Yurii Klen

Oswald Burghardt , better known by the pen name of Yuriy Klen (; 22 October 1891 – 30 October 1947) was a Ukrainian poet, translator and literary critic affiliated with the Kyivan Neoclassicists, a group of modernist writers active in the 1920s.

Biography Born in 1891 in the region of Podolia in a family of German colonists, Burghardt studied philology at Kyiv University. Due to his German citizenship, he was exiled to Arkhangelsk Governorate during World War I. He started publishing in 1915 as a literary critic. After returning to Kyiv, Klen joined the Neoclassicists, a local group of modernist writers, and engaged in translations of prose and verse from German, French and English languages. After graduating in 1920, Klen taught German and French languages in Kyiv. In 1925 he published an anthology of German poetry in his own translation, called Iron Sonnets . In the same year Klen published a treatise on the works of Percy Shelley, which was followed by studies on Lesya Ukrainka and Heinrich Heine. In 1927-1932 Klen published translations of works by Jack London into Ukrainian. His first authentic works saw the light in 1928.

Literary style Klen's poems are characterized with a broad range of topics and masterful use of neoclassical poetical technique. His works express the idea of work for the sake of fulfillment of national duties that were put on Ukraine by its history and its future.

Notable works New Horizons in the Branch of Studies of Poetic Style (literary study, 1915) Lesia Ukrainka and Heine (literary study, 1927) Heine in Ukrainian Translations (literary study, 1930) Joan of Arc (, poem, 1936) Cursed Years (, poem, 1937) Caravellas (, poetry collection, 1943) Ash of Empires (, poem, first volume in 1946, second published posthumously in 1957) Acacia (, novella) Apples (, novella) Archangel Raphael (, novella) Reminiscences about Neoclassicists (, book of essays, 1946) Diabolic Parables (, in co-operation with L. Mosendz, 1947)