Leonid Rudnytzky

In regards to German literature, the attention in Rudnytzky’s work is primarily focused on the analysis of the work of the 18th–19th century writers. Rudnytzky is not concerned about going into depth in the works of German writers, but rather its path of influence on Slavic literature and Slavic reality, especially Ukrainian. His literary focus is divided between Ukrainian writers like Ivan Franko, and German writers of the 18th–19th centuries, such as H.-E. Lessing, J.-W. Goethe, G. Kleist, H. Heine, H. Keller, F. Mayer, D. Liliencron and others. Rudnytzky evaluates Ukrainian writers from the perspective of Franko. Rudnytzky indicates the influence of German authors on the work of Franko, and through him to the development of Ukrainian literature.

In 2004 he became President of the "Saint Sophia" Religious Association of the Ukrainian Catholics in America.

In 1994, he became a foreign scholar of NANU. (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine).

In the years 1992–2006, he was President of the World Council of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Rudnytzky held the position of Dean of the Philology Department and was a member of the faculty of the Ukrainian Free University in Munich. Between 1998 and 2004 he was its Rector. He was a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society for over 40 years.

Another side of academic interest of Rudnytzky is language and linguistics. He promotes the Ukrainian language through the re-edition of dictionaries. In 1992 within the framework of NTSh "The Dictionary of Synonyms of the Ukrainian Language" by A. Bagmet was published.

The issue of historical and cultural studies inevitably arise in Rudnytzky’s interest in the Ukrainian Catholic Church and other churches. It is worth mentioning the report on the status of churches and religions in the USSR which he delivered for the U.S. Congress in 1986.

In the years 1985–1986 and 1989–1990, he was the Chairman of the International Ivan Franko Society in the U.S.

In 1960, earned an MA in Germanic Philology at University of Pennsylvania. And in 1965 he finished and defended his doctoral dissertation "Franko’s translations of German literature" at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich.

In 1959–1960, taught at La Salle College (later University). Having started as an ordinary professor of Germanic and later Slavic Studies and Comparative Literature, he soon became “Habilitatio” Professor. In 1988–98 Rudnytzky taught at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. Later, he was chosen to be the Director of the UCU (Ukrainian Catholic University) branch in Philadelphia. At the same time he became the Director of the Central and East European Studies Master’s Program at La Salle University.

In 1958, got his undergraduate degree at La Salle College in Philadelphia.

In 1951, at the age of 16 he lost his father and the following year moved to the United States with his mother.

During the Second World War, in 1944, the Rudnytzky family moved to Germany.

Leonid Ivanovych Rudnytzky (born September 8, 1935 in Lviv, Ukraine) is a linguist, professor of German, Slavic and Ukrainian Studies, co-editor of numerous American and Ukrainian encyclopedias, and scholar of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Leonid Rudnytzky was the son of Ivan-Theodore Rudnytzky – a lawyer, UGA centurion, November rebellion (Lystopadovyj zryv) co-organizer (1918) and ZUNR military attaché – and Yulia Rudnytzka from the Luzhnytzky family.

Author of numerous articles on German-Ukrainian literary relations, on the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko (1856–1916), and on 20th century Ukrainian Church history.