Ukrainian folklorist, educator, professor, and public figure. A member of the Sixtiers movement.
From the Cossack lands. His mother, Hanna, spent her childhood and youth as a hired hand. His father, Mykyta, grew up under the tyranny of a stepmother. The newlyweds started their life in someone else’s home. When Vasylko was still young, the family moved further south into the steppes, to the village of Podydar, which had been devastated by the dekulakization campaign. He attended school in neighboring, larger villages. During the famine of 1947, he would flush gophers out of their burrows, and this is how his family survived.
He entered the philological faculty of Dnipropetrovsk University, graduated with honors, and had firm hopes of pursuing postgraduate studies in the Department of Ukrainian Literature. However, he refused to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He even pointed to an incompetent colleague and said, “I don’t want to be in the same party as him.” And so, the straight-A student was given “C” grades in all his subjects. He worked as a teacher. In 1962, he married Halyna.
Three years later, he enrolled in postgraduate studies at the Institute of Art History, Folklore, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. The director, Maksym Rylsky, personally appointed himself as the supervisor for his dissertation, “Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovak Folk Lyric Poetry.” He defended it in 1965, and it was published as a book in 1970.
As early as 1964, Skrypka had published a critical literary article titled “Stemming the Flow of Ephemera.” In 1968, even before the “Prague Spring,” he participated in the VI International Congress of Slavists in Prague, where he was assigned minders. In 1967 and 1969, the Academy of Sciences invited him to serve on the admissions committee of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University. Defying instructions, he gave an “A” to former political prisoner Anatoliy LUPYNIS and an “F” to the son of a Communist official. A corresponding denunciation was sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
On June 27, 1969, he submitted a written report as the head of the state examination commission of the Crimean Pedagogical Institute. In its eighth section, he addressed the deplorable state of the Ukrainian language at the philological faculty. This section was published in issue No. 6 of the Ukrainskyi Visnyk (Ukrainian Herald) in March 1972. Issues No. 4 and 5 of the UV reported that on December 4, 1970, Skrypka’s work, “Stylistic Features of Cossack, Chumak, and Recruit Songs,” had been criticized at a meeting of the Institute’s Academic Council for “ideological-theoretical and methodological errors” and for his “uncritical attitude” toward Mykola Kostomarov and Mykhailo Drahomanov. On December 15, 1970, the Academic Council issued a resolution declaring Skrypka unfit for the position of research fellow and transferred him to the post of bibliographer.
At that time, Skrypka wrote a treatise, “Songs by the Hydroponic Method,” and gave it to Vasyl STUS and Yevhen SVERSTIUK to read. STUS responded with a favorable letter and offered concrete advice. (See: V. Stus. Tvary v 6 t. 9 kn. [Works in 6 vols., 9 books]. Vol. 6, book 2. – Lviv: Prosvita, 1997. – pp. 62-63).
Skrypka had dozens of publications in journals in Ukraine and Czechoslovakia. But after the arrests of the Sixtiers, a “purge” of academic institutions began. By a resolution of the Bureau of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR No. 294, dated July 31, 1972, “On the Further Improvement of the Thematic Focus of Scientific Research, Structure, and Staffing of the Institutions of the Social Sciences Section of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR,” many employees of scientific institutions, including Skrypka, were dismissed.
He taught Ukrainian for a year at the Zhytomyr Pedagogical Institute, then worked as a teacher in a Kyiv vocational school and in evening schools in various towns and villages.
He met with Oleksa TYKHYI, who in 1976 entrusted him with the typescript of his “Dictionary of Words Inconsistent with the Norms of the Ukrainian Literary Language (Foreign Words, Corrupted Words, Calques, etc.).” It was published in 2009 under the title Slovnyk movnykh pokruchiv (Dictionary of Linguistic Deformities).
From 1986, he was an associate professor, and later a full professor, in the Department of Ukrainian Literature at the Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical Institute (a pedagogical university since 1999).
