The dissertation is the first comprehensive research of Professor V. Koptilov's contribution to the development of Ukrainian Translation Studies. It sets out to provide a multisided analysis of his theory of translation, findings in translation criticism, translation didactics and Ukrainian translation history. Further it examines closely V. Koptilov's lingual personality as a literary translator. The thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters, conclusions, a list of references and five appendices. Chapter I provides an extensive study of the genealogy of V. Koptilov's Translation Studies conception that takes into account the paradigm of Soviet Translation Studies and sheds light on his scholarly biography by defining main stages of his activities as a Translation Studies researcher and translation practitioner. This has indeed stipulated an investigation on the reception of V. Koptilov's legacy and on the main methodological vectors in its interpretation. It is posited that in the translation research V. Koptilov primarily relied on Ukrainian Translation Studies of the end 19th - early 20th century (I. Franko, M. Zerov, O. Finkel et al.). Besides, V. Koptilov's theory partly stems from the Soviet Translation Studies paradigm, which, by extrapolating T. Kuhn's posture on theorizations of 1950s - 1980s, is viewed as a set of principles that define the scholarly discourse on translation for all researchers working within its boundary. The key paradigm's positions are translatability of every work, a balanced account of content and form that span minutia and the macro content. In this section of the thesis, six periods of V. Koptilov's scholarly biography are analyzed that reveal professional growth and constant progress: (1) up to 1965 (candidate thesis and participation in major Translation Studies symposia in the Soviet context); (2) 1965 - 1972 (active scholarly life and doctoral thesis); (3) 1972 - 1975 (research project in France); (4) 1975 - 1982 (lecturing in Kyiv at T. Shevchenko University, working in the field of translation didactics); (5) 1982 - late 1990s (work in UNESCO, in the Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures in Paris as well as in the Ukrainian Free University in Munich); (6) 1990s - 2009 (focus on literary translation, especially of French poetry and the Middle Ages literature). This chapter also deals with the quantifiable exploration and application of V. Koptilov's theoretizations since 1960s. Hence, three periods have been singled out in the reception of V. Koptilov's works: (1) 1960-1980s, when his monographs and papers are reviewed, his activities are highlighted in the media, and statements from his theoretical works are discussed in articles and monographs; (2) 1990s: Ukraine's independence brought along economic problems under which the publishing industry and journal's funding was in a state of collapse. Due to this, the translations by V. Koptilov published in "Vsesvit" and other journals do not get critical reviews as well as the research projects by V. Koptilov held abroad are not highlighted in Ukraine. Only some random references can be seen in articles and overviews; (3) 2000s (up to 2009): these years witnessed an intensity of critical re-contextualization of Translation Studies conception of V. Koptilov as well as V. Koptilov received several literary awards for his celebrated translations. On the basis of the period study which has elicited key events, publications and shifting points in his scholarly career, the term "the research school of V. Koptilov" is suggested and defined as a community of Ukrainian Translation Studies scholars of different generations that took active part in further development of Ukrainian Translation Studies on the basis of different projects supervised by V. Koptilov (V. Radchuk, P. Bekh et al.) and generally followed the philosophy of V. Koptilov's Translation Studies conception.
