Panas Myrny
Panas Myrny – pen name Panas Yakovlevich Rudchenko (1 (13) May 1849 – January 28, 1920), Ukrainian writer (novelist and playwright).
He was born in Mirgorod (now – the district center in Poltava region) in the family of a petty official. He studied Mirgorodskom parish school, then – in Hadiach district school (1858 – 1862 years.). Further education he did not obtain.
From 1863 he began to serve as a minor official in financial institutions of district towns Poltava province, and from 1871 – in the same institutions Poltava. In 1914 he was promoted to State Councilor.
Service officer in Russan empire was not compatible with literary works, so these people had to publish treir works under pseudonyms (the most famous case – State Councilor Mikhail Saltykov, which always used the alias "Nicholas Shchedrin"). Official Rudchenko should had the more cautious for employment in prohibited Ukrainian literature. He published his works unsigned, and then began to use the pseudonym "Panas Myrny"; his contemporaries knew very little about its owner.
Russian police occasionally began to be interested – who is Panas Myrny, but fortunately it had no consequences for the writer.
Panas Mirny invoved in the literary work very early, at the end of 1860-s, and quickly identified his profession as a prose writer. His first works were published in the Lviv from 1872; story "Evil people" was published by M. Drahomanov in Geneva (1877), where in 1880 the novel was "Whether roar oxen when mangers are full?". These publications printed artificial "Drahomanov" spelling were strictly prohibited not only in the Russian Empire, but also in Austria-Hungary. Trying to hold them through the Russian censorship, the author gave the first name "Friends", and the second – "Lost power." But the first one was not allowed, and the second was published only in 1905 in a distorted form of censorship exceptions.
Russian censorship barred works Panas Myrny permanently, accusing them abundance of black paint to sketch the life of ordinary people and preaching socialist ideas (both – rightly). Because of this, his works lay in manuscript intact for decades, and much of it was published after the death of the writer. Thus, the first part of the novel "Prostitute" was published in 1883, and author had not seen it printed in full extent. So Panas Myrny not only could not earn his literary laborand but made much less than he could.
Panas Myrny creative methods – mainly realism. His main observation – the peasants, petty officials and intellectuals of his native Poltava region. In his novels shown the people’s life from the mid-19th century, from last years of serfdom, to the early 20th century, yhe events of the revolution in 1905 and attempted winding of parliamentary system in the Russian Empire.
In the full works Panas Myrny came to the reader only in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century. And he justly considered a classic of Ukrainian literature.
M. Zh., July 2, 2017.