Professor Emeritus
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies,
University of Alberta
I taught Ukrainian literature, culture and language at the University of Alberta for many years, and wrote on Modernism and the avant-garde, on Ukrainian–Russian cultural relations, and on what computers can tell us about a text.
My latest book asks whether Nikolai Gogol was a Russian writer or a Ukrainian one, and answers it.
Harvard, Alberta, the editorships, and fifty-odd articles — and the book on Gogol that came out of them.
Read on →Two AI voices, trained on the book, argue about Gogol’s identity across three episodes.
Listen →Every word of Skovoroda’s complete works, with its context, its frequency and a path back to the manuscript.
Open the concordance →A few words about Professor Ilnytzkyj
Ukrainian literature and culture, the avant-garde, and the long argument about who Gogol belonged to.
Professor Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj earned his MA and PhD degrees at Harvard University in Russian and Ukrainian literature, respectively.
At the University of Alberta’s Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies (MLCS), he taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Ukrainian literature, culture, and language. He also led a graduate seminar on Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory.
Besides teaching, Professor Ilnytzkyj served as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and Area Coordinator of the Slavic Programs. He was a grant adjudicator on a government committee in Ottawa. From 2001 to January 2011, he was the Editor of Canadian Slavonic Papers, and from 2013 to 2016, he edited East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies.
His research spanned several areas, including Modernism and the Avant-Garde, Ukrainian-Russian cultural relations, and computer-assisted text analysis.
He authored over 50 articles and the seminal book Ukrainian Futurism, 1914-1930: An Historical and Critical Study (1997), which was translated into Ukrainian in 2003. He also co-authored (with George Hawrysch) the comprehensive four-volume Concordance to the Poetic Works of Taras Shevchenko (2001) and the online Concordance to the Complete Works of Hryhorii Skovoroda (2009, with Natalia Pylypiuk and Serhii Kozakov).
Professor Ilnytzkyj’s latest book is on the Ukrainian Russian-language writer Nikolai Gogol, released in 2024 by De Gruyter Academic Publishing. Nikolai Gogol: Ukrainian Writer in the Empire. A Study in Identity resolves a long-debated question in Slavic Studies: Was Nikolai Gogol, the renowned 19th-century satirist, Russian or Ukrainian? Through a nuanced analysis of various arguments – historical and contemporary, from the plausible to the absurd – the book reveals that Gogol’s “Russianness” was artificially constructed by a Russian elite desperate to forge a nation from a multiethnic empire by denying Ukrainians recognition as a distinct nation.
Podcast
Two synthesised voices, trained on the book, take up the question of whether Gogol was a Russian writer or a Ukrainian one.
This podcast examines the identity of Nikolai Gogol, a writer born and raised in Ukraine who wrote in Russian during the Russian Empire. The discussion highlights aspects of Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj’s academic work Nikolai Gogol: Ukrainian Writer in the Empire. A Study in Identity. The episodes in this series were created by NotebookLM, trained on his book. They challenge the traditional portrayal of Gogol as a ‘Russian’ writer, showing that Gogol was fundamentally Ukrainian, even as he wrote in Russian within the imperial cultural framework.
Visit the podcast on Spotify →
In this episode, we delve into an AI-crafted dialogue brought to life by Google’s NotebookLM. Following a brief introduction by Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj, two AI-synthesized voices present a unique overview of his book, reflecting NotebookLM’s interpretation of the original text. Tune in for a fascinating blend of technology and literature!
Episode 2 brings the past to life with an AI-generated dialogue, created by NotebookLM, that dives into the question of Nikolai Gogol’s national identity, inspired by Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj’s book. Was Gogol a Russian writer, as traditional scholarship insists, or does his work reflect the realities of Ukrainian identity within the 19th-century imperial framework? This episode unpacks the ideology of ‘all-Russian’ unity, which sought to dissolve distinct national identities into a singular Russian nation, and contrasts the compelling interpretations of scholars Oleh Ilnytzkyj and Edyta Bojanowska. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of empire, culture, and identity through the lens of one of literature’s most enigmatic figures.
This episode centers on chapter 2 of Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj’s scholarly work on Nikolai Gogol. We delve into the reception of Nikolai Gogol’s work in Ukrainian and Russian literary circles, with a focus on his early masterpiece, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, published under the pseudonym Rudy Panko. Our AI-generated guests analyze how this collection captivated Russian critics, sparking debates over whether Gogol was a Ukrainian or Russian writer. The discussion examines these reactions to reveal the deep anxieties surrounding Russian national identity within the 19th-century Empire. We also highlight the response from Ukrainian intellectuals, particularly Andriy Storozhenko’s detailed critique of Gogol’s work. Finally, the episode reflects on the enduring relevance of Gogol’s legacy in contemporary discussions of national identity, cultural ownership, and the complexities of literary history within an imperial context.
In print
Each episode as a PDF, for reading rather than listening.