Myroslav Hryhoriiv. Prague. Late 1930s - early 1940s. Hryhoriiv family archive
Myroslav Hryhoriiv belonged to that generation of Ukrainian artists who were born in Ukraine on the eve of the Ukrainian Revolution, emigrated to Europe as children, and lived abroad for most of their lives, but kept in touch with Ukraine and tried to contribute to its independence.
Olha Sukhobokova, historian
Myroslav Hryhoriiv was a Ukrainian, Czech, and American artist, graphic designer, illustrator, journalist, publisher, public figure, scouting activist, and creator of the cover of the first Ukrainian-language edition of George Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm (1947).
Myroslav Hryhoriiv was born on April 26, 1911, in Kamianets-Podilskyi and witnessed the attempts to build the Ukrainian state during 1917-1921 with the active participation of his father, Nykyfor Hryhoriiv. In exile (since 1920), he joined the Ukrainian Plast (Scout) movement, which he was closely associated with until the end of his life.
In Prague, he graduated from Czech and Ukrainian high schools, the Commercial College, the Independent School of Political Science, and the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts, mastering several foreign languages, journalism, graphics, and drawing.
While still a high school student, he co-founded the Ukrainian children’s magazines “Smoloskyp” (Torch) and “Ranok” (Morning) in Prague. In the 1930s, he was a journalist and illustrator for several Ukrainian and Czech scouting publications and the Czechoslovak news agency Centropress. In 1935, he founded the Ukrainian Correspondence magazine. As a researcher, he wrote several books: “Techniques of Propaganda in the Soviet Press” (1935) and “Methods of Propaganda Among Youth in the Communist Press” (1936), “Germans and Ukraine” (1940).
During the occupation of the Czech Republic, despite persecution by the Gestapo, M. Hryhoryiiv participated in the Czech scouting underground. In the spring of 1945, while in the DP camp in Augsburg (Germany), he organized an illegal refugee camp in Hof, saving about 6,000 Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, and Russians from forced deportation to the USSR. He was a member of the presidium of the Union of Ukrainian Journalists and Writers Abroad and taught at the Ukrainian Technical and Economic Institute in Regensburg and Munich. He participated in the Nuremberg trials as a journalist. He illustrated many books published in Germany. He established a publishing house with his father to publish works by Ukrainian writers in North America.
Since 1947, Myroslav Hryhoriiv had lived in the United States, where he worked in his field of study and became involved in the Scouting movement in America and Ukrainian diaspora’s social activities. In 1954, he joined the board of the Ukrainian Technical Institute in New York and taught advertising theory and its psychological aspects. Since 1955, he worked for the Ukrainian Service of the Voice of America and was the director of youth programs. He was the vice president of the foundation, which was in charge of the indigenous peoples of the United States.
From 1958 to 1967, he worked as an artist for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Washington Post and Washington Star newspapers. He collaborated with the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) and the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh). Unsurprisingly, he is widely recognized as a gifted artist in the United States. As George Shevelov aptly noted, “Myroslav Hryhoriiv was a graphic artist with a light pen, able to capture the true characteristics in people and phenomena.”
After living a long and eventful life, Myroslav Hryhoriiv died on June 7, 2000, in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA.
