Maksym Tadeyovych Rylsky (); in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

– 24 July 1964 in Kyiv) was a Ukrainian poet, translator, academician, and doctor of philological sciences.

Biography

Rylsky was born in Kyiv in 1895 to Tadei Rozeslavovych Rylsky and Melania Fedorivna. His father was a public activist, ethnographer, publicist, and member of the Kyiv Stara

Hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

(Old Community), while his mother was a peasant from the village of Romanivka,

Zhytomyr Oblast Zhytomyr Oblast (), also referred to as Zhytomyrshchyna (), is an Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Zhytomyr. Its population is approximately H ...

. Rylsky received his early education at home and attended school beginning in third grade at the Kyiv Private Gymnasium of Volodymyr Naumenko in 1908. During his time in gymnasium, Rylsky became friends with the families of

Mykola Lysenko Mykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko (; 22 March 1842 – 6 November 1912) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic period. In his time he was the central figure of Ukrainian music, with an ''oeuvre'' tha ...

and Oleksandr Rusov. From 1915 to 1917, he studied at the medical faculty of

Kyiv University The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

. When the Ukrainian People's University was established in October 1917, Rylsky transferred to its history and philology faculty. Due to the

Ukrainian–Soviet War The Ukrainian–Soviet War () is the term commonly used in post-Soviet Ukraine for the events taking place between 1917 and 1921, nowadays regarded essentially as a war between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Bolsheviks (Russian SFSR a ...

, Rylsky left Kyiv in late 1917. He and his brother Ivan worked at the food administration in the city of

Skvyra Skvyra (, ) is a city in Bila Tserkva Raion, Kyiv Oblast (region) of central Ukraine. Skvyra has an area of . It hosts the administration of Skvyra urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Its population is approximately Name In additio ...

and later as rural teachers in nearby villages. In 1918, Bolshevik sympathizers in Romanivka forced Rylsky to flee his family home, robbed it, and destroyed his father's archive and library.Tsion, V.
A son of szlachcic and peasant (Син шляхтича і селянки)
'. Zbruch. 19 March 2015 Rylsky did not return to Kyiv until 1923, where he initially worked as a teacher.

Works

Rylsky began writing poetry at a young age. His debut poem was published in 1907 in the newspaper ''Rada'', and his first collection, ''At White Isles'' (), was released in 1910. By 1918, his poems "Tsarevna" and "On the Edge of the Forest", as well as his collection ''Beneath Autumn Stars'', demonstrated that his period of apprenticeship and imitating the voices of other poets had passed. His 1922 collection, ''Blue Distance'', confirmed this. Throughout the 1920s, Rylsky continued to write poetry. During this time, he published several collections of poetry, including ''Through Storm and Snow'' (1925), ''The 13th Spring'' (1926), ''Where Roads Meet'', and ''Hum and Rumbling'' (both 1929). In the latter collection, Rylsky demonstrated his skill as a translator of world poetry, including works by

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...

Valery Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov ( rus, Вале́рий Я́ковлевич Брю́сов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbrʲusəf, a=Valyeriy Yakovlyevich Bryusov.ru.vorb.oga; – 9 October 1924) was a Russian poet, prose writer, drama ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in ...

, and others. One notable translation was of

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influenced Ukra ...

's "

Pan Tadeusz ''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish people, Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Micki ...

". A representative of the "pure art" doctrine, Rylsky was active during the years when the Stalinists adopted the official doctrine of "socialist realism". In 1937, he was involved in rewriting the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

Taras Bulba ''Taras Bulba'' (; ) is a romanticized historical novella set in the first half of the 17th century, written by Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852). It features elderly Zaporozhian Cossack Taras Bulba and his sons Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at th ...

,'' and later returned to neo-classical forms. Rylsky is one of the most notable Ukrainian poets of the 20th century and a master of the modern sonnet and the long narrative poem. He was closely associated with the Neoclassicist group of Ukrainian poets. The group employed traditional poetic forms with rhyme and meter, wrote in a clear and accessible contemporary idiom, and often referenced Ancient Greek and Roman mythology, as well as the works of other authors from world literature, in their poetry. During the World War II period, he wrote two long poems that deviated from socialist realism: "Thirst" (1942) and "Journey to Youth" (1941–1944), for which he was again publicly chastised. In 1942, he became the director of the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore, and Ethnography in Kyiv, a post he held until his death in 1964. The Institute now bears his name. He published about 30 collections of original poetry during his lifetime, as well as translations and scholarly works. By 1974, almost five million copies of his works, in the original or in translation, had been published in the USSR. Rylsky became a member of the Communist Party in 1943 and was elected to the

Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSUSSR) was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Based on the principle of unified power, it was the only branch of government in the So ...

in 1946.

Language skills and translation

Rylsky was a translator with knowledge of 13 languages and the ability to translate from 30 languages. He specialized in translating from French, Polish and Russian.

Awards

Lenin Prize The Lenin Prize (, ) was one of the most prestigious awards of the Soviet Union for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was originally created on June 23, 1925, and awarded until 1934. During ...

, 1960 – for his collections of poems ''Daleki neboskhyly'' (1959) and ''Troyandy j vynohrad'' (1957) * Stalin Prize, 1943 – for his collections of poems ''Slovo pro ridnu matir'', ''Svitova zorya'', ''Svitla zbroya'', ''Mandrivka v molodist'' * Stalin Prize, 1950 – translation into Ukrainian of the poem "

" by

References

External links

Rylsky's works in Ukrainian
*Koshelivets, I.

'.

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...