Andriy Malyshko - Ukrainian poet, author of the songs "My Vchitelko", "Song about the towel" and "Bili chestani"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

There are poems that stick in memory and remain in it forever. Ukrainian poet Malyshko Andrey Samoylovich wrote just such poems. Starting to compose at the age of ten, he created magnificent poetic masterpieces that remain loved today.

Andrey Malyshko: a short biography of early years

The future poet was born in the small town of Obukhov in November 1912. His parents were Samoilo and Evgenia (Їvga) Malyshko. His father made a living sewing and mending shoes. From childhood, he taught his sons to this profession.

Andrey Malyshko was greatly influenced by his own uncle Nikita. It was he who read the Bible, poems by Taras Shevchenko, prose by Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin and other famous writers to a very young nephew.

When Andrei reached the age of eight, he was sent to school in his hometown. Thanks to the efforts of his parents and older brothers, by that time the boy already read well, and also knew the basics of arithmetic.

Youth of the poet

After graduating from seven classes, the young man decided to become a doctor and went to Kyiv. But he arrived too late and did not enter. However, the following year, Andrei Malyshko was still able to enter the medical college.

In the same year, trouble happened in the poet's family: his older brother Pyotr Malyshko, being against the Soviet regime, was active in subversive activities. Soon he was caught, convicted and executed. The whole family took it very hard. Years later, Malyshko said that Peter was a much more talented poet than he was.

After college, the young man continued his studies at the Faculty of Literature at the Institute of Public Education in Kyiv. During his studies, Andrei met Maxim Rylsky, who highly appreciated Malyshko's first poetic experiments. In addition, in the same period, newspapers and magazines began to publish poems by a young talent.

After graduating from the institute, the young man began to teach at a secondary school in the town of Ovruch.

Since 1934 Andrei Malyshko served in the Red Army for a year. The poems written during this time were later published in the collection "Batkivshchyna". After demobilization, the poet moved to Kharkov and actively engaged in literary activities, which he had long dreamed of. For the next few years, he worked in such reputable publications as Komsomolets Ukrainy, Molodiy Bilshovik and Literaturna Gazeta. Before the start of the war, seven collections of poems written by Andrey Malyshko were published. Photos of a talented poet are printed next to poems in many literary magazines andnewspapers, and he is beginning to be recognized all over the country.

Also, in the pre-war period, Malyshko wrote several beautiful poems: “Thought about the Cossack Danil”, “Tripillya”, “Karmalyuk”, “Yarina”. In addition, at the very beginning of the forties, he begins to compose songs for films.

The Great Patriotic War

From the first days of the war, the poet became a war correspondent for the newspapers he previously worked with.

While at the front, not only writes articles for newspapers, but also composes poems Andrei Malyshko. The biography of the poet during the war years knows many facts of his heroism. At the front, Malyshko's life was endangered more than once, but he continued his work anyway.

His poetry during this period was distinguished by incredible depth and sincerity. One of the most heartfelt poems of the war years is “Ukraine is mine!”, which was included in the collection of the same name. This book was so popular that it was published twice.

Post-war period

After the victory, Andriy Malyshko worked for two years at Dnipro magazine as executive editor.

In 1947, his dramatic poem about the heroism of the common people during the war called "Prometheus" was published. For her, the poet is awarded the Stalin Prize.

Three years later, Andrei Malyshko, as part of a delegation of cultural figures, is sent on a business trip to Canada and the USA. Poems written during this trip were included in the collection "Over the Blue Sea". For him, the author was awarded the Stalin Prize for the second time.

The most productive in the poet's work are consideredfifties. It was during this decade that Malyshko wrote his most famous poems, some of which were set to music. This is how such songs appeared as “The chestnuts will bloom again”, “The song about the towel”, “My teacher”, “The chestnuts were coming”. The famous Ukrainian composer Platon Mayboroda wrote music for most of them.

The poet's friends said that he inherited a talent for singing from his mother and often composed music for his poems himself, although he rarely wrote it down.

Malyshko's last years

In the sixties and seventies, the poet continued to be loved by readers and remained in high esteem with the authorities. For the collection "Far Orbits" he was awarded the Taras Shevchenko Prize, and for "The Road under the Sycamores" - the State Prize of the USSR.

In the early sixties, two films were released according to the scripts of Andrey Malyshko: "Kvitucha Ukraine" and "Mi from Ukraine".

Besides poetry, Malyshko also writes many critical articles and also translates from other languages.

The poet died in 1970 and was buried, like most of the Kyiv intelligentsia, at the Baikove cemetery.

Andrey Malyshko: "The song about the towel"

Despite the fact that during his life the poet published about forty poetry collections in Ukrainian, his most famous poem, which later became a song, is “The Song about the Towel” or, as it is sometimes called, “My Mother’s Day…”. The music for it was written by Plato Mayboroda.

This song was played for the first timein the film "Young Years" (1958) performed by Alexander Tarants and instantly gained popularity throughout the USSR. D. Bezborodykh translated it into Russian, but most often it is sung in the original language.

In the Ukrainian literature of the twentieth century there are not many such strong poets as Andriy Malyshko. The biography of this talented person is quite short, he lived only 57 years. However, over the years he managed to write as many inspiring poems as another person could not compose in a thousand years.