Solovey (Honcharyk) Eleonora

Solovey (Honcharyk) Eleonora

Literary critic, doctor of philology, professor

Born on September 8, 1944, in Verkhni Kholohory village, Moldova. Ukrainian literary scholar and critic, doctor of philology, professor.

Her father was born in the same Bessarabian Ukrainian village in a family with many children, was educated as agricultural technician, later — professional agronomist. Two weeks after the birth of his daughter, he was repressed, and served his sentence in the Far East camps. However, due to his illness, surgical operation, and "lack of evidence", he returned home after having served only a half of his sentence. In 1950, the family moves to Chernivtsi. In 1961, Eleonora graduates from a high school and enters a philology department of the Chernivtsi State University. While studying at the university and after graduation (honors diploma), she was working at the local press; in 1968, entered the post-graduate course at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. In 1971, defended her Ph.D thesis titled "Problems of Poetic Metaphor and Creative Work of V. Luhovsky" at the Literature Institute of the UkrSSR Academy of Sciences, where she was working at the editorial board of "Radianske Literaturoznavstvo" (Soviet Literature Studies) magazine as an editor of the department of theory and foreign literature. Being a friend of M. Kotsiubynska, in the wake of 1972 arrests of the national intelligentsia, she, together with other dissidents, was subjected to pressure by the management of the Institute and forced to look for another job. For fifteen years, she was teaching history and theory of literature at the Kiev State I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre Institute. It was then that her monographs were published in Moscow: "The Poetic World of V. Luhovskyi" (All-Union competition prize "The First Book of a Young Author" in nomination of "Literature studies, criticism") and "Larissa Reissner: The Outline of Life and Creative Work" (based on the University thesis ). At the same time, Kyiv publishing houses rejected her other two monographs: "The Power of Figurative Word: Sketches about Poetic Metaphor" and "Can We Read?", even though they received positive reviews by Y. Adelheim and A. Makarov. Having only sporadic opportunities to get to Ukrainian publications (e.g. 1982 annual award by "Literary Ukraine" for her article about women's lyric poetry "Will the Secret Remain?"), Eleonora had most of her works published in Russian literary periodicals ("Literary Review", "Literary Study" etc).

In 1988, after the Department of Literature Theory had been headed by V. Briukhovetsky, Eleonora Solovey got a chance to return to the Literature Institute. In 1991, she published her monograph "The Poetry of Cognition: Philosophical Lyrics in Modern Literature"; in 1992, defended her PhD Thesis titled "Ukrainian Philosophic Literature. Typology, Problematics, Poetics". In order to meet the conditions of the "Transformation of Humanitarian Education in Ukraine" Contest by the "Vidrodzrennia" (Revival) Foundation, Solovei’s monograph "Ukrainian Philosophic Literature" was made over into a manual for a specialty course. It was twice published and received a number of positive reviews in Ukraine and Poland. In 1998 and 2000, gaining a scholarship from Fulbright academic exchange fund, E. Solovei implemented her academic projects at Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (the first one was devoted to the poetic heritage of V. Svidzinsky, the second — to comparative aspects of philosophic poetry). Prepared two publications of academic and literary-critical heritage of S. Yefremov (compilation, introductory articles, commentaries), as well as the publication of his "Diaries" (an introductory article, academic editing); carried out archive search work for the first collected edition by V. Svidzinsky by the type of academic publications (compilation, concluding remarks, commentaries, 2004). The author of the first monograph about V. Svidzinsky ("Unrecognized Guest", 2006). Delivered lectures at Internetional congresses of Ukrainists, at Slavistic and other academic conferences, had her articles published in collections of scholarly articles, encyclopedias, collections devoted to prominent scholars etc. Lecture and specialty courses delivered at various universities after Ukraine won Independence: "Schools and Directions of Modern Literature Studies", "Analysis of Literary Work", "Ukrainian Philosophic Lyrics". Winner of Serhii Yefremov and Vasyl Stus Prizes. In 2008, was awarded the Order of Princess Olga, III class.