MOLODA MUZA was a Ukrainian literary group active in Lviv from 1906 to 1909 or, according to other sources, from 1906 to 1914. The group consisted of modernist writers who sought to renew Ukrainian literature by introducing Symbolist devices. Its members included M. Holubets, P. Karmanskyi, B. Lepkyi, O. Lutskyi, V. Pachovskyi, S. Charnetskyi, M. Yatskiv, M. Rudnytskyi, S. Tverdokhlib, V. Birchak, and O. Shpytko. According to Rudnytskyi, the poets were brought together by literature, social ties, and opposition to the dominant influence of the journal “Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk”.

O. Lutskyi, the author of the Moloda Muza manifesto, wrote of the emergence of a new artistic generation seeking to move literature beyond positivism. He identified German and French modernist writing as the principal literary sources of the groupʼs outlook and outlined its theoretical principles: freedom of content and form, the cult of pure beauty, intuition, the transcendent, and pessimism. He also argued for the independence of literature from social ideals, a position for which he was criticized by I. Franko. The members of Moloda Muza were not consistently Symbolist, and Symbolism was at times only weakly reflected in their published collections. The principal features of their work included an expansion of themes and motifs, experiments in rhyme, the use of diverse stanzaic forms, and stylization.

The groupʼs wider circle included the painters Ivan Kosynyn and Isydor Severyn, the sculptor Mykhailo Parashchuk, the writer O. Turianskyi, the composer S. Liudkevych, the publisher and politician M. Petrytskyi, the critic O. Hrytsai, and the poets M. Kichura and F. Kokovskyi. Members of Moloda Muza met frequently to promote their work, organize literary competitions, and stage theatrical and artistic events at the Ruska Besida Society, where they gave readings of their own poetry. In October 1906, they issued a statement announcing the establishment of the Moloda Muza Publishing House. From 1906 to 1909, they published the journal “Svit”, and their works also appeared in the periodicals “Haidamaky”, “Dilo”, “Bukovyna”, and “Shliakhy”, as well as in the almanac “Za krasoiu”.

In their work, Moloda Muza writers were influenced by Western European modernism as mediated through Polish and German literature. Civic motifs were also characteristic of their writing. The group ceased to exist because of financial difficulties and the geographic dispersal of its members. In 1933, during the celebration of Bohdan Lepkyiʼs sixtieth birthday in Lviv, a literary evening devoted to members of Moloda Muza was held for the first time in the postwar period. In March 1937, on the initiative of Mykhailo Rudnytskyi, the Ivan Franko Association of Writers and Journalists organized a literary evening marking the thirtieth anniversary of the groupʼs first collective appearance.