The religious philosopher and poet Hryhory Skovoroda is described by many as the Ukrainian Socrates and was one of the most learned men of his time. He was a polyglot who knew the Bible, as well as the writing of the Church fathers and the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity, virtually by heart. The impact of Skovoroda’s life and works has been well documented on major writers in future generations such as Leo Tolstoy, Andrei Bely and Pavlo Tychyna, to name a few.
None of Skorovoda’s works were published during his lifetime. The texts of his writings were preserved mostly by his lifelong friend Mykhailo Kovalynsky, to whom he had given the manuscripts. “The Complete Correspondence of Hryhory Skorovoda: Philosopher and Poet” presents the letters of Skorovoda in their entirety in English for the first time.
Hryhory Skovoroda was born in 1722 to a poor Kozak family in the village of Chornukhy in Ukraine. He studied at the famed Kyiv-Mohyla Academy at various times in his life but never completed his studies in theology. He traveled throughout Eastern Europe, working as a musical director and private tutor for many years and, later, taught poetics, syntax, Greek and ethics at the Kharkiv Collegium. After undergoing a spiritual crisis, he decided to devote his life entirely to God and to a life of poverty. Before he died in 1794, he asked that his tombstone read, “The world tried to catch me but never could.”
Translator Michael M. Naydan is a Woskob Family Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at Pennsylvania State University. He is a prolific translator of poetry and prose from Ukrainian and Russian with over 30 books and more than 100 articles and translations in literary journals.
Translator Dr. Eleonora Adams teaches German and Russian at Penn State Abington, but holds her tenure in the German Department at University Park. She received her Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania, with a comparative study of Franz Werfel and Lev Tolstoy. Her scholarship includes publications and conference presentations on Werfel, Tolstoy, Hoffmannsthal Arthur Schnitzler and Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyj.