Jevhen Malanjuk

Main story: a poet who studied engineering

The story of Yevhen Fylymonovych Malaniuk is one of the strongest cultural bridges between the Ukrainian and Czech experiences of the twentieth century. A participant in the Ukrainian People's Republic's struggle for independence, he moved to Czechoslovakia after internment in Poland, studied at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady and published his debut collection, «Стилет і стилос» (1925), here. The academy trained Ukrainian engineers, yet also became a centre of literary culture; for the public this is far more interesting than the formula “lived in Prague”. [E01; E02; E03; E04]

The “Prague School” of Ukrainian poetry is a literary scholarly concept, rather than a legally registered school or necessarily a circle with membership cards. Its geography included Prague, Poděbrady and later Warsaw. Malaniuk must not be mistakenly presented as a lecturer at the Ukrainian Free University or as the resident of a single Prague house throughout the 1920s. [E01; E05]

Profile, names and time limits

War experience and the beginning of literary work

In his youth Malaniuk was educated at the Yelysavethrad real school and gained military experience during the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution. After 1917 he served in Ukrainian military formations and was associated with the UPR Army milieu. His subsequently characteristic opposition between weapons and writing arose from a personal experience of defeat and emigration. This is an interpretation of the author's imagery, rather than a documented motive for every individual work. [E01; E02]

Following the internment of UPR Army units in Poland, the poet stayed in camps, including Kalisz. Together with Yurii Darahan he participated in establishing the journal «Веселка» in 1922–1923. This literary experiment matters for the network of relationships: the interned servicemen continued cultural activity and began developing a new literary language of emigration. Acquaintance with Darahan is confirmed by their joint publishing project; without personal letters this is no reason to make them “closest friends” automatically. [E01; E02]

Poděbrady: the academic setting and the diploma date

Malaniuk's studies at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady are confirmed by reference texts; their dates differ. ESU explicitly reports a move to Czechoslovakia in 1922 and completion of the hydraulic engineering department in 1923; IEU also gives completion in 1923. The short State Archive of Kirovohrad Oblast exhibition gives 1928 as the diploma year, while Nataliia Lysenko-Yerzhykivska's scholarly article gives a move in autumn 1923 and studies in 1923–1928. These are discrepancies concerning two events — relocation and completion of education; the original student file has not been read. [E01; E02; E06; E08]

For a short biography, “studied at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady in the 1920s” is sufficient. The exact relocation and diploma years are presented in the timeline as differing source versions. The direction for documentary research is the academy's diploma registers; the academy already has a separate record, R0035. [E01; E02; E06; E08]

Student circles and the Ukrainian writers' society Kult, to which Malaniuk belonged, operated in Poděbrady. Here, alongside future engineers, people studied literature, held meetings and printed new texts. A diploma file, a photograph of the circle and publishing announcements for the 1925 collection are especially valuable for a digital exhibition; without them a particular study or house where he wrote poetry should not be reconstructed. [E01; E06]

«Стилет і стилос»: the book as the central artefact

In 1925 the book «Стилет і стилос» appeared in Poděbrady. NBUV describes it as «Стилет і стилос: вірші 1923–1924», Poděbrady: Kyiv, 1925, 47 pp. In this catalogue description Poděbrady is the place of publication and Kyiv is the publisher. These are verified catalogue details, rather than the result of reading the title page or the entire copy; the book's separate object record is R0094. [E03]

The book's title opposes a weapon to a writing instrument. For a Czech reader, the story can be built around a hydraulic engineering student who, after war and exile, sought a new form of Ukrainian cultural expression in Czechoslovakia. An exhibition quotation from the original poem may be published only within copyright law and editorial policy, and a cover scan only after checking the library's licence. [E03; E04]

The collection «Гербарій» appeared in Hamburg in 1926 and should therefore not automatically be placed as a Prague printing. «Земля й залізо» — Paris, 1930; this fact matters for the subsequent route between countries, rather than for a Prague bookshop marker. [E01; E02]

The “Prague School”: a community without formal statutes

The term “Prague School” brings together emigrant writers who worked within a shared intellectual field after 1917–1921. Oksana Liaturynska, Yurii Darahan, Olena Teliha, Oleksa Stefanovych, Leonid Mosendz, Oleh Olzhych and others belong to this literary circle, but their routes, literary views and forms of collaboration differed. Encyclopedia of Ukraine geographically places some authors in Prague and Malaniuk in the Warsaw part of the wider circle. [E05]

Connections with publishers and journals allow the real network to be explored: who wrote to whom; in which issue of a journal someone published; who organised literary evenings; what appeared in Poděbrady, Warsaw, Lviv or Prague. These are more scholarly precise relationships than an undifferentiated member_of PragueSchool. Likewise, the term “nation-building poet” should be presented as a historical and literary characterisation by researchers, rather than an official title. [E01; E05]

From Warsaw to New York

In 1929 Malaniuk moved to Poland and, together with Yurii Lypa, founded the literary group Tank. He worked as an engineer, wrote essays and poetry, and published in Polish journals. His return to the Czech lands during the war is a separate later episode: ESU mentions a move in 1944 from Poland to Kunštát in Moravia, then to Prague and Germany. Exact addresses and transit days require documents; an invented day-by-day itinerary must not be created. [E01]

After the Second World War Malaniuk lived among displaced Ukrainians in Germany and later in the USA. ESU gives residence in the USA from 1948, the short State Archive of Kirovohrad Oblast exhibition from 1949; IEU describes the move without an arrival year. This discrepancy has not been resolved by immigration documents. He died in New York on 16 February 1968; according to ESU he was buried in Bound Brook, New Jersey. This is not a Czech burial. [E01; E02; E06]

Contradictions and limitations

The Czech story and places on a future route

“Inženýr, který se stal básníkem / The engineer who became a poet”. Starting point: a confirmed academy building in Poděbrady → the library catalogue of the first book → the Kult literary circle → the European route of publications. An additional museum component: the military and literary experience of emigration. Do not “attach” the 1925 text itself to a particular Poděbrady room without a written reference.

Once diploma registers, copies of Veselka, posters for literary evenings, private letters and student photographs have been found, an evidence-based three-dimensional network can be built: people — schools — books — cities — events. If it turns out that Malaniuk stopped in Prague only briefly in 1944, this should be a separate visit, rather than “twenty years of residence in Prague”.