POSTAĆ OLEKSY GORBACZA W UKRAIŃSKIM EMIGRACYJNYM DYSKURSIE LITERACKIM

Abstract

Professor Oleхa Gorbach is a leading European Slavist and Ukrainian linguist who devoted his entire aca- demic life to philology and university studies. He left over 200 works and numerous students who became continuators of studies in the field of Ukrainian linguistics and - more broadly - Slavonic. He was born in Romaniv on 5 February 1918, where he graduated from a public school, graduated from high school in Lviv. In 1936–1940 he studied at the University of Lviv, German, Polish and Ukrainian philology under the supervision of such eminent scholars as: Wasyl Simonowich, Illarion Swiecicki, Wasyl Lew, Mykhailo Wozniak, Juliusz Kleiner, Jerzy Kury- łowicz, Witold Taszycki and others, which were the pillars of the Slavic philology in Lviv at that time. In 1945, the end of the war found Oleхa Gorbach in Germany, where from 1947 he continued his studies at the Free Ukrainian University in Munich, which at that time was already the new center of Ukrainian cultural and scientific life in the free world after Prague. There, in 1948, O. Gorbach defended his doctorate in “Akcent in Zyzanya’s “Lexis”” in 1596, and in 1951 he obtained the postdoctoral degree on the basis of Argot’s dissertation in Ukraine. Since then, Oleхa Gorbach has published many linguistic articles in scientific collections and works in separate books, in English, German, Polish and Ukrainian, which referred to problems related to Ukrainian language, its history and dialects. The bibliographic list contains over 200 serious scientific papers written by O. Gorbach. He lectured in several universities, namely in Göttingen (1952–1956) in Marburg (1956-1958) and Frankfurt (from 1958 until his retirement in 1982), where he headed the Department of Slavic Studies after receiving the title of full professor. At the same time, he was a full professor at the WUU in Munich (from 1951) and the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome (1963). The merit of prof. Gorbach’s is among others that Ukrainian studies were introduced into the Slavic studies program in Germany. He educated a significant number of Slavists interested in Ukrainian problems in Germany. In addition, prof. Oleхa Gorbach has always taught Ukrainian at the Free Ukrainian University in Munich during his summer holidays and made many efforts to keep the level of this university below the level of German universities. Multifaceted research of the Ukrainian language prof. O. Gorbach, and above all those from the history of language and dialectology, have enriched our knowledge with new facts and theoretical conclusions. His achievements also include publications of works of fundamental importance for Ukrainian philology, which, however, were unavailable or simply forbidden in the USSR.