Кlymentii Zinoviiv lived in a difficult and important period of Ukrainian history, period of intergovernmental, ethnic and interconfessional oppositions. Despite the conflicts Ukrainian literature of XVIIth - XVIIIth of century had high level of development, it contains the various genres of dramaturgy, poetry, prose. There is no a lot of information about private life of Klymentii Zinoviiv. Perhaps, he was born in a cossack family, but early lost his parents owing the war and became a homeless, got a good education, worked as a clerk, traveled across many countries, was a monk in a monastery. His book of poetries, probably, Klymentii concluded in the end of XVIIth century. In the process of analysis of works of this author was exploded that his poems have such features of baroque culture and philosophy as pessimism, dualistic vision of the world and scientific method to describe the represented material.
The Baroque literature was substantially dominated by dualism or duality, a combination of two conflicting principles, their simultaneous confrontation and complementarity. Speaking of dualism in the poems of Klymentii, one can distinguish the following varieties: sensually-emotional (contrasting happiness with sorrow), moral and philosophical (contrasting righteousness with sin), scientific and natural (contrasting small with large, fire with water, etc.) and social (contrasting the rich with the poor). Thus, the poet examines human sorrow (sadness, mourning) and attempts to give it the most accurate description. Klymentii does not write a lot about joy, however, he does not omit the feeling completely. Considering the concept of sorrow, the poet defines three sources of this feeling: moral and ethical (sin), social (poverty) and merely natural (e.g. disease). Besides, the poet pays attention to numerous flaws of the human character; one of the chapters of his collection of poems is dedicated to them. However, Klymentii also writes about positive features of the human character and describes them with sympathy.
There is also a social theme in Klymentii’s works. On the one hand, social injustice causes poet’s anger and indignation, on the other hand, Klymentii is aware of absolute equality among people being impossible. But despite this awareness, the poet opposes the poor and disadvantaged being oppressed by the rich. In general, prolonged wars and numerous inter-religious and interethnic conflicts contributed to the formation of a pessimistic outlook. It was also greatly influenced by the knowledge about the fleetingness of the earthly existence and the inevitable end of life. Klymentii Zinoviyev treats the topic of death in rather a peculiar way, speaking of it not only with fear, but with a kind of adoration, even with pathos. However, it should be mentioned that besides philosophical and spiritual reflections Klymentii’s literary work includes an overview of many natural and social phenomena. The author is fairly called the encyclopedist of the Ukrainian life of the late XVIIth - the early XVIIIth centuries, as he was able to skilfully depict the life of the society of that time. Almost fifty Klymentii’s works are dedicated to professional work. This corpus of texts is an attempt of author’s poetic comprehension of the topic of professional vocation. Meanwhile, the writer had a very ambiguous attitude to various crafts: he speaks of some workers (potters, carpenters, printers) with respect and stresses out that their work is very much needed by the society, while others (pipers, weavers) are depicted in a disdainful manner. But overall, Klymentii regards work as one of the greatest virtues worth praise and encouragement. The chapter of the book that contains folk proverbs and sayings ("The Commonwealth Preambles...") associatively resembles the translation of “The Bee" which contains the sermons of famous people (Fathers of the Church and ancient philosophers) and sayings from Holy Scripture.
