Falkovych Hryhorii

Born on 25 June 1940 in Kyiv, he is a Ukrainian Jewish poet, as well as Director of the Sholem Aleichem Jewish Cultural Educational Fellowship.

Having finished secondary school in 1975, he served in the Soviet army (anti-tank artillery, missile troops). He was a freelance correspondent of the regional newspaper "In Glory of the Motherland".

In 1962–1967 he studied in the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University (Department of Philology: Russian and Bulgarian Philology). He worked at the O. Potebnia Institute of Linguistics (NASU), at Ukrainian Center of the Union Research Institute of Conjuncture and Demand (Scholar Secretary), and Ukraine’s State Committee for Consumer Rights Protection (Head of the Department, civil servant of the 5^th degree).

Hryhorii is a member of Ukraine’s National Writers’ Union. His first works he wrote and printed in press and published in the Russian language. For a period of time his academic interests included theory and practice of poetry translation. He has translated from Bulgarian, Yiddish and languages of the then Soviet Union.

His poetry collections have been released in Ukraine and Russia. Poems have been published in Russian, English, Yiddish and Jewish, especially in foreign contemporary poetry anthologies. Occasionally his works are published in Jewish and Ukrainian media. Lately a significant part of his art is taken by poetry for children (benevolent and ironic, sonorous and translucent, inventive, witty and kind), which has become quite visible in this segment of the national culture.

At the turn of the 80-90s, Hryhorii Falkovych was the organizer of consumer human rights movement in Ukraine; chaired the Organizing Committee for establishment of Ukrainian Association of Consumer Rights Protection; initiator and supervisor of preparation of the USSR’s first consumer edition: German-Ukrainian magazine "Nash Sovet"; was involved in development of legislation acts: Law of Ukraine on Consumer Rights Protection and Law of Ukraine on Advertisement; one of the founders of the Jewish renaissance in the last quarter of the XX century; chaired the Supervisory Board of the Esh HaTorah (Fire of the Torah) Jewish Religious Community; initiator of establishment and Head of the Mir Vam (Peace to You) International Forum; since 1999 Chair of the Board of the Sholem Aleichem Jewish Cultural Educational Fellowship in Kyiv.