Mykola Bazhan was a pivotal figure in 20th-century Ukrainian literature, a poet whose work evolved from futurism to romantic expressionism. His early collections, marked by dynamism, monumental imagery, and historical references, faced criticism for deviating from Soviet reality. Despite political pressures and a subsequent embrace of official Soviet style in his later output, Bazhan demonstrated a remarkable poetic force through bold thematic statements, rich vocabulary, and inventive metaphor. He also excelled as a translator and literary critic, leaving a significant mark on Ukrainian culture.
This bilingual Ukrainian-English collection brings together the most interesting experimental works by Mykola (Nik) Bazhan, one of the major Ukrainian poets of the twentieth century. As he moved from futurism to neoclassicism, symbolism to socialist realism, Bazhan consistently displayed a creative approach to theme, versification, and vocabulary.