Yurii Zhilko Zinoviiovich

Yuriy Zinoviyovych Zhilko was born on February 28, 1898 in the village of Golovino, according to other sources, Pidluzhne in the Rivne region. He was a Ukrainian poet, journalist and teacher.

He was born in the family of a forester. Escaping the war, in 1915 the family moved from Vilno, where they lived for a long time, to Poltava. Here, Yuriy Zhilko graduated from the gymnasium, and then in 1923 - the historical and philological faculty of the Poltava Institute of Public Education. He worked as a teacher in city schools, gave lectures at a music school, and was engaged in journalism.

In the fall of 1922, Yuriy Zhilko, together with young writers Hryhoriy Epik and Ivan Kapustyanskyi, organized the Poltava branch of the Union of Peasant Writers "Plough" (active until 1929). In 1923–1924, poems by Yuri Zhilko appeared in the Poltava newspapers "Chervony Selo" and "Chervony Yunak", in 1925 - in the Kharkiv magazine "Pluzhanyn". The poet vividly responded to the events of public life.

In 1925, Yuriy Zhilko prepared for publication a collection of poems "Where the sun is", but for unknown reasons it was not published. Only in 1930, a modest book of poems called "Polustanok" was published in Kharkiv, which consisted of twenty poems, many of which were previously published in newspapers.

Wrote lyrical, humorous and satirical poems, fairy tales for children. He welcomed the international union of workers, was a singer of socialist construction, but later, under the influence of the tragic reality of the 1930s, he became disillusioned with communist ideals.

In March 1938, Yuriy Zhilko was accused by the Poltava regional administration of the NKVD of "active participation in a counter-revolutionary nationalist organization and anti-Soviet work" and arrested. Shot between May 16 and May 29, 1938 in Poltava. The place of burial is unknown.

Works

• Stories — "Miracle", "Dniprelstan", "Beatrice" ("Pluzhanyn" magazine, 1924–1927)
• Poetry - collection "Polustanok" (1930)
• Poems in the periodical press

Some of Y. Zhilk's poems were set to music by composers V. Verkhovynets (also repressed), I. Mykhaylenko, Ya. Levin.

Family

He was married to Kateryna Andriivna, a school teacher; two children were born in this marriage — daughter Nadia (1924) and son Viktor (1928).