Mykhailo Semenko

Oleh Ilnytzkyj (University of Alberta)
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Mykhail′ Semenko (1892-1937), a prolific poet, an indefatigable organizer of avant-garde literary groups and an editor of many publications, was the founder and leader of Ukrainian Futurism, a movement he inaugurated with two publications in February and March 1914:

Derzannia

[Bravado] and

Kvero-futuryzm

[Quaero-Futurism]. The heyday of Ukrainian Futurism would come in the 1920s during the relatively liberal period of Soviet communism, when non-Russian republics like Ukraine experienced a national revival that began when the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 and ended with the rise of Stalinism and Socialist Realism in the 1930s, when Semenko himself was executed. From then and almost to the final days of the Soviet Union, official literary critics ignored his legacy or belittled it.…

2420 words

Citation: Ilnytzkyj, Oleh. "Mykhailo Semenko". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 May 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13621, accessed 28 March 2024.]

13621 Mykhailo Semenko 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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