“Pavlo Tychyna; The Complete Poetry Collections,” by Pavlo Tychyna, translated by Michael M. Naydan. London: Glagoslav Publications, 2017. 204 pp. ISBN: 978-1-91141-420-9 (paperback), $22.65.
Pavlo Tychyna, with his innovative poetry, deep spirituality and creative wordplay, is one of the great Ukrainian poets of the 20th century. His early collections “Clarinets of the Sun,” “The Plow,” “Instead of Sonnets and Octaves” and “The Wind from Ukraine,” and his poetic cycle “In the Orchestra of the Cosmos” mark the pinnacle of his creativity and poetically document the emotional and spiritual toll of the revolution of 1917 as well as the civil war and its aftermath in Ukraine.
“Pavlo Tychyna; The Complete Early Poetry Collections” includes all of his major early works as well as his masterpieces “Mother was Peeling Potatoes,” “Funeral of My Friend” and his highly patriotic “In Memory of the Thirty.”
Tychyna (1891-1967) was born in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. He first began to publish his poetry in Ukrainian literary journals in 1912 and, while studying in Kyiv, worked for various newspapers. After moving to Kharkiv in 1923, Tychyna became involved with the literary groups Hart and Vaplite, groups filled with the leading Ukrainian literati of the time.
However, after severe pressure to conform to the Soviet regime, he acquiesced and became entrenched in the Soviet bureaucracy. The free and independent poetry of Tychyna in his early period starkly contrasts with his poetry written in service to the Soviet regime from the 1930s to his death in Kyiv in 1967.
The translator, Michael M. Naydan, is a Woskob Family Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at Pennsylvania State University.