Mykola zerov and the ukrainian neoclassicists

The nucleus of the group of the Ukrainian Neoclassicists of the 1920s consisted of Mykola Zerov, Maksym Rylsky, Pavlo Fylypovych, Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, and Oswald Burghardt (Yurii Klen). They never established a formal organization or program, but they shared cultural and esthetic interests. Mykhailo Mohyliansky, Viktor Petrov, and others are also included in this loose grouping. The group's name is derived from their use of themes and images of antiquity and was given to them by their opponents in the Literary Discussion of 1925-8. The Neoclassicists were self-consciously concerned with the production of high art and disdained 'mass art,' didactic writing, and propagandistic work. Their opponents, in contrast, organized themselves around writers who were supported by the Communist party, and viewed literature in a primarily utilitarian fashion, that is, as a means of strengthening Soviet rule in Ukraine. In the 1930s Mykola Zerov, Pavlo Fylypovych, and Mykhailo Drai-Khmara were sent to Soviet concentration camps and perished there. Maksym Rylsky was forced to publish socialist-realist works, and Burghardt emigrated to the West, where he wrote under the pseudonym Yurii Klen. The tradition of the Neoclassicists was continued among emigre poets, most notably by M. Zerov's brother, Mykhailo Orest...

Neoclassicists (neokliasyky). A literary movement of the 1920s. The nucleus of the group consisted of Mykola Zerov, Maksym Rylsky, Pavlo Fylypovych, Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, and O. Burghardt (Yurii Klen)—the piatirne grono (cluster of five), as Drai-Khmara called them in his sonnet ‘Lebedi’ (The Swans). They never established a formal organization or program, but they shared cultural and esthetic interests. Mykhailo Mohyliansky, Viktor Petrov, and others are also included in this loose grouping. The group's name is derived from their use of themes and images of antiquity and was given to them by their opponents in the Literary Discussion of 1925–8. The Neoclassicists were self-consciously concerned with the production of high art and disdained ‘mass art,’ didactic writing, and propagandistic work. Their opponents, in contrast, organized themselves around writers who were supported by the Communist party, and viewed literature in a primarily utilitarian fashion, that is, as a means of strengthening Soviet rule in Ukraine.

The works of the Neoclassicists were anti-Romantic and antifolkloric. They sought universal themes and considered Ukrainian culture to be an organic part of Western European culture. The closest to what could be considered their program is clearly set out in Mykola Zerov's Do dzherel (To the Sources, 1926). ‘We should,’ he wrote, ‘assimilate the highest culture of our times, not only in its latest manifestations, but also in its original forms.’ From that commitment stemmed the demands the Neoclassicists made of a writer: (1) a comprehensive knowledge of the best works of Ukrainian literature; (2) a comprehensive knowledge of the achievements of world literature; and (3) poetic craftsmanship of the highest level. High art, in their view, could be conveyed only through clarity of thought and mastery of form. Their poetry, therefore, is characterized by balance, plasticity of image, and logical ordering of subject and composition. The main purpose of literature, as they perceived it, was esthetic; they rejected the tendentiousness, agitation, and moralizing of their contemporaries. In order to gain a knowledge of world literature most of them translated into Ukrainian selected works, ranging from those of antiquity to those of the Parnassians in France. Individual Neoclassicists gravitated toward particular styles: Maksym Rylsky and Pavlo Fylypovych to symbolism, Yurii Klen (Burghardt) to neoromanticism.

In the 1930s Mykola Zerov, Pavlo Fylypovych, and Mykhailo Drai-Khmara were sent to Soviet concentration camps and perished there. Maksym Rylsky was forced to publish socialist-realist works, and Burghardt emigrated to the West, where he wrote under the pseudonym Yurii Klen. The tradition of the Neoclassicists was continued among émigré poets, most notably by M. Zerov's brother, Mykhailo Orest.

In the 1960s the Neoclassicists were partially rehabilitated. After 20 years of stagnation, a slow movement to full rehabilitation began in the late 1980s. In the 1990s works of Neoclassicists became an integral part of the Ukrainian literary canon.

