Ivan Mykytenko

Writer, publicist, playwright, and Soviet activist. He was one of the leading organizers of Soviet literature in the 1920s and 1930s. Mykytenko began writing poetry and publicistic works in 1922, while still a student in Odesa. His play Dictatorship, 1929 was on the collectivization of the Ukrainian village; its superficial symbolism, use of pathos, and occasionally deft humor endeared it to Communist Party activists, and Mykytenko's plays became part of the repertoire of many Ukrainian and other Soviet theaters. The rest of his plays were written on commission, and served to illustrate the l…