“After “Zamist’ sonetiv ioktav”, “Cernihiv” is Tycyna’s most heavily censored collection of poetry. The former, since its first appearance in a separate edition in 1920, and, subsequently, in the “collection of collections,” Zolotyj homin (1922), has not been reprinted even in part, and only recently have excerpts from it been cited in the better Soviet studies on Tycyna. “Cernihiv”, first published in 1931, and included in full in the third (1932) edition of Tycyna’s poetry, has in all subsequent editions been reduced to only two poems: the first, “Mij druh robitnyk vodyt’ mene po mistu j xvalyt’sja,” and “Lenin” (i.e., “Tut same demonstracija proxodyt’. . .”
Dr. George G. Grabowicz is Dmytro Čyževs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He also serves as President of the Shevchenko Scientific Society.