Ivan Kotlyarevsky's mock-heroic 1798 poem (), is considered to be the first literary work published wholly in the modern Ukrainian language.
His two plays, also living classics, Natalka Poltavka (Natalka from Poltava) and Moskal-Charivnyk (The Muscovite-Sorcerer), became the impetus for the creation of the Natalka Poltavka opera and the development of Ukrainian national theater.