INTRODUCTION
quietly
the gloom
scuttles
deeper and deeper
evening digs a well
here geese
return from the meadow:
their procession walking through the evening
like a white
tunnel
it’s as though the geese
are small bundles of the white chalk of days—
God’s big bottles walking to the white [1]
Ivan Malkovych
In his poem “an evening (goose) pastoral,” Ivan Malkovych sets white geese against the backdrop of the encroaching darkness of evening. The geese act as a connection to the fleeting day as a cycle of time runs its course, thus preserving the light of the day that has just passed. This book, The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology, also marks the completion of a cycle, as it captures the days during which thirteen Ukrainian authors shared their words with audiences in the United States, illuminating dark spots in the existence and the culture of their country. This volume is a collection of translations of literary works written by many of the leading authors that shape the landscape of today’s contemporary Ukrainian literature. The poems and prose works were presented at forums in New York City and Washington, D.C. as part of a series co-organized by the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, and the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series (2008 - 2016) hosted today’s Ukrainian literati, who read and discussed their writings and also shared their views on the cultural and political developments taking place in post-Soviet Ukraine. The year 2016 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Ukrainian political independence. This era of independence also corresponds to a new era in the history of Ukrainian literature, which is characterized by vigor, experimentation and upheaval. The texts in this volume are vibrant examples of this period and demonstrate many of the key dynamics prevalent in the Ukrainian cultural movements that marked it.
A greater degree of freedom for artistic expression in Ukrainian literature began just before the country’s political independence, in the final half-decade of the Soviet Union’s existence. The policies of perestroika and glasnost led to a general loosening of the restrictions that had shackled art in the Soviet Union since the early 1930s, when Socialist Realism was established as the only officially sanctioned style of art. The Communist Party, through the Union of Soviet Writers, assigned which subjects should be treated in art (and which should not) throughout the USSR and often imposed additional restrictions on the artistic expressions of the various ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Such curtailing allowed the colonial center to maintain stereotypical and condescending depictions of peripheral national groups in Soviet art. [2] Thus, a Ukrainian hero in a novel did not merely have to be shown working toward the proletariat’s emancipation and espousing the ideals of communism, as Soviet Russian protagonists did, but he also needed to be depicted with his national traits reduced to condescending clichés and quirky peculiarities. Ukrainian writers who attempted to create outside these confines of Soviet Socialist Realism were ignored, marginalized and repressed. Some writers, of course, were able to carve out a measure of creative freedom within this system by using Aesopian language and engaging the reader to “read between the lines.” It was not until the second half of the 1980s, however, that there emerged a growing aesthetic freedom in Soviet cultural policy; also at this time, much Soviet Ukrainian literature that had previously been hidden or written “for the drawer” began to be published in the open.
Alongside the widening breadth of what could be published as Soviet Ukrainian literature during glasnost came the rehabilitation of many—but not all—Ukrainian authors that had officially been branded bourgeois nationalists and thus, enemies of the Soviet people. These writers, as well as émigré authors that had been publishing freely outside of Ukraine, had been erased from the pages of Ukrainian cultural history, and their books were absent from the shelves of libraries and bookstores in Ukraine. Additionally, a new generation of Ukrainian writers would emerge in the late 1980s, a generation that would be the first to enjoy complete creative freedom following Ukraine’s independence in 1991. These writers often are referred to as the visimdesiatnyky—the 80s generation of writers. Although the term visimdesiatnyky is often used in discussions of late Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian culture and there are several publications that group authors under that label, it is important to understand that it is not a formal group with strict allegiance or membership. Rather, it is a term that, like other generational terms, groups individuals who are varied and rather loosely linked. The murkiness and fluidity of the boundaries between these generations notwithstanding, such terms help to explain general developments in Ukrainian culture at this time.
In the first decade of Ukraine’s independence, the visimdesiatnyky focused their talents and energies on leading Ukrainian culture out of the restrictions that had been imposed on it by its colonizers. However, these writers also worked to free themselves from many of the frameworks that had been placed on Ukrainian culture by the inherited Ukrainian national tradition, which curtailed Ukrainian artists’ aesthetic freedom by requiring that their art serve the ongoing cause of Ukrainian emancipation. These artists were expected to express their patriotism and to adhere to themes that were largely established by Ukrainian populist culture of the nineteenth century. Post-Soviet Ukrainian literature thus (1) experienced an onrush of creative openness while (2) being reconnected to the substantial Ukrainian cultural achievements in the twentieth century that had been banned, and (3) simultaneously explored the world outside the Soviet Union, one that had been closed off from for many decades. All three of these exciting developments provided the 80s generation of writers with particular zeal to dismantle the colonial and national frameworks that had been placed on Ukrainian art in the past.
