Maik Yohansen or Mike Johansen – was a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and linguist. He was one of the founders of VAPLITE.
Biography
Maik Yohansen was born on 16 October 1895 in Kharkiv. His father, a Latvian emigrant was a teacher of German, and made sure his son had a proper education. Maik Yohansen received his secondary education at the Kharkiv Third Gymnasium. There he studied along with Hryhoriy Petnikov and Bohdan Hordeev, who later became well-known poet-futurists, as well as with Yuriy Platonov – a geographer and prose writer. Afterwards, Maik Yohansen studied at the Kharkiv University, which he successfully graduated in 1917, specialising in Latin. At Kharkiv University Maik Yohansen's linguistics lecturers included: Leonid Bulakhovskyi and Oleksa Syniavskyi. Later, Maik Yohansen mentioned the name of Oleksa Syniavskyi in his famous novel Doctor Leonardo's Travels through the Switzerland of Slobidska Ukraine :
That same evening Don Jose Pereira booked train tickets for himself and Rodolfo. The next morning, he was lucky to find at Barcelona market Syniavsky's Grammar. He did not part with it until he reached the steppes. He enjoyed the sounds of the Ukrainian language great deal.
At the outset of his literary career Maik Yohansen wrote mostly in German and Russian. However, since 1919 he began writing only in Ukrainian, having witnessed brutality of Russian raids in Kharkiv.
Poetry
Depending on the period of the author’s writing career, critics define Maik Yohansen’s poetry as following: romantic, social-national and experimental – To the Peak, Revolution, The Dancing Circle, Prologue to the Commune, and Works Thus Far ; sophisticated – The Ash Tree ; and social-realist – Ballads about War and Reconstruction.
Prose
As for Maik Yohansen's prose, his works are characterised as masterful and "excellent modern", avant-garde, experimental, “sophisticated literary mystifications” and “modernist transformation”. His most well-known experimental novel is Doctor Leonardo's Travels through the Switzerland of Slobidska Ukraine. 1925 – 17 Minutes, short story collection 1925 – The Adventures of MacLayston, Harry Rupert, and Others, novel 1928 – Doctor Leonardo's Travels through the Switzerland of Slobidska Ukraine, experimental novel 1931 – The Life of Hai Serhiievych Shaiba, short story collection 1931 – Stories about Michael Parker, short story collection 1932 – The Journey of a Man Wearing a Cap, travel sketch 1933 – A Trip to Dagestan, travel sketch 1936 – Kos-Chagil on the Emba River, travel sketch
Maik Yohansen authored several scripts for theatrical productions. On several occasions he collaborated with famous Les Kurbas and his Berezil theatre. Some of his most notable works include a Ukrainian adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado and: 1927 – screenplay for Oleksander Dovzhenko'ssilent filmZvenyhora. The film is considered to be a landmark of Ukrainian cinema. Maik Yohansen co-wrote the screenplay with Yuriy Tiutiunnyk. 1929 – adaptation of Hello on Frequency 477,
Non-Fiction
Maik Yohansen participated in some major projects on Ukrainian language. He took part in creation of the standardardised Ukrainian orthography, which was officially adopted in 1928 and worked on Latinisation of the Ukrainian. He wrote studies on compiling dictionaries and on phonetics, such as on literary and dialectal Ukrainian pronunciation, particularly in Shyshaky and Myrhorod regions. 1922 – Elementary Rules of Versification 1926 – How to Construct a Short Story 1926 – Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary 1929 – Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary of Folk Sayings
