Malyi kobzar i novi virshi (The Little Kobzar and New Poems)

Kharkiv: Proletar, 1928. First Edition. Very good. First edition, 1 of 2000 copies; 6 1/4 x 4 3/4; pp. [2], 5-111, [1]; pictorial wraps with futurist design, signed in-plate AC (unatributed); small nicks to tips of spine; a short, closed cut to fore-edge of front wrap and a few creases; partially unopened; in very good condition.Mykhail (Mykhailo) Semenko (1892 - 1937) was a poet, founder of Ukrainian Futurism, and one of the lead figures of the Executed Renaissance (a generation of outwardly pro-Soviet, Ukrainian intellectuals, who would nevertheless refuse to bow to Stalin's policy of Russification of Ukraine and would be executed en masse). Semenko would found a number of important futurist groups, including Aspanfut, Komunkult, Nova Generatsiia, and Kverofuturism (the latter popularly known in English as Panfuturism) and would edit various almanacs and journals. Severely criticized for his work, Semenko would abandon Futurism and become a poet of the Bolshevik Revolution, the current book being the first example of his entirely-new drection of poetry. Despite that, he would be arrested and executed by NKVD in the Solovki Prison Camp during the Great Purge. OCLC listing one copy at the University of Manitoba; none in the trade.