And dismantle these systems they did. Several writers found postmodernism to be an attractive concept and employed many of its characteristic stylistic features in this deconstruction. [3] Having been dictated certain official Soviet truths for many years, which they knew themselves to be false, Ukrainian intellectuals found postmodern doubt in absolute truth to be quite attractive while taking on issues of their colonized past in their art. Meanwhile, other writers of various generations protested that an engagement with fashionable Western post-modernism was inauthentic, and that independent Ukrainian literature should instead look inward to produce something uniquely Ukrainian. What resulted in the 1990s was a healthy, though often cantankerous, open debate on the face of new Ukrainian culture and the publication of works written on many themes and styles—particularly significant achievements when compared with literature published in Ukraine just a decade earlier.
The visimdesiatnyky were able to deconstruct the role of the author in a literary work in general and the Ukrainian author in the Ukrainian literary tradition in particular. The potency of language, especially the Ukrainian language, were scrutinized in their writings. These writers exposed clichéd, colonial depictions of Ukrainians and shattered the restrictions that had limited the themes that could be treated in Ukrainian literature. [4] The writers deliberately engaged with many taboo subjects, such as sex, slang, and substance abuse, and they also experimented in form and narration. The previously-closed off world, especially the West and its lofty culture, as well as its pop culture, were often referenced in this post-Soviet Ukrainian literature. This was a literature that searched through Ukrainian and world history and culture to begin assembling the fragile new post-Soviet Ukrainian identity. It was an art that also reflected the disarray and disappointment of this period as corruption and dysfunction steered the post-Soviet country. Ukrainian culture was discarded by the government, and largely left on its own to survive with minimal financial and structural support from the new Ukrainian state. The experiences of the previous generation of Ukrainian writers, sometimes called the 70s generation of Ukrainian writers (simdesiatnyky), were a particularly important point of reference for the visimdesiatnyky when they experienced such difficulties.
The simdesiatnyky generation came on the heels of the 60s generation (shistdesiatnyky), who had revitalized Soviet Ukrainian culture during the Khrushchev thaw. Closely intertwined with the Ukrainian dissident movement, the shistdesiatnyky organized protests against systemic russification and sought to protect and develop Ukrainian culture within the paradigms of Soviet cultural ideology. Their successes in invigorating literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, were met with a vicious crackdown from the state between 1965-72, including repression and arrests. Inspired by the rebirth and defiance that the shistdesiatnyky had initiated, but frightened by the brutal response of the authorities to their successes, the simdesiatnyky maneuvered their cultural activity underground. Circulating banned books, including the shistdesiatnyky’s samvydav (samizdat) writings, these artists developed Ukrainian culture outside official Soviet cultural policy. In Kyiv this cultural development was led by writers of the Kyivska Shkola (Kyiv School), which included Vasyl Holoborodko, Viktor Kordun, Mykola Vorobiov, and Mykhailo Hryhoriv. In Lviv, its main figures were Ihor and Iryna Kalynets and a creative group centered around Hrytsko Chubai.
Hrytsko Chubai’s circle also included, among others, Oleh Lysheha, Mykola Riabchuk, Victor Morozov, and later, Yuri Vynnychuk. The group would gather at one another’s homes to share their new poems, songs, and paintings. In 1971, they released a samvydav almanac entitled Skrynia (The Chest), which featured original poems, translations, and an apolitical call for creative non-conformity. The authorities confiscated the journal: its contributors were repressed and their creative activity was halted. The literary works of the simdesiatnyky could not be published until the late 1980s. However, the simdesiatnyky were very influential on the subsequent generation of Ukrainian artists. Inspired by the quality of their art and by their ability to create freely outside the official Soviet centralized system of culture, the visimdesiatnyky absorbed many lessons that proved to be useful during the disorder that engulfed post-Soviet Ukraine.
