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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 in 1908. Some sources however, indicate Kharkiv as his place of birth. His father, Vladimir Karlovich Shneider was a high ranking Russian Imperial Army officer who held the rank of major-general. His father and mother (Varvara Meder, who originally was from a noble Moscow family) were both ethnic Germans. When Russia declared war on the German Empire in 1914, his father – a fervent Russian monarchist - decide to russify the family name. Shneider choose the surname Shevelov, and also changed the patronymic “Karlovich” to “Yuryevich”. Such changes however required a personal appeal to the Tsar, and in this case it was personally granted by Nikolai II in 1916. During the WWI Yurii and his mother moved to Kharkiv. At the beginning of 1918, Shevelov’s father became missing in action and was presumed killed.

In Kharkiv, Yurii initially attended the E.Druzhkova Private School, then at 3rd State Boy's Gymnasium, and then studied at the Technical School #7 (Template:Lang-ua).

In Soviet Ukraine

In 1925 Shevelov graduated from the First Kharkiv Trade and Industry Union school (Template:Lang-ua. In 1925-1927 he worked as a statistician and archive keeper for South Chemical Trust. In 1927-1931 he attend classes at the literatary-linguistic branch of the Kharkiv People's Education Institute. From August 1931 he worked as an 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 worked as a Ukrainian language teacher at the Ukrainian Communist Institute for Journalism. From September 1936 he was a postgraduate student at the Leonid Bulakhovsky chair of studies. In 1939 he worked as a teacher of the history of the Ukrainian language and literature. From November 1939 he became the assistant professor and deputy chair of the philology faculty 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. In that same year under pressure he was recruited as an NKVD informer.

During WWII

Shevelov avoided induction into the Red Army and remained in Kharkiv following the Soviet evacuation. After Wehrmacht troops entered Kharkiv on 25 October, 1941 he joined the “New Ukraine” newspaper in December 1941, a newspaper known for diseminating Nazi propaganda and partially controlled by OUN. Later Shevelov also worked at another newspaper “Ukrainian Sowing” (Template:Lang-ua. From April 1942 Shevelov worked at city administration in the administrative department and cooperated with the educational organization Prosvita. In his memoirs, one of his former students Oles Honchar claimed that when as a Soviet POW he was detained in a Nazi Camp in Kharkiv Shevelov refused his pleas for assistance . Honchar escaped death to become a renowned and influential Ukrainian writer. Shevelov has been critical of Soviet novels including Honchar's major work.

Shevelov and his mother fled the Red Army advance of Kharkiv in February 1943. He resided for a brief period of time in Lviv were he continued his work in the study of Ukrainian language, including the creation of a new Ukrainian grammar up until the Spring of 1944, when the Soviets continued their drive Westwards. 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 the fall of Nazi Germany Shevelov worked for the émigré newspaper “Chas” (“Time”) under a pseudonym in order to avoid identification and repatriation to the Soviet Union. In 1946 enrolled in the émigré “Ukrainian Free University” in Munich and obtained a doctorate in philology there in 1947 , using his pre-war work ""До генези називного речення" (1941) for his dissertation. He was also vice-president of the MUR (Template:Lang-ua), a Ukrainian literary association (1945-49). In order to avoid imminent repatriation to Soviet Union he moved to neutral Sweden, were he worked from 1950-52 as Russian language lecturer at Lund University.

In the USA

In 1952, together with mother, he emigrated to the USA. After settling in the United States he worked as a 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 one of the founders and president of the émigré scholarly organization “Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences” (1959-61, 1981-86) and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta (1983) and Lund University (1984). He was also a founding member of the Slovo Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile and was published in many émigré bulletins and magazines.

In Ukraine

Shevelov was almost unknown to Ukrainian academic circles after 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.

Intellectual Contributions

Shevelov prepared and published more then 600 scholarly texts concerning different aspects of the philology of the Ukrainian and other Slavic languages. From 1943 he developed the concept of the distinct establishment and development of Ukrainian and, later, Belarus languages. Shevelov argued against the commonly held view of an original, unified East Slavic language from which Ukrainian, Belarus and Russian languages diverged and instead proposed the existence of several dialectical groups (Kieven-Pollisyan, Galician-Podolian, Polotsk-Smolesnsk, Novgorodian-Tversk, Murom-Ryazansk) that had been distinct from the beginning and which which later formed into separate Ukrainian, Russian and Belarus languages. According to Shevelov, the beginnings of a separate Ukrainian language could be traced to the 7th century while the language formed in approximately the 16th century

Bibliography

• "Головні правила українського правопису" (Neue 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
11. Great Ukrainian Philologist On the 100 year Anniversary of the Birth of Yuri Shevelov by Roxolana Zorivchak, professor of the University of Lviv

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
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from August 2009
• 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