The Phenomenon of Maksym Rylsky in Ukrainian Literature: The Cultural and Aesthetic Perspectives of Yevhen Malaniuk

Abstract

This article explores the complexities of assessing the figure of Maksym Rylsky (1895–1964), who lived and worked under the totalitarian conditions of the USSR. To this end, the author examines the essays of Yevhen Malaniuk (1897–1968), widely regarded as one of the most respected Ukrainian cultural thinkers. The analysis reveals that the literary aesthetics of Rylsky and the circle of Neoclassical poets profoundly influenced the literary processes within both the Ukrainian emigration and Western Ukraine. Malaniuk highly appreciated Rylsky for his philosophical Occidentalism, stylistic perfection, linguistic plasticity and musicality, as well as his exceptional mastery of versification. He emphasized the distinct internationalism of Rylsky’s aesthetics, which were nurtured by Western European literary models (e.g., Goethe, Heine, Hugo, Hamsun). Rylsky was particularly influenced by Adam Mickiewicz, Charles Leconte de Lisle, and Alexander Pushkin, from whom he adopted a poetic epicism, an intimate approach to philosophizing, the mastery of poetic form, and a remarkable ease of expression. Malaniuk regarded Rylsky as the most cultured poet in Ukraine—a quintessential poet of the “Apollonian type”—who continued the literary tradition of Ivan Franko, the forerunner of Neoclassicism and the greatest of Ukrainian occidentalists. Ultimately, Rylsky and his fellow Neoclassical poets radically transformed both the language and the cultural content of Ukrainian literature.