Maryna Hrymych

Maryna Hrymych (born 1961) is a Ukrainian novelist and academician. Ph.D. in Philology and History (Candidate of Philology, Doctor of History). Editor in Chief of the Publishing House Duliby. Producer of the literary project Lyuba Klymenko. Member of the Writers Union of Ukraine, member of the Canadian Union of Ethnology.
Husband: Ihor Ostash, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament (1996–2006), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Canada (since 2006).

Maryna Hrymych was born on April 4, 1961 in Kyiv. Father Will Hrymych, translator, Member of the Writers Union of Ukraine, mother Halyna Hrymych, Professor of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

• In 1983 Maryna Hrymych graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Department of Philology, Chair of Slavonic Studies.
• In 1990 she obtained Ph.D. in Philology (Candidate Ph.D.) from the Institute of Art History, Folkloristics and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Social Republic.
• In 1991-1995 worked as an Academic Secretary and Deputy Head of the International School of Ukrainian Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
• Between 1996 and 2006 she is Associate Professor and later Professor of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Department of History. In 2001-2006 Hrymych chairs Ethnology and Regional Studies of the Department.
• In 2004 obtained her Ph.D. in History (Doctorate Ph.D.).

Married to Ihor Ostash and has two children.

Novels and Translations

As a student Hrymych published her first translations from Slovenian, Serbian-Croat and Macedonian languages. At this time appear as well her first poems in Dnipro and Zhovten literary magazines. Since 2000 works as a novelist and essay writer.

Maryna Hrymych is a versatile author of 8 novels, two book translations, and a number of essays.

She is a prize-winner of the All-Ukrainian Literary Competition Koronatsiya Slova (special awards in 2000, 2001, first prize in 2002 for novel Egoist).

Since 2004 Member of the Writers Union of Ukraine.

Academic career

Started her academic career as an ethnographer and folklorist at the M. T. Rylskyi Institute of Art History, Folkloristics and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. During her work at the International School of Ukrainian Studies developed methodology for teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language. At the Department of History of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv she taught ethnology and social anthropology. Her cross-disciplinary Ph.D. thesis (Doctorate Ph.D.) on customary law relates to three scientific fields – ethnology, history and law.

Hrymych is an experienced field-worker – conducted ethnological and anthropological field work throughout Ukraine and in a number of other countries.

Author of 2 monographs, 2 manuals and a great number of scientific articles and papers.

Awarded Taras Shevchenko Award (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) for her monograph Property Institution in the Customary Law Culture of the Ukrainians in the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries (2004).

Member of the Canadian Union of Ethnology (since 2007).

Publishing

In 2004 founded and took the lead of the publishing house Duliby specializing in modern Ukrainian literature and scientific works of ethnological character. In 2004 and 2005 Duliby was awarded a number of prizes of the Lviv Publishers Forum.