Dmytro Buzko — author of poetry, prose, publicist, and researcher.

Early years and education

Dmytro Ivanovych Buzko was born in 1891 in Novomyrhorod, Kherson Governorate (now Kirovohrad Oblast), into the family of a priest with philosophical views. He studied at a seminary school and later graduated from the Odessa Theological Seminary. From a young age, he became interested in revolutionary activities.
Revolutionary activity and emigration

In 1904, he joined the revolutionary movement, and in 1905 became an organizer of the All-Russian Union of Seminarians. In 1907, he was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. During his exile, he pursued self-education and studied foreign languages. He later escaped abroad.

From 1912 to 1919, he lived in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark. He studied at agronomy institutes (Gembloux, Belgium) and participated in émigré organizations, including leftist Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Return to Ukraine

After the revolution, he returned to Ukraine and worked in the Ukrainian People’s Republic government: at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as editor of the newspaper Cossack Word, press attaché in Denmark, education inspector, and government official in Vinnytsia.

In 1920, he was arrested by the Red Army and forced to cooperate with them.

Odessa and early literary career

Odessa became a key city in Buzko’s life and work. There, after 1920, he worked in the Cheka, performing special tasks related to suppressing the insurgent movement. This experience became the basis for his early works.

Based on his experience, he wrote the novella Forest Beast (1923), which was later adapted into a film. He worked in the film industry as editor of Ukrkinofotoassociation, co-author of screenplays (MacDonald, Taras Shevchenko), and author of the theoretical work Cinema and the Film Factory. He was a member of the literary association New Generation.

Buzko wrote across various genres—from social-psychological novels to science fiction.
Major works:
Forest Beast (1923), The Death of Ivan Matviyovych (1926), The Seagull (1929), Hollandia (1929), What the Rotary Told (1929), Behind Bars (1930), From the Taiga Region (1931), Domny (1932), At Dawn (1932), Descendants of the Brave (1933), Crystal Land (1935), Yadviga and Malka — Partisans of Polissya (1936).

His work combined experimentation, journalism, and autobiographical motifs. In 1929, he also wrote the theoretical study Cinema and the Film Factory.

Final years

In July 1937, during a writers’ meeting in Odessa, Buzko made an imprudent remark about Stalin, after which he was expelled from the Writers’ Union. On October 20, 1937, he was arrested. On November 1, the NKVD “troika” sentenced him to execution.

Dmytro Buzko was executed on November 14, 1937.

He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957. The true date of his death became known only after archives were opened in the 1990s. His works were removed from circulation and returned to readers only decades later.