Ignaty Nikolayevich Potapenko was born on 30th December 1856 in the village of Fyodorovka in the Kherson Governorate of what was then the Russian Empire.After an education that included studying at the Odessa University and the St Petersburg Conservatory Potapenko began his literary career, at first in tales detailing the lives of those Ukrainians all around him.His undoubted talent soon took his canon beyond short stories to include both novels and plays. I N Potapenko died on 17th May 1929 in Leningrad. He was 72.