Mykola Kostiantynovych Zerov (; 26 April 1890 – 3 November 1937) was a Ukrainian poet, translator, classical and literary scholar and critic. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of the Executed Renaissance.

Early life and education

thumb|left|A church in Zinkiv (c. 1930), which is the town that Zerov was born in in 1890.

Zerov was born on 26 April 1890 in the town of Zinkiv, which was then part of the Poltava Governorate in the Russian Empire (now in Poltava Oblast, Ukraine). He was the eldest of eleven children born to Kostyantyn Zerov and Maria Yakivna. In 1903, however, Kostyantyn was appointed as inspector of a school in Pereiaslav, so the family then moved to the city of Kyiv and Mykola was enrolled in the First Kyiv Gymnasium, where he graduated from in 1908. During his gymnasium years, despite the ongoing protests at the time against the Russian government, he was described as indifferent and a "thing-in-itself". He also started to experience his "first impressions" of contemporary Ukrainian poetry by Oleksandr Oles, and thus in October 1909 attended a literary evening at the Ukrainian Club. He would later become a strong defender of Oles's work, whom he felt a deep connection to, and in winter 1909 again joined the Ukrainian Club to defend Oles's work, which he considered flawless.

Mykola Zerov was perhaps the most talented of the Neoclassicist movement of poets in the 1920s Ukraine. Despite Communist demands that all creative works conform to socialist realism, the neoclassicist movement stressed the production of 'high art' for an educated and highly literate audience. Zerov, particularly, eschewed contemporary politics in his poetry, focusing on aesthetic and historical classical themes under a tight and difficult poetical structure.

Troika and execution

thumb|left|A monument at the village of Sandarmokh for the victims of the Great Purge executed there, including Zerov, which read "People, do not kill each other".

Zerov was arrested on the night of 27-28 April 1935 at the Pushkino railway station near Moscow by the NKVD. He was then transported to Kyiv on fabricated charges of leading a counter-revolutionary nationalist terrorist organization, which was stated to have the intent of overthrowing the Soviet government in order to establish an independent Ukrainian republic. Following this, the Soviet government sought to cover up his death, and a falsified death certificate was issued to Zerov's wife stating he died on 13 October 1941 in Solovki of "cardiovascular paralysis".

At the Australian National University, Monash University, there is a chair of Ukrainian language and Ukrainian research centre named after Zerov.

References

  • Encyclopedia of Ukraine on Mykola Zerov
  • Сергій Шевченко. Микола Зеров: неокласика політичних репресій // Кримська світлиця. — 2014. — No. 39. — 26 вересня.