In 1927, Barka graduated from Lubny Pedagogical College, and then worked as a teacher in a mining village in Donbas.

The publication of his first book of poems in 1930 provoked much ideological criticism, including accusations of "bourgeois nationalism" and "religious carry-overs".

[3] In 1941, after the Great Patriotic War broke out, Barka volunteered to join the people's militia, and in 1942 he was badly injured and caught in the occupation.

[citation needed] Vasyl Barka was close to the New York group of Ukrainian poets.

His poetry developed and grew in stature, from the early lyrical collections to the monumental 4,000-strophe epic novel in verse, The Witness for the Sun of Seraphims, 1981.