Zerov, Mykola, b 26 April 1890 in Zinkiv, Poltava gubernia, d 3 November 1937 in Sandarmoch, Karelia, RFSSR. Poet, translator, and literary historian. He studied philology at Kyiv University. From 1917 to 1920 he edited the bibliographical journal Knyhar. He was a professor of Ukrainian literature at the Kyiv Architectural Institute (1918–20), the Kyiv Co-operative Tekhnikum (1923–5), and the Kyiv Institute of People's Education (1923–35). He also taught the theory of translation at the Ukrainian Institute of Linguistic Education (1930–3). He was arrested by the NKVD in April 1935 and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in the Solovets Islands. On 9 October 1937 he was resentenced, to death by firing squad and perished during the mass executions of political and other prisoners marking the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917.

Zerov's literary activity, both as a poet and as a translator, was in complete harmony with his ideals and theoretical postulates. An avowed classicist and Parnassian, he became the leader of the Neoclassicists. He concentrated on the sonnet and Alexandrine verse and produced excellent examples of both forms. He translated numerous works of Latin poetry. He also devoted attention to sonnets in other literatures and translated the works of J.-M. de Heredia, P. de Ronsard, J. du Bellay, Adam Mickiewicz, Ivan Bunin, and others. He wrote literary criticism on contemporary Soviet Ukrainian literary works, articles on literary translation, and introductions to editions of Ukrainian classics; edited anthologies; and took part in the Literary Discussion. His published translations include Antolohiia ryms’koï poeziï (An Anthology of Roman Poetry, 1920), Kamena (1924; 2nd edn 1943), and Juliusz Słowacki's Mazepa (1925). Among his poetic works published posthumously and abroad are Sonnetarium (1948), Catalepton (1952), and Corollarium (1958). His literary histories include Nove ukraïns’ke pys’menstvo (New Ukrainian Writings, vol 1, 1924), Do dzherel (To the Sources, 1926; 2nd edn 1943), Vid Kulisha do Vynnychenka (From Kulish to Vynnychenko, 1928), and Lektsiï z istoriï ukraïns’koï literatury (Lessons on the History of Ukrainian Literature, 1977). In 1958 Zerov was formally rehabilitated, and Vybrane (Selections) of his poetry was published in 1966, but a full rehabilitation was blocked by hostility from official critics, such as Leonid Novychenko and Mykola Shamota. In the late 1980s, on the initiative of Hryhorii Kochur, Zerov's works began to be collected seriously for publication. The fullest edition of his works was published in 1990 in two volumes

Drai-Khmara, Mykhailo], b 10 October 1889 in Mali Kanivtsi, Poltava gubernia, d 19 January 1939, Kolyma region, Siberia. Poet, linguist, literary scholar, translator. Drai-Khmara studied at the Galagan College (1906–10), Kyiv University (1910–15, including a year abroad), and Petrograd University (1915–17). He became a specialist in Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Serbian literatures and the history of the Serbian and Belarusian languages. He was professor of Ukrainian studies at Kamianets-Podilskyi Ukrainian State University (1918–21) and at the Kyiv Medical Institute (1923–9). From 1924 he was a member of the Historical-Literary Society of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and worked in the academy's Research Institute of Linguistics. In 1929 he became a member of the Commission for Researching the History of the Ukrainian Scientific Language and edited its Zbirnyk (Collection) of 1931. Drai-Khmara also taught at the Ukrainian Institute of Linguistic Education, the Polish Pedagogical Institute, and the Kyiv Agricultural Institute. He was arrested in February 1933 and imprisoned for three months, during which time he lost all of his positions. Rearrested in September 1935, he was sentenced for ‘counterrevolutionary terrorism’ in March 1936 and perished in a Kolyma labor camp.

