The first edition of the symphony was completed in 1927 and presented at the All-Ukrainian Leontovich Society competition on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the "October Revolution."
Revutsky's symphony replaced Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, which was on the original list of nominees.
According to surviving documentation from Mikhail Khrapchenko [ru], the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, the switch was made in order to make up for a lack of representation from non-Russian Soviet republics.
[4] In the postwar period, Revutsky's second Symphony was performed in the USSR exclusively in the second edition, while the first was considered lost for a long time.
In 2020, the original version of the Symphony was republished by Muzychna Ukraïna [uk] and revived in Kyiv on September 22, 2020.