Roland Franko, the grandson of one of Ukraine’s most loved poets Ivan Franko, visited the Ukrainian Institute London on March 31 and met with the Institute’s students and teachers.
Roland Franko, the only remaining grandson of Ivan Yakovych, is a former Ukrainian diplomat who was based at the Ukrainian Embassy in London in the early 1990s. By his efforts in 1996, the United Kingdom freely transferred its Antarctic station Faraday to Ukraine.
Ivan Franko, full-name Ivan Yakovych Franko (born Aug. 27, 1856, Nahuyevychi, Galicia, Austrian Empire [now Ivana-Franka, Ukraine]—died May 28, 1916, Lemberg, Galicia [now Lviv, Ukraine]), was a Ukrainian author, scholar, journalist, and political activist who gained preeminence among Ukrainian writers at the end of the 19th century. He wrote dramas, lyric poetry, short stories, essays, and children’s verse, but his naturalistic novels chronicling contemporary Galician society and his long narrative poems mark the height of his literary achievement.
