Oles Berdnyk

Oleksandr (Oles) Pavlovych Berdnyk (Олександр (Олесь) Павлович Бердник; November 27, 1926, officially December 25, 1927 - March 18, 2003) was a Ukrainian science fiction writer, futurist and globalist, philosopher and theologian, public figure, Red Army soldier during World War II, and a political prisoner in Soviet camps. He wrote more than 20 novels and short stories that have been translated into many languages, including English, German, French, Russian, and Hungarian. He has been described as the most influential classic writer of Ukrainian science fiction.

He was a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and a leader of the Ukrainian Humanist Association "Ukrainian Spiritual Republic."