Academy - the first institute of higher learning to be established in Ukraine, founded in 1631 by Peter Mogila on the site of the Kievo-Pechersky Monastery.

Parents:
Father - Mikhail Yakovlevich Mogilyansky (1840 - 1894) — lawyer; Mother - Maria Nikolayevna Mogilyanskaya, nee Maksimovich (1855 - 1918)

Siblings:
Nikolai (born 1871), Boris (born 1875), Anna (born 1878), Petr (born 1881), Maria (1886 - 1887).

Key Biographical Details:
1883 - 1892 — studied at the Chernigov gymnasium. 1892 — became a student in the Faculty of Law at the Saint Petersburg Imperial University (requirements for graduation incomplete).
Up to 1899 — was involved in marxist circles (since his student days at the gymnasium), was a member of the Petersburg “Union for the Struggle to Liberate the Working Class”, and participated in the “Red Cross” - an organization which helped political prisoners and exiles. Arrested in 1899, he was held in custody in the Saint Petersburg prison “Kresty” for 4 months and then exiled to Chernigov for 3 years under police supervision.
1898 — married Alexandra Alexeevna Sitensky, a teacher (1873, Chernigov — 1932, Kharkiv). They had 4 children: Lydia (born 1899), Dmitri (born 1901), Elena (born 1905), and Irina (born 1911).
1903 — received permission to complete his remaining state examinations, earned his law degree from Novorossiysky University, Odessa, and began his legal practice. As a lawyer he took part in “agrarian” legal proceedings in Kiev, Vinnitsa, Glukhov, Chernigov, and in political proceedings in Chernigov, Kiev, and Petersburg. He was a defender in the “pogrom” proceedings in Kishinev.
1906 - 1909 — worked as an editor for the publisher M. V. Piroshkov (S.-Petersburg).
1904 - 1913 — was elected as a deputy to the Gorodnensky District Council.
1913 — was chosen to work for the Justice of the Peace in the city of Gorodnya. He was dismissed from this work and together with lawyers from Petersburg was given a prison sentence for his part in the “Beilis Affair.” The sentence was revoked at the time of the February Revolution in1917.
1907 - 1917 — was a member of the Constitutional-Democratic Party (The Peoples’ Freedom Party). From March 1907 he was coopted into its Central Committee. In March, 1917 he broke ranks with the party due to a disagreement over “the Ukrainian question.”
1918 - 1923 — a period of intense journalistic activity, leadership of the literary committee of the Chernigov Section for Public Education, editorial work on the publication of the works of T. Shevchenko, G. Kvitki-Osnovyanenko, L. Glibova and other Ukrainian authors. 1923 - 1933 — a period of scholarly and literary activity: headed the Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) to create a Biographical Dictionary of leading Ukrainians, delivered lectures at meetings of the historic-philological section of VUAN, edited new publications, and worked in a variety of literary genres. In 1933 the VUAN Commission was closed down, and Mogilyansky was banned from living in Kiev.
1934 - 1942 — went to live with his youngest daughter Irina in Dnepropetrovsk. In August, 1941 they were evacuated to Siberia.
22 March, 1942 — after a lengthy illness, Mogilyansky died in the arms of his daughters Elena and Irina in the village of Bol’shaya Murta, Krasnoyarsk.

List of Major Works:
Novels: “Chest’ ” (1929), “Vsyudu strasti rokovye” (1939), “Khil’da” (1941); books: “Tri stikhotvoreniya v proze” (1895), “Poeziya Nadsona” (1897), “Kriticheskiye nabroski” (1989), “Istoricheskoye osveshcheniye finlyandskogo voprosa” (1910); plays: “Mirazh” (1902), “Tina” (1904), “Ustaliye” (1906); stories and memoirs: “V devyanostiye godi” (1924); literary and journalistic works: “Pervaya Gosudarstvennaya Duma” (1907), “Khudozhnik slova. Pamyati M. Kotsyubinskogo” (1915), “M. Kotsyubinski” (1919), “Shevchenkovskaya godovshchina 1916 g.” (1916), “O kul’turnam tvorchestve (ukrainski vopros)” (1912), “K voprosu ob ukrainskom separatizme” (1913), “I. Franko” (1919); forwards written for the published collected essays of P. Kulish, Marko Vovchok, Anna Barvinok, A. Storozhenko and others; translations into Russian of Kotsyubinski’s stories, essays on Shevchenko, several thousand pieces of correspondence and hundreds of press reviews.

Published in periodicals: “Rech’ “, “Duma” (both - S.-Pb), “Desna” (Chernigov), “Volyn’ “ (Zhitomir), “Kievskoye slovo”, “Kievskiye otkliki”, “Ukrainskaya zhizn’ “ (Moscow), “Ukrainski vestnik” (S.-Pb.), “Chernigovskaya zemskaya nedelya”, “Chervoni shlyakh”, “Zhittya i revolyutsiya”, “Nova gromada” and many others.