George Dmytro Knysh, a retired associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, is the son of the prominent Ukrainian political and community activist and author, Zynovii Knysh (1906-1999), and Irena Knysh (1909-2000), a journalist and the author of many books on the Ukrainian women's movement. He was born on October 8, 1940 in Cracow, Poland and received his Canadian citizenship in 1955. George Knysh graduated from the University of Manitoba with a B.A. in Latin Philosophy (1959) and an M.A. (1962) in Political Science. In 1968, he obtained a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics for his dissertation “Political Authority as Property and Trusteeship in the Works of William of Ockham”. He is a recipient of the Snider Memorial Fellowship (1962) and the Canada Council Fellowship (1970-1971). His articles and reviews on Ockham have appeared in Franciscan Studies, The Catholic Historical Review, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies and other scholarly journals.

George Knysh is well known for his booklet Combat Correspondence: Selected Epistolary Confrontations on the Question of Ukrainian Identity published in Winnipeg in 1971. He has also published scholarly articles and brief monographs on Ukrainian Christianity and Ukraine in Mediaeval times, including “Eastern Slavs and the Christian Millennium of 1988” (1987); “The Methodian roots of mediaeval Ukrainian Christianity” (1989); “Rus’ and Ukraine in Mediaeval times” (1991); “Taiemnytsia pochatkovoi Rusy v Kyievi” (1991); and an edited version of Leonid Bilets’kyi’s “Rus'ka Pravda i istoriia ii tekstu” (1993). Most of these titles were published by the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences (UVAN) in Winnipeg.
By publishing the book U 90-littia Zynoviia Knysha (1996), he honoured his father's Ukrainian patriotism. His book Michael Sherbinin in Winnipeg: a preliminary study (1994) paid tribute to the well-known philanthropist, scholar, and theologian. George Knysh has also written many articles for various Ukrainian newspapers and publications of the Ukrainian Historical Association.

As a historian and political analyst, he is a member of many academic institutions including the Canadian Political Science Association, the Mediaeval Academy of America, and the New York Academy of Science. Dr. George Knysh is fluent in many languages including Ukrainian, French, Polish, Russian, and Latin. He is currently working on Irena Knysh's correspondence regarding her numerous publications.