Ivan Petrovych Kotlyarevsky (1769–1839) is an outstanding personality in the history of Ukraine: playwright, writer, author of the renowned “Aeneid”, “Natalka Poltavka” and other works.

 Ivan Kotlyarevsky was born in the picturesque city of Poltava. Since that time it has not been possible to talk about that city without recalling the great Ukrainian writer. The writer has become a symbol of Poltava. At a young age, the youth diligently and persistently mastered humanity subjects and became familiarized with ancient literature; later, he translated works by Horace, Ovid and Virgil. One of the poet’s classmates recalled that he “had a passion for writing verse and was aptly able to find rhymes to any word; rhymes that were witty and apposite and his seminary classmates called him a rhymester for that”.

 While teaching in landowners’ families, Ivan Kotlyarevsky constantly visited people’s gatherings and places where people played games. There he wrote down songs and words, listened carefully to the folk language, studied Ukrainian traditions and customs, and the nature of Ukrainians and their rites, as if already at that time he was preparing himself for his future work. Right at that time he began his creative writing work on his famous “Aeneid”.

 Ivan Kotlyarevsky’s life and creative work took place in a time when serfdom was gaining momentum, with all its inhuman laws and lack of morals, and the possible manifestations of the national movement did not even have the right to exist. That is, it was a time when people could lose everything: their traditions, culture, hopes, future and, eventually, themselves. And suddenly, his laughter sounded amid the dead silence – it was a joyful, life-affirming and sarcastic laughter. He restored people’s savvy and feelings of their own dignity; their belief in themselves and their uniqueness.

 From a new leaf, Ivan Kotlyarevsky began creating the history of the new Ukrainian literature, filled with the living language, lyrical melodiousness and lexical richness. The “Aeneid” poem became an epochal phenomenon in the spiritual life of the Ukrainian people. The “Aeneid” was perceived by its contemporaries as an original textbook on folk life; a panorama of folk customs and everyday life. “Natalka Poltavka” is another unsurpassed masterpiece by Ivan Kotlyarevsky. Thanks to him, for two hundred years, the immortal image of Natalka has been in existence, as the writer so brightly embodied the folk ideal of a Ukrainian woman, her beauty and mind in that image.

 This genius provided such a large-scale contribution to the treasury of Ukrainian literature that we cannot even evaluate his activity and merits in the way they are worth to be evaluated. But we, Ukrainians, will always remember Ivan Kotlyarevsky and will have respect and love for him in our hearts.