Ivan Riabchyi

In 2021, he began to serve as a head of the Office of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, Presentation and Distribution of Audiovisual Works in the Culture Department in the Kyiv City State Administration. He also has a membership in the Public Council of the Shevchenkivskyi District State Administration in Kyiv since the same year.

In 2016, Riabchyi has received the St Nicholas the Wonderworker Order of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — Kyiv Patriarchate for "contribution to the regeneration of spirituality in Ukraine". He has consequently become a target in the Russian-Ukrainian Church War after the participation as an interpreter for Metropolitan Michel Laroche at the Bishops' Council of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine on December 14, 2019. Religious opponents criticized the Ukrainian autocephaly focusing on Riabchyi's "homosexuality" and "LGBT-activism", neither directly confirmed by himself, as a contradiction to his 2016's decoration.

Riabchyi is Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's theatrical agent in Ukraine since 2018.

He was a literary coordinator of the "Parasol" social art project dedicated to palliative care issues in 2017.

At the same time, Riabchyi presents several French-speaking authors to Ukrainian readership, practising the written translation since his university studies, and for achievements in this domain he received Skovoroda Prize from the Embassy of the French Republic in Ukraine in 2016, 2017 and 2020. He also won the Maksym Rylsky Prize 2016 and the Ars Translationis Prize in memory of Mykola Lukash 2019. He has translated authors such as Michel Houellebecq, Georges Eekhoud, Georges Charpak, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Yasmina Reza, Philippe Delorme, Gérard de Cortanze, Jocelyne Saucier, Didier van Cauwelaert, Caroline Lamarche, Patrick Modiano, Nancy Huston, Frédéric Pajak, Hervé Guibert, Georges Bataille, Jeton Kelmendi, Anatole France, Hergé, Henry Bauchau, Charles van Lerberghe, Jacques De Decker, Honoré de Balzac and numerous others. Several of his translations were published in Vsesvit literary magazine.

His theatrical translations are embodied on Ukrainian stages: "Massacre" (Riznya), Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage" adaptation, directed by Vlada Byelozorenko, at the Kyiv Academic Young Theater (2016); "Sentimental Tectonics" based on the play by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, directed by Taras Kryvoruchenko on the same stage (2019); "The Chopin's Secret", an adaptation of the another Schmitt's play, directed by Oleksiy Kujelny at the Suzirya (Constellation) Academic Workshop of Theatrical Art (2020); "Bella Figura" based on the Yasmina Reza's play, directed by Hennady Fortus, at Zaporizhzhia Youth Theater (2021).

During the years 2015 and 2016 he was a head of Kyiv office of Folio publishing house based in Kharkiv.

Becoming executive director of the Anne de Kyiv Fest International Art Festival in 2015, Riabchyi is also a head of the Pinzel Publishing House (PNZL) from 2016.

In May 2014, after the Russo-Ukrainian War started, he has commented the plebiscite situation in the east of Ukraine for Le Parisien:

Riabchyi's book of three short stories "Lilith" was published in French by Éditions Institut culturel de Solenzara in Paris in 2013.

In 2012, he became a member of the European Association of Journalists (Bruxelles) and of the PEN International Belgian (French-speaking) Centre.

His activity domains permanently alternate since then, thus Riabchyi works in management, education, mass media and literature. In the last one, he won the Ukrainian-German Oles Honchar Prize 2010 for his short novel Macabre. In collaboration with Dmytro Tchystyak, Riabchyi translated into French poems of Ukrainian author Olexiï Dovgii (Oleksiy Dovgy) and this collection Le Calice de roses was published by Éditions L'Harmattan in Paris.

He occasionally writes for the Mirror Weekly (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia) and, from 2010, he is an assistant of the president of the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

In 2008, he was an assistant director of the Ukrainian Writer (Ukrayins’kyi pys’mennyk) publishing house, owned by the National Writers' Union of Ukraine.

Beside the writing, Riabchyi worked as an editor and host on the Ukrainian Radio in 2008–2012. His own show Bookish Flash (Knyzhkovyi spalah) was a winner of the national competition of the State Committee for Television and Radio-broadcasting "for the coverage of literary life" in 2011.

Freelancing for several print and electronic media, he writes for Defense Express website and magazine of the non-governmental organization "Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies" (CACDS) and for The Editor-in-Chief (Glavred) news magazine from 2007 to 2009.

Since receiving his PhD degree, Riabchyi taught French and English at the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University. In 2006, he started his journalistic activity in Book-club+ (Knyzhkovyi klub Plus) literary and artistic magazine and Annals 2000 (Khronika 2000) yearly periodical in Kyiv.

Ivan Riabchyi studied French language and literature at the Faculty of Philology of Foreign Countries of the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University from 1995 to 2000. During his graduate, he deepened his field of study in the speciality Foreign literature (2000–2003) and Journalism (2004–2007). His Thesis Director was philosopher and writer Volodymyr Selivanov-Buryak.

Ivan Riabchyi (Ukrainian: Іва́н Сергі́йович Рябчі́й, pronounced [iwɑn sɛrɦijɔ̈wɪt͡ʃ rʲɑ̈bt͡ʃij] also Ryabtchiy, Riabtchii, Riabchii or Riabtchiï), born 9 August 1978 is a Ukrainian translator, journalist, publisher and cultural manager. He is one of the leading francophone translators in Ukraine who writes in Ukrainian, Russian and French.