Born in Transcarpathia, he worked as a soldier and laborer before studying the French language at Uzhhorod State University, where he graduated in 1973.
Ivan Yuriyovych Petrovtsii was born on 22 May 1945 in Osii, a village in Transcarpathia, which was ceded from Czechoslovakia to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic the following month.
[1][2] He attended local school in Osii before finishing tenth grade in Ilnytsia, Khust Raion.
The poems were written in coarse, obscene language, which he described as betiarskii, 'soldiers slang', including a great deal of sexual innuedo and scatological humour; Petrovtsii stated that his use of language was intended as a means to reach the "average mid-level official who swears incessantly for no reason".
[6] Petrovtsii translated a large volume of foreign-language poetry into Rusyn, publishing some in a compilation entitled Nashi y nynashi spivankŷ ('Our Songs and Others') in 1999.
[5] His Rusyn verse, styled off the vernacular of his home village of Osii, incorporates elements of traditional folk poetry.