Drai-Khmara wrote several studies of Lesia Ukrainka, most notably Lesia Ukraïnka: Zhyttia i tvorchist’ (Lesia Ukrainka: Her Life and Works, Kyiv 1926). He began writing poetry in 1910, and in the 1920s was a member of the Neoclassicists. His early poetry was lyrical, emotive, and essentially symbolist. His later poetry combined symbolist elements with an increasing attention to form, language, and imagery reminiscent of Kyivan neoclassicism. Drai-Khmara published only one collection in his lifetime: Prorosten’ (The Offshoots, Kyiv 1926). His poems were also published in the major Ukrainian literary journals of the 1920s. Most of his translations of the French, German, Russian, Belarusian, and Polish romantics and symbolists remain unpublished, as do his translations of Dante's Divine Comedy and the Finnish epic Kalevala. Drai-Khmara was severely criticized for his ‘reactionary’ poetry in the 1920s and 1930s, but he was partly rehabilitated in the 1960s.

Kobylianska, Olha, b 27 November 1863 in Gura Humorului, Bukovyna, d 21 March 1942 in Chernivtsi. A pioneering Ukrainian modernist writer. A self-educated and well-read woman, her first novellen were written in German, beginning in 1880. From 1891 she lived in Chernivtsi. Her travels and acquaintance with Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, Vasyl Stefanyk, and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky changed her cultural and political outlook, and she became involved in the Ukrainian women's movement in Bukovyna and began writing in Ukrainian. Many of her works—including the novels Liudyna (A Person, 1891) and Tsarivna (The Princess, 1895)—have as their protagonists cultured, emancipated women oppressed in a philistine, provincial society; semiautobiographical elements and the influence of the writings of George Sand and Friedrich Nietzsche are evident. A neoromantic symbolist, she depicted the struggle between good and evil and the mystical force of nature (eg, the short story ‘Bytva’ [Battle]), predestination, magic, and the irrational in many of her stories of peasant life and in her most famous novels, Zemlia (Land, 1902) and V nediliu rano zillia kopala (On Sunday Morning She Gathered Herbs, 1909). Her works are known for their impressionistic, lyrical descriptions of nature and subtle psychological portrayals.

Kobylianska's works have been published in many editions and selections. The fullest collections were published in 1927–9 (9 vols) and 1962–3 (5 vols). In 1944 a literary memorial museum dedicated to her was opened in Chernivtsi.

Malaniuk, Yevhen b 20 January 1897 in Novoarkhanhelsk, Olviopil county, Kherson gubernia, d 16 February 1968 in New York. Poet and political and community activist. He became an officer of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1917 and was interned in Kalisz, Poland, in 1920. He graduated from the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady in 1923. Toward the end of the Second World War he resettled in Germany, and then he emigrated to the United States. He founded the literary journal Veselka (Kalish) with Yurii Darahan and continued to publish it in 1922–3. Published collections of his poetry include Stylet i stylos (The Stiletto and the Stylus, 1925), Herbarii (Herbarium, 1926), Zemlia i zalizo (Earth and Steel, 1930), Zemna madonna (The Earthly Madonna, 1934), Persten’ Polikrata (The Ring of Polycrates, 1939), Vybrani poeziï (Selected Poetry, 1943), Vlada (Power, 1951), Poeziï (Poems, 1954), and Ostannia vesna (The Last Spring, 1959). He also published a longer poem, P'iata symfoniia (The Fifth Symphony, 1953), and a number of collections of essays, including Narysy z istoriï nashoï kul’tury (Essays in the History of Our Culture, 1954), Do problemy bol’shevyzmu (On the Problem of Bolshevism, 1956), and Knyha sposterezhen’ (A Book of Observations, 1962). An edition of his selected works with extensive annotation and a bibliography, Zemna Madonna (The Earthly Madonna), was published in 1991 in Prešov.

His poetry is one of the better examples of the literary resurgence of the 1920s and 1930s. He was a member of the vistnykivtsi, made up of literary contributors to Dmytro Dontsov's journal Vistnyk. His work was influential in émigré circles, in Western Ukraine, and in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, where he was under constant attack by official critics, who called him a Ukrainian fascist.

