Orest Mikhailovich Somov was a Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 writer who wrote in the Russian language

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

. He was a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, literary critic, and translator. Somov was born in Vovchansk

Vovchansk

Vovchansk is a city in Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast . Population : 20,695....

, Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast is an oblast in eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west...

. He studied in the Kharkiv University

Kharkiv University

The University of Kharkiv or officially the Vasyl Karazin Kharkiv National University is one of the major universities in Ukraine, and earlier in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union...

, then moved to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

Much of his writing deals with Ukrainian history and folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

. He was very popular during his life, but after his death his works stopped being widely read.

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.

Famous works

• Гайдамак (1825)
• Юродивый (Юродивий) (1826)
• Оборотень (1829)
• Русалка (1831)
• Сватовство (1831)
• Киевские ведьмы (1833)

English Translations

• Mommy and Sonny, (Story), from Russian Romantic Prose: An Anthology, Translation Press, 1979.