Neoclassicism (Ukrainian Neoclassicists)

Neoclassicism is a stylistic current in Ukrainian poetry of the 1920s, represented by the group known as the 'cluster of five' — Mykola Zerov, Maksym Rylsky, Pavlo Fylypovych, Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, and Osvald Burghardt (Yurii Klen). The Neoclassicists opposed strident Proletkult and formalism, defending a high culture of verse, classical clarity and balance of form, an orientation toward the ancient and European heritage, the perfection of the sonnet and the alexandrine, and the mastery of translation. Their slogan was 'clear harmony' and 'the culture of the word'. Neoclassicism was an aesthetic and moral opposition to totalitarian pressure, and so the movement was crushed: Zerov, Fylypovych, and Drai-Khmara were repressed and destroyed in the 1930s, while Yurii Klen emigrated. The work of the Neoclassicists is one of the summits of twentieth-century Ukrainian poetic culture.