At the European symposium “Folklore and the Modern World” (Kyiv, 1990), Skrypka introduced for academic analysis songs about the Solovki camps, collective farms, and the Soviet authorities. At the invitation of the University of Alberta (Canada, 1991), he conducted several seminars on ethnology and literary studies. He continued to research oral folk art, collecting testimonies about the Holodomor and political repressions. Specifically, on January 31 and February 1, 1990, he recorded the autobiographical account of Oksana MESHKO (published in issues 2–7 of the journal Kurier Kryvbasu in 1994 and as a separate booklet in 1996).
He worked actively for the spiritual revival of the Ukrainian people. From 1994, he was the head of the Kryvyi Rih city association “Prosvita” named after Taras Shevchenko.
The professor’s academic legacy includes over one hundred works. In his final years, he researched the works and fates of Ivan Bahrianyi, Mykhailo Pronchenko, Vasyl Barka, and Todos Osmachka.
In 1994, he was a candidate for People’s Deputy of Ukraine.
By resolution of the Bureau of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine No. 281-B, dated December 26, 1994, the 1972 resolution was rescinded. Then, on March 20, 1995, Skrypka submitted an application to the Rylsky Institute of Art History, Folklore, and Ethnography, to which he received the reply: “...the Institute’s administration considers that your dismissal due to staff reduction was politically motivated and not related to your qualifications as a folklorist.” He was offered reinstatement at the Institute. However, Skrypka did not wish to leave Kryvyi Rih.
He died on September 20, 1997. He was buried in the village of Nyva Trudova, Apostolivskyi district, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, not far from his birthplace. He left behind three sons—Maksym, Oles, and Roman.
In 2007, a memorial plaque was unveiled with the inscription: “Vasyl Mykytovych Skrypka. April 16, 1930 – September 20, 1997. A renowned Ukrainian folklorist, educator, and public figure. He worked at Kryvyi Rih Pedagogical University from 1986 to 1997.”
Bibliography:
I.
[On the State of the Ukrainian Language at the Crimean Pedagogical Institute] VIII. General Remarks and Recommendations // Chornovil, V. Tvary: U 10-y t. [Works: In 10 vols.] – Vol. 3. (Ukrainskyi Visnyk, 1970–72) / Ed. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – K.: Smoloskyp, 2006, – pp. 842-847.
Maty ukrainskoi demokratii. Literary recording by Vasyl Skrypka // Kurier Kryvbasu, 1994, No. 2–7. [Interview with Oksana Meshko].
Mii kurikulum… (Nacherk avtobiohrafii) [My Curriculum… (An Outline of an Autobiography)] // Zahrava newspaper (Kryvyi Rih), No. 7 and 8, 1994. – June; July. The same, with additions: Kurier Kryvbasu, No. 33 (95). – 1995. – July. – pp. 5-7.
Svichka Oleksy Tykhoho [Oleksa Tykhyi’s Candle] // Slovo i chas, No. 11 (383). – 1992. – pp. 34-35; The same: Oleksa Tykhyi. Slovnyk movnykh pokruchiv [Dictionary of Linguistic Deformities]. – Donetsk: Tovarystvo im. Oleksy Tykhoho, 2009. – pp. 72-76.
II.
Stus, V. Tvary v 6 t. 9 kn. [Works in 6 vols., 9 books]. Vol. 6, book 2. – Lviv: Prosvita, 1997. – pp. 62-63.
Chornovil, V. Tvary: U 10-y t. [Works: In 10 vols.] – Vol. 3. (Ukrainskyi Visnyk, 1970–72) / Ed. Valentyna Chornovil. Foreword by M. Kosiv. – K.: Smoloskyp, 2006. – pp. 561-562 (UV No. 4), 769 (UV No. 5).
Naidenko, Ivan. Vichnyi oberih dush liudskykh [The Eternal Amulet of Human Souls] // Vestnik Kryvbassa
www.krivoy-rog.com/index.php?option=com_content&task... - Cache
Filippova, Inna. “Yak svysnu, – viddaste…” [“When I Whistle, You Will Give It Back…”] // Oleksa Tykhyi. Slovnyk movnykh pokruchiv [Dictionary of Linguistic Deformities]. – Donetsk: Tovarystvo im. Oleksy Tykhoho, 2009. – pp. 69-72.
Project compiled on January 26, 2011, by Vasyl Ovsiienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
SKRYPKA VASYL MYKYTOVYCH