Ivan Franko (August 15, 1856 - May 28, 1916) was a Ukrainian poet and writer, social and literary critic, journalist, economist, and political activist. He was a revolutionary democrat, and a founder of the socialist movement in Ukraine. In addition to his own literary work, he also translated the works of William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante, Victor Hugo, Goethe and Schiller into the Ukrainian language. Along with Taras Shevchenko, he has had a tremendous impact on modern literary and political thought in Ukraine.

Franko was born in Nahuievychi, in the Drohobych county of eastern Halychyna, Galicia (which is today part of the Lviv Oblast in Ukraine) and was the son of a village blacksmith, of German ancestry, original surname was Frank. He attended school in the village Yasenycia Silna from 1862 until 1864, and from there attended a Basilian monastic school in Drohobych until 1867. In 1875, he graduated from the Drohobych gymnasium (a secondary school) and continued on to Lviv University, where he studied classical philosophy and Ukrainian language and literature. It was at this University he began is literary career, with various works of poetry and his novel Petriï i Dovbushchuky published by the students' magazine Druh (Friend), whose editorial board he would later join. In 1876, Lesyshyna Cheliad and Dva Pryiateli (Two Friends) were published in the literary almanac Dnistrianka. Later that year he wrote his first collection of poetry, Ballads and Tales. His first of the stories in the Boryslaw series were published in 1877.

It was at Lviv University where he was introduced to Mykhailo Drahomanov, with whom he shared a long political and literary association. His socialist political writings, along with his association with Drahomanov, resulted in Franko's arrest in 1877 along with, among others, Mykhailo Pavlyk and Ostap Terletsky. They were accused of belonging to a secret socialist organization, which did not exist. However, his eight months in prison did not discourage his political writings and activities. In prison, Franko wrote the satire Smorhonska Akademiya (The Smorhon Academy). After his release, he studied the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, contributed articles to the Polish newspaper Praca and helped organize workers' groups in L'viv. In 1878 he and Pavlyk founded the magazine Hromads'kyi Druh. Only two issues were published before it was banned by the government; however, the journal was reborn under the names Dzvin and Molot. Franko published a series of books called Dribna Biblioteka from 1878 until his arrest for arousing the peasants to civil disobedience in 1880. He was sent to the infamous Siberian prison compound of Kolyma where he spent three months. His impressions of this exile are enumerated in his novel Na Dni (On the Bottom). Upon his release, he was kept under police surveillance and he was kicked out of Lviv University (ironically, the university would be renamed the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv after Franko's death).

One of his articles, Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm (Socialism and Social Democracy), a severe criticism of Ukrainian Social Democracy and the socialism of Marx and Engels, was published in 1898 in the journal Zhytie I Slovo, which he and his wife founded. He continued his anti-Marxist stance in a collection of poetry entitled Mii izmarahd (My Emerald) in 1898, where he called Marxism "a religion founded on dogmas of hatred and class struggle." His long time collaborative association with Mykhailo Drahomanov were strained due to their diverging views on socialism and the national question, and Franko would later accuse him of tying Ukraine's fate to that of Russia in Suspil'nopolitychni pohliady M. Drahomanova (The Sociopolitical Views of M. Drahomanov), published in 1906. After a split in the Radical Party, in 1899, Franko, together with the Lviv historian, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, founded the National Democratic Party where he worked until 1904, when he retired from political life. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary. ... The term Engels could refer to more than one thing: Friedrich Engels, German socialist Engels, Russia, formerly known as Pokrovsk This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Hrushevsky in 1895 Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky (Ukrainian: }; CheÅ‚m, 29 June (17 June Old Style) 1866 — Kislovodsk, 26 November 1934) was one of the most important Ukrainian public figures of the 20th century. ... The National Democratic Party could refer to Mongolian National Democratic Party National Democratic Party (Barbados) National Democratic Party (Djibouti) National Democratic Party (Egypt) National Democratic Party (Georgia) National Democratic Party (Germany) National Democratic Party (Iraq) National Democratic Party (Poland) National Democratic Party (Suriname) National Democratic Party (UK) National Democratic Party... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In 1902 students and activists in Lviv, embarrassed that Franko was living in poverty, purchased a house for him in the city. He lived there for the remaining 14 years of his life. The house is now the site of the Ivan Franko Museum. 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

In 1914, his jubilee collection, Pryvit Ivanovi Frankovi (Greeting Ivan Franko), and the collection Iz lit moyeyi molodosti (From the Years of My Youth) were published. 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday. ...

He died in poverty at 4 p.m. on May 28, 1916. Those who came to pay their respects saw him lying on the table covered with nothing but a ragged sheet. His burial and burial-clothes were paid for by his admirers, and none of his family came to visit him. These events caused Heinrich Wigeleiser of the Academic Gymnasium to tell his Ukrainian students: "Go and see him lying – as poor as your entire nation is. You did not prize him when he was alive and you do not prize him now, when he is dead". Franko was buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery in Lviv.


http://www.franko.lviv.ua/