Ivan Steshenko

Who is Ivan Steshenko?

Ivan Steshenko was a Ukrainian civic and political activist, writer, translator, member of the Ukrainian government, and member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. He had several pen-surnames: Serdeshny, Sichovyk, Svitlenko, and Stepura.

Steshenko had a wife Oksana Steshenko, a daughter and a son: Iryna and Yaroslav. Ivan was a son-in-law to Mykhailo Starytskyi, father of Oksana.

Ivan studied in Kiev University from 1892 to 1896. At that time he was an active member of the Literary Hromada of Kiev. Steshenko was publishing his works in various Lviv periodicals: Pravda, Zoria, and Dzvinok. After graduating from the Department of History and Philosophy in 1896, he worked as a teacher in women's school, gymnasium. In politics he became influenced by Mykhailo Drahomanov and Mykola Kovalevsky. Later together with other activists such as Lesia Ukrainka he formed the Ukrainian social-democratic club. At about that time he wrote his drama Mazepa. After all this he was put in prison in 1897 for four months, following exile from Kiev and prohibition of teaching. That forced him to go into intense writing. At that time he was preparing the Ukrainian dictionary, wrote a book about Kotliarevsky's work, and its own poetry collections such as Khutorni Sonety and Steppovi Motyvy. He also was publishing various articles in the newspaper Kievskaya Starina.