Poetry
Огнецвіт
Not translated into English
Hrytsko Chuprynka · 1910
Synopsis
The collection opens with the kobza, whose song weeps like a mother over her children, then rises again as a call to freedom. There follow poems of the misery of the villages and of prison, where the prisoner watches the cranes pass behind the bars, a ballad on the torture of the Cossack Baida in Constantinople, pieces of love and of night. The title poem follows a man who, on the night of Kupala, goes into the forest to look for the fire flower that legend says shines at midnight, the flower of happiness.
Context
Its author had been giving verse to Kyiv newspapers and journals since 1907 without gathering it; it was the publisher Oleksa Kovalenko who pushed him towards a volume, and three small collections appeared in 1910, which Kovalenko introduced with prologues. Despite some mockery, the poet soon entered the ranks of the recognised lyric poets. His poems were gathered in Prague in 1926 by Pavlo Bohatsky, out of reach of Soviet censorship; an edition appeared in Kyiv in 1991.
Who it is for
A slim collection of short, highly rhythmic poems, with a historical ballad added; sound matters there as much as sense.
Prizes and reception
The first of the collections that made its author a popular poet within a few years.
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