Alexander Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky
Alexander Stepanovich Afanasyev was a Russian and Ukrainian poet, writer, editor, ethnographer and translator. In 1853 he started using the pseudonym Чужбинский and has been known mostly as Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky since.
Afanasyev was born in village Iskovtsy, Lubensky region, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, now Ukraine. He made his debut as a published poet in 1837 ; his first Ukrainian poem came out in 1841. His Ukrainian poems were collected in From My Heart and published in 1855.
Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky's two-volume ethnographic work, A Journey to the Southern Russia came as a result of his 1856 journey to Pridneprovye which he made as part of an ambitious Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich-inspired ethnographical campaign which involved several major Russian authors, including Alexander Ostrovsky and Alexey Pisemsky.
He took part in compiling the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language which was endorsed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, even if criticized by several Ukrainian language scholars.
Afanasyev launched Peterburgsky Listok in 1867, and later, in the 1870s Magazin Inostrannoi Literatury which he was also the editor of. Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky translated the works by James Fenimore Cooper, Henryk Rzewuski, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and Józef Korzeniowski. In 1851 he compiled and published the Gallery of Polish Writers in 5 volumes.
He died in Saint Petersburg, aged 59.
