Mark Lukich Kropivnitskii

Born Apr. 25 (May 7), 1840, in the village of Bezhbairaki, in present-day Bobrinets Raion, Kirovograd Oblast; died Apr. 8 (21), 1910, and buried in Kharkov. Ukrainian playwright and actor. A founder of the Ukrainian realistic theater. Son of an estate bailiff.

Kropivnitskii graduated from the Bobrinets District School and worked in the district court (1861–71). He began performing in provincial theaters in 1871 and with M. P. Staritskii founded the first professional Ukrainian theater troupe in 1882. Kropivnitskii wrote more than 40 dramas, comedies, and vaudeville skits. A democrat and humanist, the writer had a profound knowledge of the life and mores of the different strata of contemporary society. As a playwright he possessed a rich and stylistically varied vocabulary from everyday speech.

His most successful dramas dealt with life in Ukrainian villages after the reforms. The satirical denunciation of the village bourgeoisie, present even in his first drama, Giving the Heart Freedom Leads to Enslavement (1863), was developed in his later dramas— The Extortionist, or The Spider (1882), Two Families (1888), and Olesia (1891). The plot of The Dew Will Burn Away Your Eyes Before the Sun Can Rise (1882) is built on acute social conflict and reveals with deep sympathy the tragic fate of a peasant girl. Kropivnitskii also directed and taught, training a myriad of actors.