Kesar Bilylovsky

In his lifetime, Kesar Bilylovsky (1859-1938) was better known as a physician and social activist, while only a few people knew he was destined to take a respected place in anthologies of Ukrainian poetry.

Son of a country doctor, while studying abroad, he became close to Ukrainophile liberal-oriented circles, and in the mid-1870s, he started publishing his original poems and translations. Getting a job, considered untrustworthy, was not immediately possible, so he had to leave for faraway Siberia. Later, he practiced his profession in Mitava, Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, and Persia. His life ended in the Crimea. Throughout all these years, he composed poetry. A number of his most successful poems were put to music and are popular to this day.

Collections of his poems are consistently featured in anthologies of Ukrainian poetry. However, in popular editions, he is more often mentioned as the first Jew to enter Ukrainian literature. Judging by several indications, if he had any Jewish roots (we are not here to challenge literary historians), they found no expression in his work. Instead... they were the reason for a minor but nasty incident.

Bilylovsky was friends with Panteleimon Kulish, the patriarch of Ukrainian literature. That friendship ended ugly. For many years, historians of literature believed that Kulish was to blame for their falling out. First, he openly applauded Bilylovsky for his complete renunciation of Jewish culture in favor of Ukrainian culture, and later, he said publicly that "it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a Jew to turn into a Ukrainian." Bilylovsky, as is reported, took it very much to heart and was extremely upset.

In recent years, researchers have uncovered another version of events. While staying abroad, Bilylovsky married the sister of a Jewish political emigrant from Ukraine and fathered a son and a daughter; the father-in-law even paid for the young man's medical training in Vienna. But once Bilylovsky moved to Kharkiv, he chose to forget all about the family he had left behind in Europe, and, in time, he married again. When Kulish became aware of this, he deemed it necessary to cut off all ties with the young poet.

But what interests us about Bilylovsky is not his personal life's scandalous particulars. While his poetic legacy is hardly first-rate, he was still a pioneer in some respects. His comprehensive ethnographic papers on the life and traditions of the native people of Northern Kazakhstan are, to this day, among the best references on the subject.