Thus, as it turns out, during late Soviet times a generation of young Ukrainian artists—the visimdesiatnyky—was, in essence, being prepared for the opportunity for free creative expression that had been craved by Ukrainian intellectuals for many years. When that chance finally emerged during glasnost and then expanded with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 80ers, together with survivors among the shistdesiatnyky and simdesiatnyky, guided the development of Ukrainian culture in post-Soviet Ukraine. [5]
The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series featured writers of various generations, whose literary works have helped form the face of post-Soviet Ukrainian literature. Representatives from the visimdesiatnyky include Vasyl Gabor (b. 1959), Yuri Andrukhovych (b. 1960), Ivan Malkovych (b. 1961), Andrey Kurkov (b. 1961), and Viktor Neborak (b. 1961). Younger writers in the series, such as Taras Prokhasko (b. 1968), Oleksandr Boichenko (b. 1970), Marjana Savka (b. 1973), Andriy Bondar (b. 1974), and Serhiy Zhadan (b. 1974) have often presented their work together with the visimdesiatnyky, and have been published alongside them in various almanacs and anthologies. Sophia Andrukhovych (b. 1982) and Lyuba Yakimchuk (b. 1985) are among the most prominent young writers to have made a significant impact on the Ukrainian literary scene. Works of the simdesiatnyky were also featured in the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series. Yuri Vynnychuk (b. 1952) was a guest of the series in 2010, and the poetry of two other 70ers writers, Hrytsko Chubai (1949-1982) and Oleh Lysheha (1949-2014), was present in the series though the music of Taras Chubai. Taras Chubai is Hrytsko’s son, who, along with Yuri Vynnychuk and Andriy Panchyshyn, co-founded the Ne Zhurys! (Don’t Worry!) cabaret ensemble in the late 1980s. Ne Zhurys! combined satire with traditional and modern Ukrainian culture throughout the late 1980s and 1990s and celebrated Ukraine’s growing freedom on numerous stages, both in Ukraine and abroad. Taras Chubai wrote, recorded and performed many songs using his father’s poetry, the poetry of Lysheha, and the poetry of the visimdesiatnyky writers as lyrics. His popularity as a rock musician greatly spread the reach of this new and previously underground poetry in post-Soviet Ukraine. As part of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series, Taras Chubai performed these songs, including ones based on the poems of Hrytsko Chubai and Oleh Lysheha, at the Harriman and Kennan institutes in April 2008.
One of the goals of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series was to introduce today’s leading Ukrainian authors to as wide a U.S. public as possible. To that end, all of its twenty-seven events were conducted in English. With the exception Taras Chubai’s concerts, all Contemporary Ukrainian Series events consisted of a Ukrainian author reading their work and answering questions posed by the event’s moderator between their readings, and a question and answer period with the audience. A handout with English-language translations of the texts was provided for the audience and, if necessary, an English-language interpreter was provided for the discussion. Sometimes existing translations were used for this purpose, but often new translations had to be made so that the writers could present their selected texts. As a result, a large body of new translations accumulated over the course of the series. It is these translations that make up the bulk of the contents of this anthology. In certain cases, translations that had appeared in previous publications and were utilized at series events have also been included. For Andrey Kurkov, who already had a great deal of his work translated into English, a translation of one as-yet untranslated work was made especially for the anthology. A goal was to have the anthology include as many texts that were featured at series events as possible and also to have it debut new translations that were inspired by the series and had never been published before. In other words, The White Chalk of Days is both a collection of literary works that initially comprised and now commemorates the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series and a volume collecting mostly new translations of the works of many leading Ukrainian writers.
As mentioned above, in addition to the reading of literary texts, the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series allowed audiences in New York and Washington, D.C. to hear the thoughts and opinions of some of Ukraine’s leading intellectuals on a variety of issues. Another goal of the series was to help shed light on Ukraine in the West, where people are largely in the dark about the country’s past and present. Most of the series discussions centered on Ukrainian culture, political, and social issues. For example, Andriy Bondar talked about why Ukraine had not yet produced its own film based on Nikolai Gogol’s story Taras Bulba; Yuri Vynnychuk revealed how he managed to publish his own writing in censored Soviet Ukraine by passing it off as his translations from a mysterious ancient language; Andrey Kurkov divulged in which country his most active readers reside; and Viktor Neborak spoke of the “era of festivals” that engulfed Ukraine in the last years of the Soviet Union and during the initial years of its independence. Oleksandr Boichenko pointed out that, these days, many Ukrainian writers are engaged in translating Polish fiction and non-fiction works into Ukrainian but that the reverse was not necessarily true; Yuri Andrukhovych shared stories of his experiences representing Ukraine abroad; and Taras Prokhasko spoke about the need to experiment with the Ukrainian language in literature. Serhiy Zhadan disclosed that neither Ukrainian nor Russian were spoken in the home where he grew up; Sophia Andrukhovych discussed nostalgia for the past in today’s Ukrainian literature; and Lyuba Yakimchuk reflected on the appropriateness of writing poetry at a time of war. An insiders’ view of the Ukrainian publishing industry was provided by three of the series guests—Ivan Malkovych, Marjana Savka and Vasyl Gabor. All three are directly involved in publishing books that have garnered many of the country’s most prestigious books awards. The success of Malkovych’s publishing house A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA has made him a publisher-celebrity in his country. Gabor’s Pryvatna kolektsiia (A Private Collection), which is published by Piramida Publishers, has produced some the most important post-Soviet anthologies of both new Ukrainian literature and key literary works that were banned in Soviet times. Savka, chief editor and co-founder of the Vydavnytstvo Staroho Leva (Old Lion Publishing House), has been successful in making her publishing house the most visible one in Ukraine in the past half-decade.
