Ukrainian literature. The 20th century

In the first three decades of the 20th century Ukrainian literature experienced a renaissance, characterized by a variety of quickly succeeding and often strongly competing literary movements. Realism, with a distinctly decadent strain, was the most notable characteristic of Volodymyr Vynnychenko's prose. Pavlo Tychyna was the leading

Symbolist poet; others included Dmytro Zahul, MykolaTereshchenko, and Oleksa Slisarenko. Neoclassicism produced outstanding poets in Mykola Zerov, Maksym Rylsky, and Mykhaylo Dray-Khmara. Futurism was initiated by Mykhaylo Semenko and produced one of Ukraine's greatest 20th-century poets, Mykola Bazhan.

After the Russian Revolution, during a period of relative freedom between 1917 and 1932, a host of other talented writers emerged: Mykola Khvylovy's prose was imbued with revolutionary and national Romanticism, Hryhory Kosynka's prose was impressionistic, while Yury Yanovsky's stories and novels were in good faith romantic, and Valeriyan Pidmohylny adhered to the principles of realism. Other writers of note include the novelist and filmmaker Oleksander Dovzhenko, as well as the novelists Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, Volodymyr Gzhytsky, Mykhaylo Ivchenko and Oles Dosvitny, the poet Mike Yohansen, and the humorist Ostap Vyshnya. The outstanding dramatist of the period was Mykola Kulish.

In 1932 the Communist Party began enforcing Socialist Realism as the required literary style. Typical representatives of this official literature were the dramatist Oleksander Korniychuk and the novelist Mykhaylo Stelmakh. The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's great purges of 1933—1938 decimated the ranks of Ukrainian writers, many of whom were imprisoned or executed.

During the post-Stalinist period there emerged a new generation that rejected Socialist Realism. Known as the "Writers of the Sixties," they included Vasyl Stus, Lina Kostenko, Vasyl Symonenko, Vitaly Korotych, Ivan Drach, Mykola Vinhranovsky, Vasyl Holoborodko, and Ihor Kalynets. Repressive measures taken in the 1970s silenced many of them or else turned them back to Socialist Realism.

Ukraine's attainment of independence in 1991 opened up unprecedented opportunities for indigenous literary expression.

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