Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was a writer, journalist, human rights activist and humanitarian of a Ukrainian origin in the Russian Empire. His best-known work includes the short novel The Blind Musician (1886), as well as numerous short stories based upon his experience of exile in Siberia. Korolenko was a strong critic of the Tsarist regime and in his final years of the Bolsheviks.

Zhytomyr is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr urban hromada (commune) and Zhytomyr Raion (district). Moreover Zhytomyr consists of two so-called "raions in a city": Bohunskyi Raion and Koroliovskyi Raion. Zhytomyr occupies an area of 65 square kilometres. Its population is 261,624.