Most of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series events that took place at the Kennan Institute were video recorded and are available for viewing on their website. Taking advantage of the presence of the series’ guests in Washington, D.C., the Voice of America Ukrainian Service invited many of them to appear in its broadcasts. These resources have provided valuable tools for scholars who teach Ukrainian studies worldwide. It is my intention that The White Chalk of Days be another key resource for students and teachers of Ukrainian culture.
A series that lasts this long and consists of so many events, is bound to run into some problems with logistics, and the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series is no exception. In fact, sometimes it seemed that the series was being sabotaged by a mysterious, devious force. Several incidents regarding guests of the series have now become legendary. Upon flying into the JFK airport in New York, Viktor Neborak mistakenly ended up taking a stretch limousine to his hotel instead of a standard taxi. And, in Washington, after deciding to walk from his hotel to the Kennan Institute, he got lost near the White House, showing up for his event just before it was scheduled to begin. Serhiy Zhadan too was supposed to arrive in the United States at New York’s JFK Airport. Fearing he may also get in a wrong car, I traveled from Philadelphia to meet him at the airport and take him to his hotel on Broadway. A massive rainstorm, however, intervened and his plane was unable to land in New York and instead landed—in Philadelphia. He waited in Philadelphia while I waited in New York before he finally landed in New York several hours later. Bad weather also greeted Vasyl Gabor in New York. He was able to fly into New York as scheduled, but his October 29, 2012 event at the Harriman Institute was cancelled because Columbia University, and most of New York City, was shut down by Hurricane Sandy. Gabor barely managed to make it out of Manhattan in order to travel to Washington, D.C. for his event at the Kennan Institute two days later. Taras Prokhasko set out for Lviv from his hometown of Ivano-Frankivsk on his way to New York in February 2010. Unfortunately, he slipped on a patch of ice on the platform of the Ivano-Frankivsk train station and was unable to break his fall with his hands; they were busy holding a large pot of cabbage that he was bringing to his family in Lviv along the way. Due to a badly damaged leg, he couldn’t fly out of Lviv and his event had to be rescheduled. A few months later, in the spring, a hobbled Prokhasko cheerfully met with audiences in New York and Washington.
The final few years of the series coincided with a dramatic turn of events in Ukraine—the Euromaidan of 2013 and 2014 and the subsequent war with Russia. Not surprisingly, these momentous political events influenced both the topics of discussion and some of the readings at the series events. In this manner, the series was instrumental in providing audiences in the United Sates with the point of view of several Ukrainian artists at a time when interest in Ukraine had risen.
Many guests of the series took on the duties of a public intellectual over these years and were especially active in the Euromaidan demonstrations. During the most heated days of the protests, the involvement of some of these writers in supporting Euromaidan placed them in very important and precarious positions. In an attempt to disseminate as many facts about the Euromaidan as possible throughout the world, Andriy Bondar created and ran a Facebook page entitled “Eurolution.Doc (Ukraine on Maidan).” It was, in essence, a twenty-four hour translation workshop of articles written about the Euromaidan that took advantage of the fact that Bondar had 5,000 friends and 17,500 subscribers on Facebook and that, being a translator himself, he knew many individuals who professionally translated between various languages. Translation requests were consistently posted and translators from around the world would announce their availability and language proficiencies. The importance of this workshop was confirmed when the site was anonymously shut down three times. Writers Yuri Andrukhovych and Andrey Kurkov used their relative prominence in the West to share what they saw on the Maidan. Kurkov lives just a few steps from the Maidan and from the start of the Euromaidan protests wrote diary entries depicting what he saw. These entries were later collected and published as the book Ukraine Diary: Dispatches from Kiev. Andrukhovych wrote an article in January 2014, when clashes on the Maidan were peaking. It was translated by Vitaly Chernetsky and published as “Love and Hatred in Kiev,” an op-ed piece printed in the International New York Times and found online on the New York Times webpage; the article was widely disseminated. Serhiy Zhadan was among the leaders of the pro-Maidan protests in Kharkiv, where he lives. One day, he and his fellow pro-Maidan protestors were stormed by pro-Russian demonstrators and commanded to kiss the Russian flag. When he refused, he was beaten, receiving a concussion. When Sally McGrane reported on the incident in a March 8, 2014 piece in The New Yorker, it allowed this Ukrainian intellectual an unprecedented chance to express his views in the West. These are only the most dramatic examples of the activity of the series’ guests in this important period in Ukraine’s history—a time when Ukrainian writers, like their fellow citizens, took to their craft for the sake of dignity.
