Poetry
Україні
Not translated into English
Volodymyr Samiylenko · 1906
Opening lines
Ти звеш мене й на голос милий твій
З горячою любовю я полину;
Поки живуть думки в душі моїй,
Про тебе, ненько, думати не кину.
You call me, and to your dear voice
I shall fly with ardent love;
As long as thoughts live in my soul,
I shall not stop thinking of you, mother.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from uk.wikisource.org
Synopsis
A selection of poems written from 1884 to 1906, lyrical and satirical. Some sing of the homeland and its language, which the poet compares to a diamond left in the dust of the road until someone recognises it. Others mock autocracy under the mask of an imaginary land of happiness, Eldorado, or the patriots who serve the cause without leaving the top of the stove. The piece that gives the collection its title is an address to Ukraine.
Context
As a student, the author had tried to publish a first collection, but the imperial censorship had banned eleven of its twenty-eight pieces, and he never put together a collection himself afterwards. In 1906, Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Mochulsky gathered his printed and unpublished verse of twenty-two years and published it in Lviv under his real name, with a preface by Franko. Many of these poems had first appeared in the journal Zoria and in the almanac Skladka.
Who it is for
Short poems, lyrical or satirical; the satire targets the Russian Empire and the showy patriotism of the end of the century.
Prizes and reception
The main collection of a poet whose satire Franko praised, painting, in his view, the failings of his time with unmatched accuracy.
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