The style and engaged content of his poetry emerged as a result of his generation's anger and frustration at Ukraine's subjugation, at the defeat of the struggle for independence (1917–20), and at the ongoing tragedy caused by Moscow's domination of Ukraine. His anger was directed not only at external forces but also at internal weaknesses, such as the Little Russian mentality, anarchism, lack of national discipline and organization, and the domination of emotion over intellect. His poetry is accordingly characterized by dynamism, the frequent use of words with shock value, pathos, prophecy, and reflections on the past. He used mostly regular strophes, with classical meter (he favored the energy of iambs) and rhyme schemes, and was inventive in his use of visual imagery. According to Volodymyr Derzhavyn, ‘Only partially imbued with classicism, his poetry ranges for the most part between symbolism and the baroque (or romanticism) with a preference for the latter.’

Bazhan, Mykola, b 9 October 1904 in Kamianets-Podilskyi, d 23 November 1983 in Kyiv. Poet, writer, translator, and Soviet Ukrainian political and cultural figure; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1951. One of the most prominent representatives of the literary renaissance of the 1920s, he wrote screenplays, edited the journal Kino, and was associated with the literary groups Vaplite and Nova Generatsiia and the journal Literaturnyi iarmarok. Bazhan's poems were first published in 1923, but he gained recognition for the collections 17-i patrul' (The 17th Patrol, 1926). With Riz'blena tin' (The Sculptured Shadow, 1927), and especially Budivli (Buildings, 1929), Bazhan abandoned futurism and constructivism and emerged as a romantic expressionist, whose poems were characterized by dynamism, unusual imagery, monumentalism, and frequent references to the Ukrainian past.

In the poem ‘Budivli’ Bazhan treats historical themes, seeking a link between the modern era, the Middle Ages, and the Ukrainian baroque of the Cossack state. ‘Budivli’ and the poems ‘Rozmova serdets' ’(Heart-to-Heart Talk), in which he presented an unusually harsh assessment of Russia, ‘Hofmanova nich’ (Hoffman's Night, 1929), ‘Sliptsi’ (The Blind Beggars, 1933), ‘Trylohiia prystrasty’ (Trilogy of Passion, 1933), and others display an original poetic style: a bold statement of theme, a rich vocabulary replete with archaisms, syntactic complexity, an abundance of metaphor, and inventive rhyme. These poems, as well as the collections Doroha (The Road, 1930) and Poeziï (Poems, 1930), aroused harsh criticism of Bazhan: he was accused of ‘detachment from Soviet reality’, ‘idealism’, and nationalism.

During the terror of 1934–7 Bazhan wrote the trilogy Bezsmertia (Immortality, 1935–7), which was dedicated to S. Kirov, and entered the company of poets enjoying official recognition. His later works, written in the spirit of Stalinist patriotism, all belong to the corpus of official Soviet poetry. These include the collections Bat’ky i syny (Fathers and Sons, 1938), Iamby (Iambs, 1940), Klych vozhdia (The Call of the Leader, 1942), and V dni viiny (In the Days of War, 1945); the collections awarded the Stalin Prize — Kliatva (Oath, 1941), Danylo Halyts’kyi (Danylo of Halych, 1942), Stalinhrads’kyi zoshyt (Stalingrad Notebook, 1943), and Anhliis’ki vrazhennia (English Impressions, 1948); and the collections Virshi i poemy (Poetry and Long Poems, 1949), Bilia Spas’koï vezhi (Near the Savior's Tower, 1952), Ioho im’ia (His Name, 1952), Honets (The Chaser, 1954), Iednist’ (Unity, 1954), Tvory (Works, 1946–7), and Vybrane (Selected Works, 1951, from which poems of the early period were omitted). After Joseph Stalin's death Bazhan did not take part in the cultural renaissance launched by the shistdesiatnyky (poets of the sixties); his later collections and poems, Iasa (1960), Italiis’ki zustrichi (Meetings in Italy, 1961), Polit kriz' buriu (Flight through the Storm, 1964, for which he received the Shevchenko Prize [see Prizes and awards]), Umans’ki spohady (Memories of Uman, 1972), Nichni rozdumy staroho maistra (Nocturnal Reflections of an Old Master, 1976), and others, were also written in the spirit of Party ideology. Bazhan's translation of S. Rustaveli's poem Vytiaz' u tyhrovii shkuri (The Knight in the Tiger Skin, 1927) was published to great critical acclaim, and he has produced many masterful translations from Georgian, Russian, and Polish, as well as of the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Bazhan is also the author of literary studies, reviews, and memoirs.