The texts that make up this volume are varied and, like their authors, come from various periods of time in late-Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine. As the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series has grown every year, each subsequent guest of the series has added another layer to its structure. The anthology begins with a fragment of the 2012 Andrey Kurkov novel Lvovskaia gastrol Dzhimi Khendriksa (Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv). This novel depicts the hippie community in Lviv, Ukraine in the 1970s—a group whose existence and activity forms yet another popular myth, among many others, that circulate about that city today. Kurkov, who resides in Kyiv, wrote the novel while briefly living in Lviv after being invitated by that city’s mayor to write a book set there. Many of the characters in the novel were actual leaders of the Lviv hippie movement, and Lviv writer Yuri Vynnychuk makes a cameo in the story.
All of the Hrytsko Chubai poems included in the anthology were turned into songs that were written, performed, and recorded by Taras Chubai. The poems were written in the late 1960s, but were found only in the Ukrainian cultural underground until their 1990 publication in Hovoryty, movchaty i hovoryty znovu (To Speak, To Be Silent and to Speak Again). They vary in length and form—three are short poems, one is a fragment of a long poem, and one is a long poem in its entirety—but they have much in common. Three of the poems feature a woman who manages to go beyond the mundane into nature. Is it a search for existential meaning or is it just a private escape into a realm different than stifling reality? Either way, nature interacts mysteriously and unexpectedly with such endeavors. Chubai unfolds an intimate, secluded world whose powerful charms are not accessible to all and whose subtle revelations remain closely guarded secrets. The lone Oleh Lysheha poem that was presented at the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series is a lullaby that was sung by Taras Chubai. The melody that Chubai chose has a faint resemblance to George Gershwin’s classic aria “Summertime.” This was not accidental. There was a rumor circulating in the 1990s among Ukrainian artistic circles that Gershwin’s song had been influenced by the Ukrainian folk lullaby Oi khodyt son kolo vikon (The Dream Passes by the Window). By referencing the Gershwin tune melodically in his own song, Chubai was playfully reconnecting it to its possible origin.
Many of Marjana Savka’s poems found in this anthology were inspired by a trip she took to the United Sates in 2007. Jazz, Boston, and other exotic inspirations reverberate throughout her texts. She explores foreign locales with their strange tastes and scents, while “In This City” may have been inspired by the equally mysterious Lviv, where she lives. The anthology also includes several poems from Andriy Bondar’s collection Prymityvni formy vlasnosty (Primitive Forms of Ownership, 2004). In this, his third collection of poetry, Bondar switched to writing entirely in free verse, composing poems characterized by irony, sarcasm, and a sharp wit. Some, such as “Genes,” became crowd favorites when read on stage.
Most of Viktor Neborak’s in this anthology are from his 1990 collection Litaiucha Holova (The Flying Head), a publication that probably serves as the best example of the Bu-Ba-Bu literary trio’s approach to literature in late- and post-Soviet Ukraine. Bu-Ba-Bu, an abbreviation for burlesk-balahan-bufonada (burlesque-bluster-buffoonery), and comprised of Neborak, Yuri Andrukhovych and Oleksandr Irvanets, applied a carnivalized approach to Ukrainian literature. Often accompanied by rock music, revelry, and images of sex, Bu-Ba-Bu were very popular during the first years of independence. They performed at many of the festivals of the time that celebrated both the demise of the Soviet Union and the new creative freedom. It was from those stages that the writers of Bu-Ba-Bu demonstrated their talents in performance and in engaging an audience. Neborak’s selections from The Flying Head are wonderful illustrations of all of these elements of Bu-Ba-Bu and are now regarded as classics representative of that period of Ukrainian literature.
Neborak’s fellow Bu-Ba-Bu member Yuri Andrukhovych stopped writing poetry in the late 1990s as he developed into one of Ukraine’s premier prose writers. Although he did return to poetry in 2004 with the free verse collection Pisni dlia mertvoho pivnia (Songs for a Dead Rooster), prose, especially nonfiction, became his favorite genre. The essay “The Star Absinthe: Notes on a Bitter Anniversary” takes on perhaps the one subject for which Ukraine is best known today—Chernobyl. Passing through apocalyptic ruins there today, he sees ghosts from the Soviet past that had failed to foresee their oncoming demise. Andrukhovych, like Taras Prokhasko, resides in Ivano-Frankivsk and both writers, as well as other artists from the city, are part of a loose creative circle known as the Stanislavskyi fenomen (The Stanislav Phenomenon). Taras Prokhasko’s contributions to the anthology are short prose works that are all of very similar length. That is because they constitute chapters (dated entries) from his book FM Halychyna (FM Galicia), which collects three-minute recitations the writer read live on the air for the Ivano-Frankivsk Vezha radio station, five days a week over the course of several months. In these brief stories, Prokhasko exudes his distinct mellow tone and his storytelling prowess. Extraordinary scenes of the writer’s family’s life are shared with the reader and fable-like lessons conclude many of these tales.
