Under the Autumn Stars

An early collection by Maksym Rylskyi that announced the arrival in Ukrainian poetry of a voice of classical clarity. Its poems rest on a calm intonation, an exact epithet and an attention to nature that the poet reads as part of cultural memory rather than mere landscape. The features that would later define the neoclassical programme are already visible: balance of form, distrust of shouting, and an understanding of tradition as living material. The collection appeared in a time of social upheaval, and its detachment from the day's clamour was a deliberate position. The book remains one of the most important reference points for any discussion of twentieth-century Ukrainian poetry. The collection is regarded as the point from which Rylskyi's mature poetics and the Ukrainian neoclassical tradition begin. The book is reissued within the poet's collected works, where the early collections appear without later editorial intervention.