With the outbreak of war in 1941 Bazhan emerged as a leading political figure. He was editor of the newspaper Za Radians’ku Ukraïnu!, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR (1943–8), a long-term member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and of the USSR, and head of the Writers' Union of Ukraine (1953–9). From 1958 he headed the editorial board of the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia publishing house and served as editor-in-chief of many of its publications.

Tychyna, Pavlo [Tyčyna], b 27 January 1891 in Pisky, Kozelets county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 16 September 1967 in Kyiv. Poet; recipient of the highest Soviet awards and orders; member of the VUAN and the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (now NANU) from 1929; deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR from 1938 and its chairman in 1953–9; deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1946; director of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in 1936–9 and 1941–3; and minister of education of the Ukrainian SSR in 1943–8. He graduated from the Chernihiv Theological Seminary in 1913. His first poems were in part influenced by Oleksander Oles, Mykola Vorony, and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. His first extant poem is dated 1906 (‘Synie nebo zakrylosia’ [The Blue Sky Closed]), and the first one published (‘Vy znaiete, iak lypa shelestyt'?’ [You Know How the Linden Rustles?]) appeared in Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk in 1912. In 1913 Tychyna enrolled at the Kyiv Commercial Institute, and while a student, he worked on the editorial boards of the newspapers Rada (Kyiv) and Svitlo. Later he worked for the Chernihiv zemstvo administration.

His first collection of poetry, Soniashni kliarnety (Clarinets of the Sun, 1918; repr 1990), is a programmatic work, in which he created a uniquely Ukrainian form of symbolism and established his own poetic style, known as kliarnetyzm (clarinetism). Finding himself in the center of the turbulent events during Ukraine's struggle for independence, Tychyna was overcome by the elemental force of Ukraine's rebirth and created an opus suffused with the harmony of the universal rhythm of light.

During the early years of the Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine, marked by terror, ruin, famine, and suppression of the national uprising, Tychyna maintained his position as an independent poet and quickly established himself as the leading Ukrainian poet. His pre-eminence is evident in the collections Zamist’ sonetiv i oktav (Instead of Sonnets and Octaves, 1920), Pluh (The Plow, 1920) and V kosmichnomu orkestri (In the Cosmic Orchestra, 1921), the poem ‘Skovoroda’ (the first part of which appeared in Shliakhy mystetstva, 1923, no. 5), and Viter z Ukraïny (The Wind from Ukraine, 1924), dedicated to Mykola Khvylovy. In 1923 he moved to Kharkiv and joined the organization Hart and, in 1927, Vaplite. His membership in the latter organization and his poem ‘Chystyla maty kartopliu’ (Mother Was Peeling Potatoes) provoked harsh official criticism, and he was accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism.’

Soon after, Tychyna capitulated to the Soviet regime and began producing collections of poetry in the socialist-realist style sanctioned by the Party. They included Chernihiv (1931) and Partiia vede (The Party Leads, 1934). The latter collection has symbolized the submission of Ukrainian writers to Stalinism. The titles of his subsequent collections reflect the spirit of apologia for Joseph Stalin, including Chuttia iedynoï rodyny (Feelings of One Unified Family, 1938), for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize for literature in 1941, Pisnia molodosti (Song of Youth, 1938), and Stal’ i nizhnist’ (Steel and Tenderness, 1941). Abstract and expressionistic, his Stalinist poetry consists of kinetic iambs that push inexorably and bluntly forward, mimicking the Party line of the day.

