By Oleh SYDOR-HIBELYNDA, Art-Line,
special to The Day
A collection of Goethe's verse in Ukrainian has been published in Kyiv
to commemorate the German author's 250th jubilee.
Without knowing it, a French and German author each tried to compile
a code of classical literature of all times and peoples in the mid-1930s.
Both had made their names but were still to win world acclaim. Andre Maurois
did in the context of a teacher's advice "to a young man" and Hermann Hesse
in response to a questionnaire issued by an over-inquisitive publisher
(in Goethe's Steppenwolf the hero converses in his sleep with a
very unorthodox, even prankish Goethe). Although both resort to ad-libbing
and apologetic prejudice (Hesse, for example, insists that a twentieth
century intellectual cannot do without a "complete" Buchner, something
readers from the other side of the Rhine are not likely to comprehend),
there is much genuine material. Take Goethe. He occupied a place of honor
on both lists. After more than half a century we can state that the vicissitudes
of time has not shaken his throne on the literary Olympus. And the Goethe
Institute's festivities commemorating his 250th anniversary are another
leaf in his laurels (rather than a shot in the eye, as is the case with
the Pushkin jubilee).
I think that there is a special shelf in every literary devotee's library
for Goethe, perhaps somewhere between the romantics he ruthlessly attacked
and antics he could not imagine himself without. Now this devotee can place
another book on this shelf, Goethe's Selected Works in Ukrainian
(Vsesvit, Kyiv). The 25 short texts translated by experts like Mykola Bazhan
and Yuri Andrukhovych are a good start for an inchoate reader. (Personally,
I prefer the rarer editions of Poetry and Truth or Selected Affinity.)
Previously one could find many such collections as in the School Library
series, but it is all history now. This particular book (its presentation
took part at the Ukrainian Museum of Literature recently, alongside the
ceremony of opening an exhibit of versatile Goethe editions) deserves every
praise not only due to excellent translations, but also artwork. Ukrainian
artists, young but already firmly established, were invited to work with
classic texts (e.g., Pavlo Makov from Kharkiv; Mykola Zhuravel and Yuri
Solomko from Kyiv, and Serhiy Mylokumov from Yalta). One is also pleasantly
surprised to discover that each of them touched on things separate and
general, nature and art, without acting contrary to the unique style forming
their charming creative individualities. Zhuravel's decorations of spherical
objects was built "alive" and symbolically; Solomko's was a cartographic
background (a technique he has used since 1994, becoming his fateful calling
card). For Makov the project served as yet another typographic experiment.
They have all taken a Goethe shower (like a Charcot shower). "Such commissions
are received once in a lifetime... Touching eternity... I seemed to have
been stretched all over the world," Solomko admits, adding that he was
amazed how a map of the mystic Kamchatka tallies with the Walpurgis Night
images. Zhuravel thought his work over for a very long time and did it
overnight. There is a fly in the ointment: poor quality of type and haphazard
makeup, spoiling the overall impression, but this is not Herr Goethe's
private counselor's fault.
And now on to two other, sadder stories about other Goethe books currently
on my bookshelf. Volume 4, dramas in verse, calico-bound. I bought it from
a bum for three hryvnias by the University Metro station. Title page torn
off, but a clear library stamp of Kyiv Gymnasium [High School] No. 3. And
someone's exercises in drawing the old Cyrillic letter O (originally theta,
later corresponding to the modern ') in the margin of the First Act of
Iphigenia. Sighing sorrowfully for times bygone? We have been through
all this. It does not help. By the way, I found the rare edition's output
data very easily: Gerbel Publishers, St. Petersburg, 1878. All it took
was look up a reference source called Goethe in the Mirror of Ukraine
published parallel to the Universe edition. However, I could not find any
mention of Walter Benjamin's classic essay "Goethe" (Moscow Collection,
1996). The German original is available, but no Russian version, perhaps
something our official book collectors cannot afford. Copies were available
at staggering prices at Petrivka, but no librarians could afford them,
of course.
Some sell Goethe not to die of starvation. Others cannot afford his
books for the same reason. Starving book owners, insolvent book collectors.
"Living in this world is sad, gentlemen!" this from Goethe's younger contemporary
in Ukraine. This brings to mind another jubilee that passed hardly noticed
by anyone. Gogol's first story, "Hans Kuchelgarten," appeared in print
170 years ago. In the closing lines the future author of Dead Souls
eulogizes Germany as a "country of lofty aspirations," and of course Goethe
whose "charming prose and verse disperse the clouds of worry."







