IHOR RYMARUK: EVERY VICTORY IN POETRY IS PYRRHIC

In the early 1990s, poets were treated as luminaries and prophets. However, the situation changed quickly and dramatically. Poet Ihor Rymaruk must have felt it coming and in a way foretold today's changes in his Night Voices. Eventually, he became assistant editor of the journal Suchasnist, believing the publishing business a higher priority for Ukraine these days...

The Day: Your generation seems to prefer to keep silent, except for Andrukhovych. Is this temporary or maybe a sign of entropy?

I.R.: Silence in literature is often indicative of intense work of the spirit and not inactivity, especially in times of such tremendous psychological cataclysms as we are now going through. In such times only poetasters can be satisfied. If we understand silence as the misfortune of publishing and indifference toward books, then look at the names that have appeared frequently in print over the past few years. Maybe Lina Kostenko? Vinhranovsky? Drach or Pavlychko? Obviously such writers have very different reasons for silence, except for one which is general for Ukrainian literature, the sharp decline of publishing, a radical shift in our literature's public consciousness to the material and political. Andrukhovych is not only an excellent poet, God gave him tremendous talent as a prose writer, but he's an exception, and he hasn't written poetry since the early 1990s. In other words, what you call our so-called generation is not the only silent one.

The Day: So called? Then explain your terms. Don't you believe that literati should be divided into generations?

I.R.: In great measure, no I don't. In Iranian criticism, for example, the term "history of poetry" does not exist. Their critics have no interest in explaining relationships among generations, the influence of one author on another, or who was the predecessor or pupil of what teacher. All poets exist very individually, in their own world and time, or actually out of time, above time. We use the term, generation, for purposes of convenience. Personally, I understand it as a certain number of authors (primarily poets) who entered literature in the past decade, with very distinct individuality, manner of writing and, in the final analysis, fates, having similar world views and views on literature. I'd rather call them the vismidesiatnyky, the generation of the 1980s. Quite frankly, I operate less and less with categories like generations and literary trends. All this is extremely individual, so one has to talk about separate personalities.

The Day: But to return to that silence, your new book The Maiden Obyda is separated from Night Voices by seven years. Why?

I.R.: I never wrote much. Even less in the past few years. Of course, I could point to the fact that my editorial work in the Dnipro Publishing House and the journal Suchasnist take up much time, but this would be a half-truth. Perhaps, it's time for me to have a good look around, rethink things, discard some and get back to others.

To tell the truth, I have never lacked what we call inner freedom, even under the Soviets, but in a twisted roundabout way my own inner freedom is now at odds with all those freedoms we have gained. I feel at times like a Chekhov character in a Schiller drama, as though surrounded by impetuous (sometimes feigned) passions, romantic decorations and declamations filled with pathos. Where does a poet really belong? Should his poetry be aimed at mass meetings or should it be cosmic? I'm searching for an internal understanding within myself, to free myself of illusions and, to be frank, of disillusionment, to return to the pure, if you like, in the sacral sense of the word.

The Day: Does this mean that participation in society, whatever its type, is not for the man of letters? That leadership is not for him?

I.R.: Hm. Remember Emil Lotianu's motion picture, "The Gypsy Camp Rides Skyward"? It was very popular once. I'm talking about the scene in which Loyko rescues another Gypsy, a born crook and buffoon, from being killed by an enraged marketplace crowd. When both are safe he turns, landing a good one square on his jaw, and then lectures him on the Gypsy Code of Honor: "You must steal horses and girls, nothing else." Of course, before teaching a crook moral dictates you have to relieve his mind of the fear of the law and enraged mob... but getting this crook to abide by a code of honor is a much harder job. In other words, he has to be taught to save what is spiritual in him. Here literature could be very instrumental. To have the prophesy about beauty saving the world come true. But this is theory. That Gypsy character Loyko seemed to have mastered a more effective educational technique...

The Day: Yes, here beauty is often helpless. And do you agree with those who put forward the thesis that your school of the 1980s has defeat suffered defeat?

I.R.: To be defeated, you have to put up at least some kind of struggle. Defeat by who and what? Is my generation supposed to have been defeated by the generation of the 1960s or that of the 1990s? We have never considered either our enemies. They wrote verse and so did we. And never mind who did it better or worse. Living at different periods, we did it differently, just as we lived differently. We lived by our rules which would not be accepted in either the 1960s or 1990s.

Defeat in literature? You can hardly say that about the creative efforts of an entire generation including first-rate poets and prose writers. Remember Vasyl Herasymiuk, Yuri Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko, Taras Fediuk, Petro Midianka? If you mean defeat by not getting government literary awards, titles or comfortable ministerial seats, then I agree, but they don't want any of this. Besides, the waiting list is very long in that area. Defeat in trying to win the reader's recognition? You can't win them all, you know. I don't accept the notion of a successful author. It doesn't make sense and sounds even sacrilegious to me.

Finally, defeat in opposition to the Creator (hasn't art been described as this more than once?) But this has been so from time immemorial, is obligatory, and finally a necessary defeat in the struggle with God. This is the only way in which this theme can be continued. I know something of what the theorists of the defeat of the 1980s generation have written. I recall the phrase, "the Poles can't fight, but they can revolt. Osip Mandelstam wrote that in a very different context.

The Day: Yes, but how about another classic who wrote, "And you yourself should not distinguish between defeat and victory"?

I.R.: This was about specific artists, about individual creative fate, and here Pasternak was absolutely right. Every victory in poetry is Pyrrhic. And in general, all these concepts are good for discussing military and sports issues but not for literature.

The Day: What terms would you personally prefer to use to sum your generation?

I.R.: That would be premature, in the first place. Most of the authors I have in mind are slightly over forty or just getting there. I'm certain they haven't yet done all they're capable of. Secondly, I'd rather leave that dubious privilege to the critics. They have not only slipped their cross onto the poets' and prose writers' shoulders, but are also trying, surreptitiously, to send them on the road to Calvary instead of themselves. And seriously, I think that the greatest merit to be attributed to the generation of the 1980s is the lesson in morality they have taught us all.

The Day: Morality?

I.R.: Yes, don't be surprised. This does not contradict what I said earlier. According to Octavio Pas (and I am deeply convinced of this) a writer's morality is to be found not in themes or idea, but in his behavior one on one with language. In the 1980s, Ukrainian poetry was restored in its true meaning and mission: composing verse not because such-and-such topic is for the public good or will serve a political cause, in other words, for reasons outside poetry, but doing it by abiding by the evolutionary law of the language, which invariably changes decisions made in advance.

Photo: IHOR RYMARUK