The Second World War intensified those features of Tychyna's poetry, and gave rise to a patriotic combativeness, as manifested in My idemo na bii (We Are Going into Battle, 1941), Peremahat’ i zhyt’ (To Conquer and to Live, 1942), Tebe my znyshchym—chort z toboiu (We Will Destroy You—To Hell with You, 1942), and Den’ nastane (The Day Will Come, 1943). The titles of Tychyna's many postwar collections suggest their content: Zhyvy, zhyvy, krasuisia (Live, Live, and Be Beautiful, 1949), I rosty, i diiaty (To Grow and to Act, 1949), Mohutnist’ nam dana (Might Has Been Given Us, 1953), Na Pereiaslavs’kii radi (At the Pereiaslav Council, 1954), My svidomist’ liudstva (We Are the Consciousness of Humanity, 1957), Druzhboiu my zdruzheni (By Friendship We Are Bound, 1958), Do molodi mii chystyi holos (My Clear Voice Speaks to Youth, 1959), Bat’kivshchyni mohutnii (To the Mighty Fatherland, 1960), Zrostai, prechudovyi svite (Grow, O Wonderful World, 1960), Komunizmu dali vydni (The Horizons of Communism Are in Sight, 1961), and Topoli arfy hnut’ (Poplars Bend the Harps, 1963). He also wrote Virshi (Poems, 1968) and other collections.

Tychyna did not take part in the Ukrainian cultural revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and he even attacked the shistdesiatnyky. The poetry of the last decade before his death is full of glorification of the Party, of the new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, and of heroes of socialist labor, collective farms, and so on. During Leonid Brezhnev's repressive regime after Khrushchev's death Tychyna's creation sounded anachronistic and self-parodying. Occasionally, however, there were flashes of his former talent, as in the poem ‘Pokhoron druha’ (Funeral of a Friend, 1942) and some fragments in a collection published posthumously, V sertsi moïm (In My Heart, 1970), and particularly in the philosophical poem Skovoroda, which was never completed but was published posthumously, in 1971.

Tychyna's poetry before his capitulation to the regime represented a high point in Ukrainian verse of the 1920s. It is marked by a synthesis of 17th-century baroque and 20th-century symbolist styles. Some of the greatest advances in European poetry can be found in his ‘clarinetism,’ in its drawing upon the irrational elements of the Ukrainian folk lyric, its striving to be all-encompassing, its pervasive tragic sense of the eschatological, its play of antitheses and parabola, its asyndetonal structure of language, and other features.

Honchar, Oles, b 3 April 1918 in Sukha, Kobeliaky county, Poltava gubernia, d 14 July 1995 in Kyiv. One of the most prominent Soviet Ukrainian writers of the postwar period; a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR since 1978. A Second World War veteran and graduate of Dnipropetrovsk University, he has been publishing since 1938. From 1959 to 1971 he headed the Writers' Union of Ukraine. Honchar gained prominence with the novel-trilogy Praporonostsi (The Standard Bearers, 1947–8) about the Red Army in the Second World War. His other works include the novellas Zemlia hude (The Earth Drones, 1947), Mykyta Bratus’ (1951), Shchob svityvsia vohnyk (Let the Fire Burn, 1955), and Bryhantyna (The Brigantine, 1973); the novels Tavriia (1952), Perekop (1957), Liudyna i zbroia (Man and Arms, 1960), Tronka (The Sheep's Bell, 1963), Tsyklon (The Cyclone, 1970), Bereh liubovi (The Shore of Love, 1976), Tvoia zoria (Your Dawn, 1980), and Sobor (The Cathedral, 1968), which was officially censured and subsequently removed from circulation; the short-story collections Modry kamen’ (The Modra's Rock, 1948), Pivden’ (The South, 1951), Chary-komyshi (Enchantments-Rushes, 1958), and Masha z Verkhovyny (Masha from the Highlands, 1959); and three collections of literary articles (1972, 1978, 1980). His works, most of which closely adhere to the official Soviet style of socialist realism, have been republished many times and translated into over 40 languages, and have been the subject of a large body of Soviet literary criticism.

