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George Yurii Shevelov (Template:Lang-ua). (pseud: Yurii Sherekh), (December 17, 1908, Łomża - April 12, 2002, New York) - slavic linguist, philologist, essayist, literary historian, and literary critic.

Biography

Early life

George Yurii Shevelov was born Yurii Shneider in Łomża, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. Some sources however indicate Kharkiv as his place of birth. His father, Vladimir Karlovich Shneider was a high ranked Russian Emperial Army officer – he commanded a regiment and later brigade and was elevated to the rank of general-major. His father was an ethnic German as was also his mother - Varvara Meder, who originally was from a noble Moscow family. When Russia in 1914 declared war on the German Empire his father – a fervent Russian monarchist - decide to change the family name into a Russian one. Shneider choose the surname Shevelov, and also changed the patronymic “Karlovich” to “Yuryevich”. Such changes require a personal appeal to the Russian Emperor and in this case it was endorsed by Nikolai II in 1916. During the war Yurii and his mother moved to Kharkiv. At the beginning of 1918, Shevelov’s father became missing in action (presumably killed). In Kharkiv, Yurii attended the E.Druzhkova Private School, then at 3rd State boy's Gymnasium, and then studied at 7th working school (Template:Lang-ua).

Soviet Ukraine

In 1925 he graduated fro the First Kharkiv trade-industry trade union school (Template:Lang-ua. 1925-1927 Yurii worked as a statistician, archive keeper for South Chemical Trust. In 1927-1931 he attend the literature-linguistic branch of the Kharkiv peoples education Institute. From August 1931 he works as a Ukrainian language school teacher. From 1932 till 1938 he worked as an Ukrainian language teacher at the Ukrainian communist newspaper technical school (Template:Lang-ua). From 1933 till 1939 he also work as a Ukrainian language teacher at the Ukrainian communist Institute of the journalism. From September 1936 he became a postgraduate student at the Leonid Bulakhovsky chair. In 1939 he works as a history of the Ukrainian language and literature teacher. From November 1939 he is an assistant professor and deputy chair of the philology branch at the Kharkiv Pedagogical Institute. In 1941 he became a research fellow at the Linguistic Institute of the Academy of Science of the Ukrainian SSR. That same year he was recruited as an NKVD informer.

In Nazi controlled territory

Shevelov hid from the draft into the Red Army and voluntarily stayed in the city during the evacuation. When Wehrmacht troops entered Kharkiv on 25 October, 1941 he warmly greeted them. In December 1941 he joined as a columnist to the “New Ukraine” newspaper established by a Nazi propaganda detachment and partially controlled by OUN followers who arrived in Kharkiv soon after Germans. Later he also joined another “newspaper ” “Ukrainian Sowing” (Template:Lang-ua. From April 1942 Shevelov worked at city administration at administrative department and also cooperated with the educational organization Prosvita whose branch was established by OUN members. In his memoirs, one of his former students Oles Honchar claimed that when as a Soviet POW he was detained in a Nazi Death Camp in Kharkiv Shevelov refused his pleas for assistance . Honchar escaped death to become a renowned and influential Ukrainian writer. and Shevelov had been very critical of Soviet novels including Honchar's major work.

Shevelov and his mother fled Kharkiv as the Red Army advanced in February 1943. He stayed for a time in Lviv were he continued to work, including in the creation of a “new Ukrainian grammar” up until the Spring of 1944, when the Soviets pushed further West. Shevelov with the assistance of the Ukrainian Central Committee moved to Poland (Crynytsya) and then to Slovakia, then Austria and finally to Saxony.

In Europe

After fall of Nazi Germany Shevelov work for the émigré newspaper “Chas” (“Time”) under a non-de-plume in order to avoid identification and repatriation to the Soviet Union. From 1946 enroled in the émigré “Ukrainian Free University” in Munich and obtained a philologist doctorate there in 1947 for his Soviet-time work ""До генези називного речення" (1941). He was also vice-president of the MUR (Template:Lang-ua a Ukrainian literary association (1945-49). Afraid of repatriation to Soviet Union he moved to neutral Sweden were he worked from 1950-52 as Russian language lecturer at Lund University.

In USA

In 1952 together with mother he emigrated to USA. After settling in the United States he served as lecturer in Russian and Ukrainian at Harvard University (1952-4), associate professor (1954-8) and professor of Slavic philology at Columbia University (1958-77). He was amongst the founders and president of the émigré scholar organization “Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences” (1959-61, 1981-86) was an honorary doctor of the University of Alberta (1983) and Lund University (1984). He was a founding member of the Slovo Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile and write for numerous émigré bulletins and magazines.

