A schoolboy poet's unknown poem

10.06.2021

Kolomiets Oleh Rodionovych (lit. pseudo - Oleg Knyazenko) was born on September 6, 1950, in the village of Velyka Karatul, Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi district, Kyiv region, in a teachers family. From his father - a war veteran and his mother, Oleg Rodionovich adopted a poetic gift, honesty, justice, love for his homeland. Following the example of his older brother Volodymyr Rodionovych Kolomiyets, a well-known Ukrainian poet who has been a member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine since 1962 and a laureate of the Shevchenko Prize (1993), he enrolled at the philological faculty Kyiv State University and graduated it in 1973. He worked as a teacher, senior researcher at the National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve "Pereiaslav" (1976-2010). Member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine (1990). Honorary citizen of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky (2011). Author of publications on Shevchenko studies, history of literature of Pereyaslav region, ancient genealogies of the Left Bank. Author of poetry books: "Krosno" (1989), "Fire Lelya" (2001), "Flag of the Pereyaslav Regiment" (2005), "Trumpet Orchestras" (2006), "Pereyaslavna" (2007), "Lyubogray" (2010), "Calendar for Forget-me-not" (Volume I, 2012). Although his first poetic works were published in the almanack "Sails" (K., 1973), but he began to write poetry while still in school. One of them "Babyn Yar" was written by the poet in the tenth grade. Many years have passed since the author found these yellowed sheets and handed them to me for display at the future Memorial Museum in memory of victims of Babyn Yar.

Unfortunately, the whole poem has not survived, part of it has been lost over the years. I offer to get acquainted with the surviving part of the work, which the poet managed to find.