Ivan Ivanovich Manzhura

(pen name, Ivan Kalichka). Born Oct. 20 (Nov. 1), 1851, in Kharkov; died May 3 (15), 1893, in Ekaterinoslav, present-day Dnepropetrovsk. Ukrainian poet, folklorist, and ethnographer.

Manzhura was the son of a petty official. In 1870-71 he attended the Kharkov Veterinary School but was expelled for belonging to “a special political circle.” In search of work he wandered through the Ukraine. His itinerant way of life led to his vocation as a folklorist, ethnographer, and poet. In 1876 he fought as a volunteer in the struggle of the Serbs against their Turkish oppressors and was wounded.

In 1884, Manzhura settled in Ekaterinoslav, where he contributed to the newspaper Ekaterinoslavskii listok (Ekaterinoslav Leaflet) and to the magazine Step ‘(Steppe). In 1889 he published the collection of verses Steppe Ballads and Songs, and in 1890 the book Fairy Tales, Proverbs, and the Like, Recorded in the Provinces of Ekaterinoslav and Kharkov. His second poetry collection, Above the Dnieper, the book of fairy tales and legends in verse Fairy Tales, Prologues, and the Like, and other fairy tales in verse were censored and were published only after the October Revolution. Manzhura was a talented democratic poet and a bard of the rural poor and the city proletariat in the tradition of T. G. Shevchenko and N. A. Nekrasov. He translated the works of N. A. Nekrasov, and H. Heine.