Orest Somov

Orest Mikhailovich Somov (Russian and Ukrainian: Орест Михайлович Сомов, romanized Ukrainian standard: Orest Mykhailovych Somov/Somiv) (21 December [O.S. 10 December] 1793 – 8 June [O.S. 27 May] 1833) was a Russian romantic writer of Ukrainian origin.[1]

He studied at Kharkiv University, where he became an admirer of Romantic literature and Gothic fiction.[2]

In 1817 he moved to Saint Petersburg where he continued his literary career. In addition to being a writer and translator, he established himself as a critic, editor and publisher, thus becoming one of the first professional men of letters in the Russian Empire. Somov was drawn to the folklore of his native Ukraine and much of his writing refers to Ukrainian history and folklore.[3]

Somov was a popular writer during his lifetime. His works on Ukrainian themes made a big impact on the literary canon of the 1820s.[4] His literary works were widely read and his critical opinion was highly regarded. However, after Somov's death, his name and works were consigned to oblivion. Only in 1989 Yuriy Vynnychuk put Somov back on the Ukrainian literary radar[5] collection of Somov's folktales.

He is distantly related to the American actor René Auberjonois; Auberjonois' maternal grandfather's mother was a Russian noblewoman, Eudoxia Michailovna Somova (1850–1924), a collateral cousin of Somov's.