Both poetry and prose by Serhiy Zhadan can be found in the anthology. Zhadan’s poetry portrays a post-industrial, globalized world where lonely souls search for affection and companionship. He utilizes fresh, unexpected metaphors that both infuse an aura of strangeness into his texts and simultaneously provide his reader with a sense of closeness and warmth. He also addresses this world in his prose, often injecting humor to depict an absurd post-Soviet existence. Zhadan’s stories are filled with protagonists who are damaged and disoriented individuals placed into positions incompatible with their skills and personalities. As is the case with his poetry, his prose offers a search for camaraderie in a situation of dysfunction.
Like the poetry of the 1960s generation of Ukrainian poets, Ivan Malkovych’s poetry is often invested with a driving passion to preserve the purity of the Ukrainian language. One of his most famous poems, “The Village Teacher’s Lesson,” treats that issue in a direct, yet delicate, manner. This poem, which is addressed to a child, is a wonderful example of Malkovych’s remarkable ability to link children to the Ukrainian language in various captivating and masterful ways. His great success as a publisher of children’s books is another example of that talent. As mentioned above, Vasyl Gabor has also enjoyed much success in the publishing field. One of his essays in this anthology tells the tale of how he came to launch his Pryvatna kolektsiia series of books. The other two stories are fictional accounts, one of which, “The High Water,” tells the story of a family being swept away by a flood—eerily prophetic setting considering that Gabor’s series event in New York was wiped out by Hurricane Sandy.
Yuri Vynnychuk’s selections in the anthology are a mix of fragments from two novels and a few short stories. One of the short stories, “Pears à la Crêpe,” is a humorous “day-after-the-party” tale in which the writer unleashes his ferocious wit. Similar in vein are the fragments included from Spring Games in Autumn Gardens, a novel in which Vynnychuk candidly shares stories of his own romantic exploits. The other selections reveal another of Vynnychuk’s characteristic talents—creating fantastic fictional worlds. “A Flowerbed in the Kilim” and “Pea Soup,” both written in 1988, are good examples of such writing, as is the fragment included from Malva Landa, a novel about a garbage dump that exists as its own world and is inhabited by myriad fanciful characters.
Oleksandr Boichenko is an essayist and columnist who is considered a “writer’s writer” by his peers. His writing is erudite, cleverly constructed, and full of biting criticism and sharp humor. In “With Great Love,” he takes his hometown Chernivtsi to task for an ever-growing bogusness that is in danger of destroying what is genuine in the city. In “The Lunch of a Man of Letters,” he shares an experience he had in Poland, a country in which Boichenko has spent a considerable amount of time as a translator from Polish into Ukrainian. Finally, “In a State of Siege” finds the writer (and former professor of foreign literature) looking to Albert Camus during a critical stage of Ukraine’s Euromaidan.
Sophia Andrukhovych’s prose is rich in detail—people and objects are meticulously described. Her “An Out-of-tune Piano, An Accordion” is the story of a decaying old man holding on to the relationships and responsibilities in his life. She wraps this narrative in an eerie aura of lingering death, which creates a mood fitting to the theme.
The anthology concludes with a selection of Lyuba Yakimchuk’s poems including those taken from the cycle “Apricots of the Donbas,” in which she writes about the ubiquitous presence of coal in her native Donbas region. Yakimchuk imagines angelic roots for this coal, and finds it even in the fruits that grow there. Some of her poems address the war in her home region, the site of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Yakimchuk focuses on form in her poems, actively experimenting with language, and breaking the Ukrainian language into syllables and sounds that echo the sounds of war.
