Top 12 Famous People of Chernihiv
Panteleimon Kulish was born on August 7, 1819 in a bowery in Chernihiv province, in the family of a wealthy Cossack. He studied at the Novgorod-Siversky preparatory school (gymnasium), where he awakened his interest in a folk art. The young high school student started collecting folk songs and writing his own works.
An important page in P. Kulish's life was his long-standing acquaintance and friendship with T. Shevchenko. They were united by the love to Ukraine, the people, the language and its past. In early 1847 in Warsaw he was arrested for his participation in the Cyrill-and-Methodius fraternity and sent to Tula. He was forbidden to write and serve in the education system. After the exile, Kulish deployed active social activities, write a lot and started his own printing house. In 1857, novel «The Black Council» and «Grammar» were published, in which Kulish developed the spelling of the Ukrainian language, which was used until 1917, and later it partly formed the basis of modern spelling.
At the beginning of April 1883 he returned to Motronivka, where, alone with his wife, he focused on literary, translation and historical research work. Until the end of his life he worked creatively, publishing new works. He worked a lot on translations. He translated the Bible, almost all of Shakespeare, Goethe, J. Byron works. At the end of his life, P. Kulish prepared a poetic collection, "Borrowed Kobza: The Singing of Outlandish Singings," which was published in Geneva in 1897, only after the death of the poet.
He died on February 14, 1897 in Motronivka (now part of the village of Olenivka, Borznyansky district, Chernihiv region). He was buried there. Caring for her husband's inheritance took on the wife - Alexandra Bilozerska, who wrote under the pseudonym Anna Barvinok. There were not many people in Motronivka, but the correspondence was very intensive. This is due to not only to the publication of Kulish's works, but also to the perpetuation of his memory and the creation of the Kunashivka Writer's Museum in 1907.