Stelmakh, Mykhailo, b 24 May 1912 in Diakivtsi, Letychiv county, Podilia gubernia, d 27 September 1983 in Kyiv. Prose writer, poet, and dramatist; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1978. He graduated from the Vinnytsia Pedagogical Institute (1933) and taught in villages of the Kyiv district until 1939. After the war he worked (1945–53) for the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. He was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and vice-chairman of the Council of Nationalities. His poetry was first published in 1936. His collections of poetry include Dobryi ranok (Good Morning, 1941), Za iasni zori (For the Bright Stars, 1942), Provesin’ (Early Spring, 1942), Shliakhy svitannia (The Paths of Dawn, 1948), Zhyto syly nabyraiet’sia (The Rye is Growing in Strength, 1954), Poeziï (Poems, 1958), and Mak tsvite (The Poppies Are Blooming, 1968). From the 1940s he wrote mainly prose, such as the short-story collection Berezovyi sik (Birch Sap, 1944); the novel Velyka ridnia (The Large Family), published in two parts as Na nashii zemli (On Our Land, 1949) and Velyki perelohy (Large Fallow Fields, 1951); and the novels Khlib i sil’ (Bread and Salt, 1959), Pravda i kryvda (Truth and Injustice, 1961), Duma pro tebe (A Duma about You, 1969), Chotyry brody (The Four Fords, 1979), Nad Cheremoshem (By the Cheremosh River, 1952), Husy-lebedi letiat’ (The Geese and Swans Are Flying, 1964), and Shchedryi vechir (Eve of Epiphany, 1967). He wrote the plays Zolota metelytsia (The Golden Snowstorm, 1955), Na Ivana Kupala (On Midsummer's Night's Eve, 1966), Zacharovanyi vitriak (The Enchanted Windmill, 1967), and Kum koroliu (The Godfather of the King's Child, 1968).

Stelmakh wrote the script for the documentary film Zhyvy Ukraïno! (Long Live Ukraine!, 1958). He also wrote many children's books, mainly in verse: Zhnyva (Harvest, 1951), Kolosok do koloska (Ear of Grain to Ear of Grain, 1951), Zhyvi ohni (Live Fires, 1954), Burundukova sim'ia (The Chipmunk's Family, 1963), Tsapkiv urozhai (The Goat's Harvest, 1967), Lito-liteplo (The Lukewarm Summer, 1969), and others.

Stelmakh's prose is a typical example of socialist realism. It shows the characteristic conformism to shifting Party policy (eg, the novel Velyka ridnia glorifies Joseph Stalin throughout and was awarded the Stalin prize in 1951; later, criticized for succumbing to the Stalinist ‘personality cult,’ Stelmakh rewrote it under the new title Krov liuds’ka—ne vodytsia [Human Blood Is Not Water, 1957]). The characteristic socialist-realist glossing over of Soviet reality is present in Stelmakh's work even of the post-Stalinist era (eg, the novel Pravda i kryvda). Even Stelmakh's last novel, Chotyry brody, is distorted by the pressure of censorship. Stelmakh's prose is exceptionally rich in its folk lexicon. Stylistically it is reminiscent of Yurii Yanovsky's lyrical prose, with the influence of Oleksander Dovzhenko clearly evident. Stelmakh's adherence to socialist realism, as well as his tendency toward sentimentalism (also characteristic of socialist realism), guaranteed him an upper niche in the literary hierarchy of the Ukrainian SSR.

