Adapting to Europe  

Thus the Osnovy [Foundations] Publishing House emerged as a part of the publishing project of International Renaissance Foundation. The people at the birth of Osnovy (1992) were complex-free Ukrainian scholars, businessmen, and translators led by young cultural studies specialist Solomiya Pavlychko (well known by then). The majority of texts published by Osnovy were never before published in Ukrainian, and some of them not even in Russian. The publishing house's priorities have not changed in seven years. However, Osnovy is developing, perfecting its intellectual orientation and working out new plans and directions. That was the subject of our conversation with its executive director Valentyna Kyrylova who has passed through all levels of the publishing hierarchy and has been the head of Osnovy for over a year.

V. K.:When we started working we were afraid to become just another publishing house specializing in patriotic kitsch, which were then widespread and sowing literature teaching nothing more than pseudo-patriotism. That was why in the Osnovy program a dual task was formulated: first, to provide Ukrainian scholarship with basic works of ancient and classical philosophy and, second, to publish the most progressive literature on economics, management, history, and modern philosophy tested in the world leading universities. And one more important principle was put into the Osnovy concept: to give students and teachers inexpensive books; we sell them for virtually what it costs to publish them. Thus we worked this way for about five years. Later we began working with Ukrainian authors - and the third direction appeared that was completely justified. For example, Anatoly Halchynsky wrote his Theory Of Money basing it on material from our country, and we reprinted it three times; Money And Credit Policy by Olena Hrytsenko has had two impressions.

The Day: What translators do you work with?

V. K.:Now we no longer have the problem that was so acute when we started work: the level of Ukrainian of translators who spoke foreign languages quite well was poor, as a rule. And those who speak well both foreign and the native language were few. Mainly they worked in Vsesvit (Universe) magazine. Most have been working with us from the beginning, and often the initiative is theirs: the works of Euripides, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Friedrich Nietzsche were already translated and awaiting publication. There is a similar situation with Andriy Sodomora's translation of Ovid, due to be published very soon.

The Day: Which books can Osnovy be especially proud of?

V. K.:Quite recently we published the translation of The Crisis Of World Capitalism by George Soros. It is his latest work, and its main idea is that every crisis causes a new upswing. The book will interest everyone: Deputies of Verkhovna Rada as well as university students of economics. But we are especially proud of the record time of translation. In New York the presentation of the book took place on November 26, 1998. It took us only two and a half months to the advance copy of the Ukrainian translation. Even the Moscow edition was later. And by the summer we are going to publish the real bomb: The History Of Europe by Norman Davies - 2060 pages of English text (there will be more in Ukrainian). The book is already translated into 35 languages. In Poland the edition was displayed last spring during the traditional spring book fair in Warsaw. It will take us a little more than a year to publish Davis, that is, we keep pace with Poland which is a European country, while the Russians are still only dreaming of the book.

By the way, we plan to invite the author to the Kyiv presentation of the Ukrainian translation of his History Of Europe. And I think, we are publishing the book in good time: before declaring our country a European state it would not hurt us to study European history.