Yury Sherbak
Ukraine- Biography of Yuriy Shcherbak
- Literary Career
- Publicist and Ecologist
- Political Career and Diplomacy
- Other Achievements
Biography of Yuriy Shcherbak
Yuriy Mykolayovych Shcherbak, also known as Shcherbak Yuri, was born on October 12, 1934, in Kyiv. He was a writer, screenwriter, epidemiologist, publicist, politician, ecologist, and diplomat. After graduating from the Kyiv Medical Institute, he became a research fellow at the Kyiv Research Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases named after L.V. Gromashevsky. He held a Doctor of Medical Sciences degree and actively participated in combating epidemics in Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Literary Career
Yuriy Shcherbak began his literary career in the mid-1950s with satirical "drawn reviews" following the literary ideas of the "sixties" movement. He became a member of the Union of Writers of Ukraine in 1966 and the Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine in 1971.
Publicist and Ecologist
As a publicist, Shcherbak gained popularity through articles about the Chernobyl tragedy in Ukrainian and Moscow press. He was one of the founders and the first chairman of the Ukrainian Ecological Association "Zelenyy svit" (Green World), which he led until 1991. He was also the first leader of the Ukrainian Green Party. From 1989 to 1991, he served as a People's Deputy of the USSR, a member of the opposition Interregional Deputy Group, a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and the chairman of the subcommittee on nuclear energy and ecology.
Political Career and Diplomacy
In 1991, Shcherbak became the first Minister of Environmental Protection of independent Ukraine and a member of the National Security Council of Ukraine. From 1992 to 1994, he served as the Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel. From 1994 to 1998, he was the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States and concurrently the Ambassador of Ukraine to Mexico from 1997. From 1998 to 2000, he worked as an advisor to the President of Ukraine. In his later years, he served as the Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada from 2000 to 2003 and represented Ukraine at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Ottawa.
Other Achievements
Yuriy Shcherbak was an academician of the Ukrainian Ecological Academy of Sciences. He received the Yurii Yanovsky Prize in 1984 and was awarded the Order "Honorary Sign of the President of Ukraine" in August 1996. He held the rank of a 3rd-grade civil servant from January 1999. His literary works include collections of stories and novellas such as "Kak na voyny" (1966), "Malenkaya futbolnaya komanda" (1973), and novels like "Baryer nesovmestimosti" (1971) and "Prichiny i posledstviya" (1988), which explore themes of scientific exploration and environmental issues.
Throughout his multi-faceted career, Yuriy Shcherbak made significant contributions to literature, epidemiology, ecology, and diplomacy.
