Turiansky was born in the village of
Ohliadiv in
Radekhiv district of
Galicia. His father was
illiterate, and Osyp was the only of his eight sons who could afford to get education. After graduating from the academic
gymnasium of
Lviv, he went to study at the
philosophy department of
Vienna University, from which he graduated with a
doctoral degree in 1907. Turiansky's literary debut took place in 1908, when he published a series of
novellas in the
almanac of Vienna's
Sich association. After the start of World War I Turiansky was mobilized into the
Austro-Hungarian Army. In winter of 1915 he was taken prisoner by
Serbian troops. Turiansky was one of the 15,000 surviving
prisoners of war from a total number of 60,000 captured Austro-Hungarians who were
forced to march across the
Albanian mountains in harsh winter conditions. Following the ordeal, he ended up in
Elba, where in 1917 he finished the work on his most famous novel. After the end of the war Turiansky left
Italy and returned to
Austria, where he resumed his work as a lecturer. In 1921 his novel
Beyond the Limits of Pain was published in
Vienna. Influenced by the
Expressionist tradition, it was praised as one of Europe's most remarkable
anti-war novels by German and Austrian critics. A
German translation of the work saw the light in the same year. In 1923 Turiansky returned to
Galicia, which was now ruled by
Poland. There he published a number of
pamphlets, which failed to achieve popularity. Turiansky's literary works were largely ignored in the Galician society, and his critical views on politics and social order were met with condemnation, particularly in
nationalist circles. After serving as a director of gymnasiums in
Yavoriv and
Drohobych, Turiansky was forced to quit his position in 1927 and later worked as a teacher at a
Polish gymnasium in Lviv. In the late 1920s he was a contributor for the
left-wing journal
Novi Shliakhy ("New Ways"), published in Lviv. In 1933 he published a short story
How People Accepted Christ (Як люди приймали Христа) under the
pseudonym Ivan Dumka. Turiansky died on 28 March 1933 in Lviv. ==Legacy==