Zhovten

Zhovten (Жовтень; October). A small organization of ‘workers of proletarian culture,’ founded in Kyiv in 1924 by former members of the Association of Panfuturists. Its declaration, signed by Vasyl Desniak, V. Deviatnin, N. Denysenko, Ye. Kaplia-Yavorsky, Khrystyn, Ivan Le, S. Novin, T. Sliusarenko, Yakiv Savchenko, V. Shum (Usenko), Mykola Tereshchenko, Feliks Yakubovsky, Yurii Yanovsky, and Volodymyr M. Yaroshenko, stated that the members could not support the writers’ groups Pluh and Hart, because neither had a clearly defined program and therefore could not guarantee the full development of a proletarian culture in Ukraine. Zhovten failed to develop a group profile and disintegrated in 1926. Most of its members joined the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]