The White Chalk of Days is the latest in a short but growing list of anthologies, single-author books, and journals that feature English-language translations of post-Soviet Ukrainian literature. The first anthology to do this was From Three Worlds: New Writing from Ukraine, a special issue of the journal Glas that was co-published by Zephyr Press in Massachusetts in 1996. The anthology begins with an excellent introduction by Solomea Pavlychko entitled “Facing the Freedom: The New Ukrainian Literature.” Edited by Ed Hogan and guest editors Askold Melnyczuk, Michael M. Naydan, Mykola Riabchuk, and Oksana Zabuzhko, the anthology features poetry and prose by fifteen writers; mostly visimdesiantnyky, but also older writers such as Oleh Lysheha, Vasyl Holoborodko, and Valery Shevchuk. Twenty translators or co-translators were in involved in that publication. Another anthology, Two Lands New Visions: Stories from Canada and Ukraine, published by Coteau Books in Regina, Saskatchewan, features two introductions, one by Solomea Pavlychko on the Ukrainian texts and one by Janice Kulyk Keefer on the Ukrainian-Canadian texts. The texts written by authors from Ukraine were co-translated by Marco Carynnyk and Marta Horban, and all come from post-Soviet Ukrainian writers. In 2000, the anthology A Hundred Years of Youth: A Bilingual Anthology of 20th Century Ukrainian Poetry was published in Lviv, Ukraine. This collection was compiled and edited by Olha Luchuk and Michael M. Naydan and included the work of forty-four translators or co-translators. Although it covers the entire 20th century, it includes many of the leading poets of post-Soviet Ukraine. The poetry of Serhiy Zhadan, the youngest writer in that anthology, closes out the book. Also published in Lviv, by Sribne Slovo Press in 2008, is the bilingual anthology of Ukrainian literature In A Different Light. Compiled and edited by Olha Luchuk with an introduction by Natalia Pylypiuk, this publication collects translations made by the translating duo Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps. The anthology features mostly poetry, but also includes a translation of the 1911 Lesia Ukrainka play Lisova Pisnia (The Forest Song). Like One Hundred Years of Youth, the collection includes Ukrainian poetry from throughout the 20th century (and three poems from the 19th century, by Taras Shevchenko) and also features many writers who have been prominent in independent Ukraine. In fact, the texts found in that publication are those that were featured, over the years, in productions by the New York-based Yara Arts Group, directed by Tkacz. Herstories: An Anthology of New Ukrainian Women Prose Writers, compiled by Michael M. Naydan and published by Glagoslav, features eighteen writers ranging from those who began writing in the 1950s and 1960s to those who have debuted books in the twenty first century.
Books featuring one contemporary Ukrainian author in English translation were rare in the 1990s, but their publication has quickly picked up pace. Most of the early publications appeared in Canada. In the first years of Ukrainian independence, books were published in Toronto that featured the poetry of Kyiv School poets Vasyl Holoborodko (Icarus with Butterfly Wings and Other Poems, 1991) and Mykola Vorobiov (Wild Dog Rose Moon, 1992), both translated by Myrosia Stefaniuk. Oksana Zabuzhko’s book A Kingdom of Fallen Statues: Poems and Essays, was published in 1996, also in Toronto. The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press published translations of novels by Yuri Andrukhovych (Recreations) and Yuri Izdryk (Wozzek) in 1999 and 2006, respectively. Both were translated by Marko Pavlyshyn. Two Andrukhovych novels were translated by Vitaly Chernetsky and published by Spuyten Duyvil—The Moscoviad (2009) and Twelve Circles (2015). Northwest University Press published Andrukhovych’s novel Perverzion (2005), translated by Michael M. Naydan, as well as a collection of prose by Volodymyr Dibrova, Peltse and Pentameron (1996), translated by Halyna Hryn. Oksana Zabuzhko has had two books of prose published by Amazon. Hryn translated Zabuzhko’s Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex (2011), while Nina Shevchuk-Murray translated The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2012). Over a dozen books by Andrey Kurkov are available in English translation, including books in his popular “Penguin” series, translated by George Bird. A bilingual edition of the poetry of Volodymyr Tsybulko, featuring translations by Yuri Tarnawsky, was published by Kalvariia in Lviv in 2001. Lately, Glagoslav has published prose by Maria Matios (Hardly Ever Otherwise, 2012, translated by Yury Tkacz), Yevhenia Kononenko (A Russian Story, 2013, translated by Patrick John Corness), Irene Rozdobutko (The Lost Button, 2012, translated by Michael M. Naydan) and Larysa Densyenko (The Sarabande of Sarah’s Band, 2013, translated by Michael M. Naydan). Two of Serhiy Zhadan’s novels, Depeche Mode (2014, translated by Myrolsav Shkandrij), and Voroshilovgrad (2016, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Wheeler), have recently appeared in English. Two more books by Zhadan, Mesopotamia (also translated by Reilly Costigan and Isaac Wheeler) and a volume of selected poetry (translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps), are forthcoming from Yale University Press.