In independent Ukraine

Shevelov was almost unknown in Ukrainian academic circles fropm 1943. In 1990, after an extended absence he first visited Ukraine - and was elected an international member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 1999 he received an honorary doctorate from the Kharkiv University and from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

In 2001 he published 2 volume of his memoirs “Я – мене – мені…(і довкруги).”: Спогади. He died in 2002 in New York.

Scholar contribution

He prepared and published more then 600 scholar text concerning different aspects of the philology of Ukrainian and some other Slavic languages. From 1943 he develop conception of the distinct establishment and developing of Ukrainian and, later, Byelorussian languages - an opposite to generally accepted versions at Ukraine and Byelorussia of the languages common origin and background. Such approaches receive an awesome support at émigré scholar organizations and some western institution but were strongly rejected at the National Academy of Science level of both Slavic countries before 1990s. At Ukraine during early 1990s Shevelov conceptions found some supporters – even he enrolled in to the Commission for new Ukrainian grammar established in 1992– but in general gain minimum scholars support and soon ideas for “new Ukrainian grammar” was postponed till later times.

Bibliography

• "Головні правила українського правопису" (Nue Ulm, 1946),
• "До генези називного речення" (Munich, 1947),
• "Галичина в формуванні нової української літературної мови" (Munich, 1949),
• "Сучасна українська літературна мова" (Munich, 1949),
• "Нарис сучасної української літературної мови" (Munich, 1951),
• "Всеволод Ганцов – Олена Курило" (Winnipeg , 1954),
• "A Reader іn the Hіstory of the Eastern Slavіc" (New-York 1958, співав.),
• "The Syntax of Modern Lіterary Ukraіnіan" (1963),
• "Не для дітей. Літературно-критичні статті і есеї" (New-York, 1964),
• "A Prehіstory of Slavіc: The Hіstorіcal Phonology of Common Slavіc" (1964, Heidelberg; 1965, New-York),
• "Dіe ukraіnіsche Schrіftsprache 1798 – 1965" (Wiesbaden, 1966),
• "Teasers and Appeasers" (1971),
• "Друга черга: Література. Театр. Ідеології" (1978),
• "A Hіstorіcal Phonology of the Ukraіnіan Language" (1979» «Історична фонологія української мови», перекл. укр., 2002),
• "Українська мова в першій половині двадцятого століття(1900 – 1941): Стан і статус" (1987) and many other.

Notes

1. Шевельов (Шерех), Ю.В. “Я – мене – мені…(і довкруги).”: Спогади. – Х.; Нью-Йорк: Вид-во М.П.Коць, 2001. – Т.1. p 8- 290
2. Боґуміла Бердиховська. Україна: люди і книжки . КІС, 2009. p 167-169
3. А. В. Скоробогатов Харків у часи німецької окупації (1941—1943). — Харків: Прапор, 2006. — ISBN 966-7880-79-6
4. Гончар Олесь. Катарсис. — К.: Український світ, 2000
5. http://www.ukrposhta.com/www/bulletin.nsf/0/C91830429EF355D3C22574280042C01B?OpenDocument
6. End of a Centrury.by Svitlana Matvienko. Mirror Weekly. 20-26 April 2002.
7. Past Honorary Degree Recipients
8. Hedersdoktorer vid humanistiska fakulteten
9. Шевельов Юрій (Shevelov George) (довідка)
10. Почесні професори НаУКМА

Book references

• Шевельов (Шерех), Ю.В. “Я – мене – мені…(і довкруги).”: Спогади. – Х.; Нью-Йорк: Вид-во М.П.Коць, 2001. – Т.1.

• Боґуміла Бердиховська. Україна: люди і книжки / Переклад з польської Тетяна Довжок. КІС, 2009. p 167-178
• А. В. Скоробогатов Харків у часи німецької окупації (1941—1943). — Харків: Прапор, 2006. — ISBN 966-7880-79-6

External links

• [http://www.maidan.org.ua/history/kharkiv/yuri_sheveliov/Rieger_Hnatiuk.htm Rieger J., Hnatiuk A. Jurij Szewelow (George Y. Shevelov, Jurij Szerech)1908–2002 // Slavia Orientalis. –

2002. – T. LI. – Nr. 3. – S. 351–360 ]

• George Y. Shevelov biography and bibliography at Kharkiv University
• George Y. Shevelov biography and bibliography at Kharkiv University

• Articles needing cleanup from August 2009
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from August 2009
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• 1908 births
• 2002 deaths
• Chevaliers of the Order of Merit
• People from Kharkiv Oblast
• Ukrainian writers
• Slavists
• Ukrainians of Russian descent
• Ukrainian democracy activists
• Harvard University faculty
• Columbia University faculty
• Alumni of Kharkiv University
• Ukrainian literary critics