Renowned Ukrainian writer Vasyl Shklyar is celebrating his 75th birthday
Today, June 10, marks the 75th birthday of Vasyl Shklyar, a renowned Ukrainian writer, public figure, and politician, who is often referred to as the “father of the Ukrainian bestseller” due to the popularity of his works and their large print runs. The author himself notes that his novel “The Black Raven” has taken on new meaning in today’s reality and has become a sort of “participant in current events.”
Biography of the Author
Vasyl Shklyar was born in the village of Hanzhalivka in the Lysyanskyi District of Cherkasy Oblast, where he attended elementary school. Later, the family moved to the town of Zvenyhorodka, where Vasyl Shklyar graduated from a 10-year school with a silver medal (1968) and subsequently enrolled in the Faculty of Philology at Kyiv University.
In his second year of study, Shklyar was nearly expelled from the university because, during a work-study semester at a collective farm, he had been playing with a bomb, but he managed to avoid expulsion by temporarily relocating to Armenia, where he went to study as part of a student exchange program at Yerevan State University.
Later, Shklyar would recall this episode from his life in his early novella *The Rain Is Falling Sideways*. At Yerevan University, Shklyar studied the Armenian language and literature until 1972 and, by his own admission, was able to master the Armenian language in just two months.
After returning to Ukraine, Shklyar graduated from Kyiv University in 1973.
Journalistic and Literary Career
After graduating from university, Shklyar began working as a journalist.
Alongside his journalistic work, he wrote his first literary works; in particular, his first collections of novellas and short stories for adults were published in the 1970s and 1980s:
- “The First Snow” (1977),
- “Where Is Your Ostap, Solomiya?” (1979)
- “Sap” (1982).
From 1988 to 1998, Shklyar worked as a political journalist and visited “hot spots.” Shklyar later drew on this experience—particularly the details of the operation to rescue General Dudaev’s wife, Alla, and his family after his death—in his novel “Elemental” (2001).
His popularity as a writer did not come until 1999 with the release of the novel “The Key,” which garnered a number of awards and was reprinted multiple times by various Ukrainian publishers. It was the author’s first work after a long hiatus—since the early 1990s. Shklyar himself attributed this long hiatus to a “change of eras.” Shklyar began writing the novel back in 1998 while in the hospital, where he had been admitted with a terminal diagnosis of leptospirosis.
The novel *The Black Raven: The Outcast* (2009) became a true literary sensation in his life. The book, which tells the story of the fierce struggle of the Kholodny Yar rebels against the Bolshevik occupation in the 1920s, rescued the names of thousands of Ukrainian heroes from historical oblivion. The novel was successfully adapted for the screen and became prophetic for modern Ukraine.
For this work, the writer was awarded the Shevchenko Prize in 2011, which he refused on principle as a sign of protest against the anti-Ukrainian policies of then-Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk.
Vasyl Shklyar is arguably the most famous of contemporary Ukrainian writers. The print runs of his books set records in Ukrainian publishing. His works have been translated into dozens of languages. The heroes of his novels today are real people who, just as during the times of Kholodny Yar and the Revolution of Dignity, are defending our right to freedom on Ukraine’s eastern borders. Just as a hundred years ago—in the face of the Moscow aggressor.
Political Career
In 1991, Shklyar became a member of the leadership and press secretary of the Ukrainian Republican Party and remained in the party’s ranks until 1998. In March 1998, he was a candidate for the Ukrainian Parliament from the “National Front” electoral bloc.
In September 2015, Shklyar tried his hand at Ukrainian politics again, joining the leadership of the newly formed UKROP party and remaining in its ranks until its dissolution in 2020.
Quotes by Vasyl Shklyar on the war, Russia, and the nation
- “This war hasn’t been going on since 2014 or 2022. It has been going on for hundreds of years. It was just previously disguised as ‘brotherly embraces,’ but now the masks have been torn off. This is an existential battle for our survival.”
- “Our enemy has remained unchanged for centuries. The Russians come to our land with one goal—to destroy Ukrainian identity. But today they have encountered a generation that cannot and will not be slaves.”
- “The greatest reward for me today is when the guys on the front lines send photos of my books from their dugouts and trenches. It means that my words are fighting alongside them.”
- “Victory is not just about restoring borders. It is a complete mental separation from the empire. We must burn every trace of the ‘Russian world’ out of ourselves.”
The war took them away: books by Ukrainian writers whose voices we will no longer hear.
Writer Kapranovcriticized the organization of book events.
The renowned Ukrainian writer, publicist, and social activist Dmytro Kapranov suddenly passed away at the age of 57 due to heart disease.