Rylsky, Maksym b 19 March 1895 in Kyiv, d 24 July 1964 in Kyiv. Poet, translator, and community activist; full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR from 1943 and of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1958; son of Tadei Rylsky. From 1944 until the end of his life he was director of the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. He studied at Kyiv University, initially in the medical faculty and later in the historical-philological faculty. Rylsky started to write early in life (he published his first poem in 1907), and by 1910 he had published his first youthful collection, Na bilykh ostrovakh (On the White Islands). The first mature collection to show his promise as an exceptional poet was Pid osinnimy zoriamy (Beneath the Autumn Stars, 1918). An abridged version, of half the original length, was published in 1926. The poetic talents of Rylsky reached full bloom with the publication of the collections Synia dalechin’ (The Blue Distance, 1922), Poemy (Poems, 1924), Kriz’ buriu i snih (Through Storm and Snow, 1925), Trynadtsiata vesna (The Thirteenth Spring, 1926), Homin i vidhomin (The Resonance and the Echo, 1929), and De skhodiat’sia dorohy (Where the Roads Meet, 1929).

Rylsky's lyric poetry grew out of the best achievements of Ukrainian poetry at his time, and out of his broad knowledge of world poetry, French writers in particular (especially the works of the Parnassians). He often used motifs and images from ancient mythology and adhered to classical forms, which practices linked him to the group of Neoclassicists. In many other respects, however, his philosophical and contemplative lyric poetry, with its wealth of moods and motifs of nature and of the individual becoming one with nature, did not fit the narrow definition of Neoclassicism. Rylsky's apolitical poetry provoked fierce attacks from official critics. He was arrested for a brief period in 1931, and then declared himself reformed and proclaimed his acceptance of the official Soviet view of reality in his collection Znak tereziv (The Sign of Libra, 1932). He alone of the Neoclassicists managed to live through the Stalinist terror and become one of the main poets in the ranks of the official Soviet versifiers. He became a member of the Party in 1943. In contrast to other official poets, however, he often expressed himself ambiguously in his eulogies of the Communist party, especially in those of Joseph Stalin.

From the time he became an official poet, Rylsky published over 30 books of poetry. The major prewar works were Kyïv (Kyiv, 1935), Lito (Summer, 1936), Ukraïna (Ukraine, 1938), and Zbir vynohradu (The Harvest of Grapes, 1940). During the war and the evacuation of Soviet Ukrainian leaders to Ufa he published, among others, the collections, Za ridnu zemliu (For the Native Land, 1941), Slovo pro ridnu matir (A Song about My Mother, 1942), Zhaha (The Thirst, 1943), and Mandrivka v molodist’ (Journey into Youth, 1944). His numerous postwar collections include Chasha druzhby (The Cup of Friendship, 1946), Virnist’ (Fidelity, 1947), Pid zoriamy Kremlia (Beneath the Stars of the Kremlin, 1953), Na onovlenii zemli (On the Reclaimed Land, 1956), Holosiïvs’ka osin’ (Autumn in Holosiieve, 1959), and V zatinku zhaivoronka (In the Shade of the Lark, 1961).

Throughout his literary career Rylsky also did many literary translations. An excellent example of his mastery of the art is his translation of Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz. His translations from French are of a similarly high standard, from the classics of the 17th century to the poetry of Paul Verlaine, in particular the translations of Victor Hugo's Hernani, Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, and Voltaire's La Pucelle d'Orléans. He also translated William Shakespeare's King Lear and Twelfth Night, and Aleksandr Pushkin's Evgenii Onegin.

Like most of the Soviet poets of the interwar generation, Rylsky did not manage to revitalize his writing at the beginning of ‘de-Stalinization,’ and his work remained merely technically proficient versification. Rylsky achieved much, however, in his role of community activist and publicist and contributed greatly to the brief literary rebirth of the early 1960s. In his essays and articles of that period, which are collected in publications such as Vechirni rozmovy (Evening Conversations, 1962) and Pro mystetstvo (On Art, 1962), he carefully and tactfully, though unflaggingly, defended Ukrainian culture against the pressure of Russification. Rylsky was not so much an innovator in Ukrainian poetry as a practitioner of classic verse, the sonnet form in particular. He contributed more than any of his contemporaries to the development of the Ukrainian literary language.