Poetry
Поезії
Volodymyr Svidzinsky · 1940
Synopsis
Short poems, in regular verse and in free verse, in which the landscapes of the countryside, autumn and the passing of the seasons mingle with the figures of folk tales and beliefs, creatures of the waters and forests, spells and incantations. There is neither the city, nor machines, nor revolution; the voice stays low, without declamation, and the attention paid to things takes the place of event.
Context
His 1927 book had been attacked for its fatalism, and his verse was no longer published after that date. The 1940 volume, published in Kyiv by Radianskyi pysmennyk and printed in Lviv, was prepared under the direction of Yuriy Yanovsky. Critics again reproached him for the narrowness of his themes and for a fantastic element born of superstition. He was preparing another collection when the war came; his commentators recall that a poem of 1927 said that he would return to the fire.
Who it is for
A brief collection of short poems, to be read slowly; since Vasyl Stus, its author has been called the poet of silence.
Prizes and reception
The only book from the last years of a poet now counted among the great Ukrainian modernists.
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