Several journals, both print and online, have allowed English-language readers to get acquainted with contemporary Ukrainian literature from Ukraine. Between 2003 and 2007, the online Poetry International Rotterdam consistently presented Ukrainian poets in English translation. Thirteen poets, with a twenty-year age difference among them, represent contemporary Ukrainian literature in this forum. The site also provides links to interview with, and articles about, the featured authors. In Fall 2010, International Poetry Review published a special issue guest edited by Michael M. Naydan, who dedicated two-thirds of the journal to translations of Ukrainian poetry. This issue presents the post-glasnost poetry of twenty-two poets that was translated by eleven individuals. The journal AGNI has also often published English-language translations of Ukrainian literature. A 2005 issue of World Literature Today includes an essay by Michael M. Naydan on Bu-Ba-Bu and his translations of a selection of their writings. Ukrainian Literature: A Journal of Translations published four issues between 2004 and 2014. All of the issues are available online, and the first two issues also came out in print. This is the only existing journal dedicated fully to publishing English-language translations of Ukrainian literary works. Edited by Maxim Tarnawsky, the journal also features, among others, works by classics of Ukrainian literature such as Taras Shevchenko, Olha Kobylianska and Volodymyr Vynnychenko.
Other journals and books have also featured English-language translations of contemporary Ukrainian literature on occasion but I only mention those that have been most active in this endeavor. I am happy that the anthology The White Chalk of Days is the next to be included in this fine group.
Advances in science have undoubtedly made introducing people to the various cultures of the world ever easier. The possibilities of what can be presented about literature on the computer screen or smartphone are seemingly endless and exhilarating. Video conferences and recordings bring the voices and images of authors into homes and classrooms around the world. It is exciting to imagine the ways that the internet will allow my colleagues and me to connect Ukrainian literature with potential readers in the future. The online, multimedia, and interactive version of The White Chalk of Days that accompany this print publication is a great example of some of the ways that technology can help present literature beyond the printed page in an innovative and enticing fashion.
However, I am also happy that the anthology The White Chalk of Days is the result of an initiative that physically brought authors from Ukraine to the U.S. It is significant that this anthology commemorates meetings that these writers had with an audience that attended their events. These Ukrainian artists were present on the Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series, and were able to shed light on a country and a culture that is very much obscured in the West—a darkness that can lead to harmful misunderstandings. Recent events have shown once again that Ukraine is a country with an important geopolitical position in today’s world. A better understanding of the country, and of the complex factors that make up its identity—a subject that is continually being probed by Ukraine’s post-Soviet artists—can help determine how to better engage with it. The writings of the guests of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series chronicle and comment on the key issues, thoughts and emotions that have filled the days of Ukraine’s twenty-five years of independence. The writers’ talents with words have helped to highlight and illustrate the subtleties of these issues. I am happy that we have an opportunity, with this volume, to collect, preserve, and share the white chalk of those series days. My hope is that its readers enjoy these well-crafted texts, find them to be intellectually challenging and personally engaging, and see how they are vibrant examples of the ways great art can help to absorb and approach the intricate and serious concerns of the world today.
Mark Andryczyk
Notes
[1] This is a fragment of the Ivan Malkovych poem “an evening (goose) pastoral.” It can be found in its entirety on page 241. The poem was translated by Michael M. Naydan. Unless otherwise indicated, all comments on figures, places, and cultural and social contexts in the translations contained in this volume are mine.
[2] For a thorough analysis of cultural imperialism, Russia, and Ukraine, see Myroslav Shkandrij, Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001).
[3] One leading Ukrainian scholar uses the term “post-Chernobyl literature” to describe Ukrainian Postmodernism. See Tamara Hundorova, Pisliachornobyl’s’ka biblioteka: ukraïns’kyi literaturnyi postmodern (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2005). Hundorova treats the Chernobyl explosion as a watershed, the catastrophic effects of which thrust Ukraine’s visimdesiatnyky to aggressively challenge existing paradigms in Ukraine’s cultural sphere.
[4] I have published a monograph that addresses these phenomena, and others, in post-Soviet Ukrainian literature. See Mark Andryczyk, The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012).
[5] For informative, in-depth investigations of this period in Ukrainian literature, see Marko Pavlyshyn, “Post-Colonial Features in Contemporary Ukrainian Culture,” Australian Slavonic and East European Studies 6 (1992), no. 2: 41-55; Solomea Pavlychko, “Facing Freedom: The New Ukrainian Literature,” translated by Askold Melnyczuk, in From Three Worlds: New Writing from Ukraine, ed. Ed Hogan (Boston: Zephyr Press, 1996); and Vitaly Chernetsky, Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007).