Poetry
Думки і пісні та ще дещо
Not translated into English
Amvrosiy Metlynsky · 1839
Synopsis
Twenty-eight original poems, in the manner of the dumy and of folk songs, and translations of Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Polish and German poets. They tell of the death of a bandura player, a hetman, an orphan child, the wakes of the Cossack dead and the cemeteries of the steppe, and they mourn a lost glory that the present has forgotten. A foreword in Russian argues for the beauty and dignity of the language of the country.
Context
The volume came out in Kharkiv, from the university press, under the name of Amvrosii Mohyla, with remarks on the language of the South at its head. It came from the circle gathered around Izmail Sreznevsky, where oral poetry was noted down before one began to write oneself. The Czech poet Čelakovský translated three pieces in the journal of the Czech Museum in 1842, and the author included reworked poems from it in the Iouzhnyi rousskii zbornik of 1848. His poem on the threatened mother tongue is not found there: it appeared in 1843 in an almanac.
Who it is for
A slim volume of short pieces, in the spelling of the period, with the translations at the end.
Prizes and reception
The book that gave Ukrainian Romanticism its funereal register and its first civic poetry, and its author's principal collection.
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