Ivan Mykytenko

Biography

Writer, publicist, playwright, and Soviet activist. He was one of the leading organizers of Soviet literature in the 1920s and 1930s. Mykytenko began writing poetry and publicistic works in 1922, while still a student in Odesa. His play Dictatorship, 1929 was on the collectivization of the Ukrainian village; its superficial symbolism, use of pathos, and occasionally deft humor endeared it to Communist Party activists, and Mykytenko's plays became part of the repertoire of many Ukrainian and other Soviet theaters. The rest of his plays were written on commission, and served to illustrate the latest Party decisions. Despite the fact that Mykytenko never strayed from the Party line and actively condemned writers and theater directors who did (he was particularly vehement in his criticism of Les Kurbas and Mykola Kulish), in October 1937 he was removed from the executive of the Writers' Union of Ukraine, dismissed from his position as editor in chief of Radians’ka literatura, and expelled from the Party. Recent sources indicate that he committed suicide. After his death his works were proscribed. He was rehabilitated after 1956, and most of his works have been republished.