Mykola Bazhan

Mykola Bazhan
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Born	September 26, 1904 Kamianets-Podilskyi, Russian Empire (today Khmelnytskyi Oblast)
Died	November 23, 1983 (79 years) Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Occupation	writer, poet, academician
Nationality	Ukrainian

Mykola Platonovych Bazhan (Ukrainian: Микола Платонович Бажан; 9 October [O.S. 26 September] 1904 – 23 November 1983) was a Soviet Ukrainian writer, poet, highly decorated political and public figure. He was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1951), Merited Science Specialist of Ukrainian SSR (1966), Merited Art Specialist of Georgian SSR (1964), People's Poet of Uzbek SSR.

Bazhan was a People's Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union for 2-5 convocations (1946–62), and the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR for 6-9 convocations (1963–80). He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR on several occasions at the party's congresses (17-19 and 21-25). In 1943-49 Bazhan was a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Minister (Commissars) of the Ukrainian SSR.

Biography

Mykola Bazhan was born in city of Kamenyets, an administrative center of Podolia Governorate, yet his youth years he spent in Uman, Kiev Governorate. His father Platon Artemovych Bazhan, a native of Poltava region, was a military surveyor and a veteran of the Ukrainian People's Army.

In 1923 Mykola Bazhan graduated from the Uman Cooperative College and moved to Kiev where he studied at a cooperative institute at first and later at an institute of foreign relations. His first poem was published in Kiev in 1923 and his first book "Seventeenth Patrol" in Kharkiv in 1926. In 1926 he married a Ukrainian writer and native of Kiev Hayina Kovalenko. In 1940 Mykola Bazhan joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

During the Great Patriotic War while being an editor of the newspaper "For the Soviet Ukraine", he was a member of the Soviet Armed Forces. In 1943 he published a book "Stalingrad Notebook", for which in 1946 Bazhan received the Stalin Prize. In 1953-59 Bazhan headed the Writer's Union of Ukraine. During the "Khrushchev thaw", on July 2, 1956 he raised before the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine the issue of rehabilitation several repressed writers: Vasyl Bobynsky, Hryhorii Epik, Ivan Kulyk, Mykola Kulish, and many more.

From 1957 and until his death, Bazhan was the chief editor and its founder of the Main Edition of Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia publishing. The publishing has finally published the first Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia in 17 volumes (1959–65) and in 12 volumes (1977-85) as well as number of other no less important reference works. Bazhan also was one of co-authors of the Anthem of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He died in Kiev in 1967.

Awards and prizes

• Shota Rustaveli State Prize of the Georgian SSR (1937)
• Order of Lenin (1939, 1954, 1960, 1964, 1974)
• Order of the Red Banner (1940s)
• Stalin Prize (1946, 1949)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1948, 1967)
• Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR (1965)
• State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR (1971)
• Hero of Socialist Labour (1974)

When he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1970, he was forced by Soviet authorities to write a letter refusing his candidature.

References

• This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the Russian Wikipedia.