Volodymyr Sosyura

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Volodymyr Sosyura

Volodymyr Sosyura (Ukrainian: Володимир Сосюра) (b January 6, 1898 in Debaltseve, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, d January 8, 1965 in Kiev) was a Ukrainian lyric poet.

Sosyura fought in Petliura's Army of the Ukrainian National Republic during the winter of 1918 to the autumn of 1919, before being taken prisoner by Denikin's Volunteer Army. He was sentenced to death, but managed to escape. Later, after the UPR was overrun, he joined the Red Army.

After the Russian Civil War in Ukraine ended (see Ukraine after Russian Revolution), he studied at the Artem Communist University in Kharkiv from 1922-23, then at the workers' faculty of the Kharkiv Institute of People's Education from 1923-25. Sosyura belong to the literary organizations Pluh, Hart, Vaplite, and the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers.

In the 1920s-30s Sosiura became very popular, but his ideological loyalties were torn between patriotic feelings for Ukraine and those for the Soviet Union and its often-changing ideologies. Even though he had long been a CPU(b) member he was frequently in conflict with it, and was twice expelled for “nationalist undertones,” he was even forced to undergo a “reeducation” at a factory in 1930-1931. Many of Sosyura's poems were not published.

In 1948 he was awarded the highest honor of the Stalin Prize, but then he came under harsh criticism for his poem entitled Love Ukraine (Любіть Україну), which was deemed too nationalist in its tone, and his wife was arrested and spent six years in NKVD prisons.

Sosyura died in Kiev at the age of 66. His portrait and mention of Love Ukraine are featured on a two Hryvnia coin.