Vasyl Koroliv-Stary is writer, publisher, and civic figure. A graduate of the Kharkiv Veterinary Institute (1904), he helped found and direct the Chas publishing house in Kyiv. In 1917–19 he edited the monthly Knyhar. Sent to Czechoslovakia in 1919 as a member of the diplomatic mission of the Ukrainian National Republic, he remained there after the First World War, married Natalena Koroleva, and became a lecturer at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady. He wrote textbooks on zoology and animal physiology; children’s stories and plays; a children’s novelette, Chmelyk (The Bumblebee, 1923); and a book of memoirs, Zhadky pro moiu smert' (Memories about My Death, 1942; repr, 1961). As ‘M. Petryshyn’, he also wrote the booklet Buduiut' chy ruinuiut'? (z pryvodu diial'nosty Organizatsi? ukraïns'kykh natsionalistiv (Building or Destroying? Regarding the Activity of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, 1932). He also translated Czech writers into Ukrainian.

His most famous work is the short story collection Nechysta syla (Unholy Power) based on folk beliefs and Ukrainian mythology.

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