Leonid FINBERG: Our society knows very little about itself
A candid talk about cultural heritage, the present day and tomorrow
Dukh I Litera is one of the few publishing houses which aims to acquaint the Ukrainian reader with the inexhaustible world literary heritage. The two latest publications – The Kobzar with B. Sedliar’s illustrations and Thoughts by B. Pascal – are among the top fifteen books of the Lviv Forum of Publishers 2009. In an interview with The Day, Leonid Finberg, director of the Judaica Center and editor-in-chief of the Dukh I Litera Publishing House, speaks about what books Ukrainian society needs and about the current spiritual and intellectual quests of Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals.
What kind of changes are taking place in Ukrainian book publishing?
“Book publishing is gradually developing, though not as fast as we would like it to. If you come into a bookstore today, you will see that almost all the humanities are represented by Ukrainian books. Those books are of different quality, and the situation is not the same from 10 years ago, when Russian and Ukrainian books accounted for 90 and 10 percent, respectively. Today, almost 30 percent of the books are Ukrainian (in what concerns scientific literature). However, finding the contemporary works of Russian, Polish or German thinkers requires quite an effort. Luckily, there is always the internet.”
How was The Kobzar, with Vasyl Sedliar’s illustrations, prepared for printing?
“Many people knew about this book, but very few had ever seen it. The book’s first and second editions came out in 1931 and 1933, respectively. When the Ukrainian intelligentsia began to be harassed, these books were being withdrawn from all libraries and collections. Later, the artist was also killed. Still, there was some information about this book, especially in recent studies. But most intellectuals, including those at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, such as Natalia Yakovenko, Volodymyr Panchenko, and others, had heard about, but had never seen, Sedliar’s illustrations. While working on the manuscript Sashko Irvanets came to see us. He spent half an hour examining the drawings of the genius. Sashko knows The Kobzar by heart. He looked up and asked: ‘Did you know about this book?’ I replied: ‘No.’ We are bringing back a masterpiece to the readers, and the works of a great graphic artist, the favorite pupil of Boichuk, from whose legacy only a few works have survived.
“The whole story began like this: Arthur Rudzytsky, a grandson of the first publication’s editor, showed me the family-owned copy of the book and said he would like to have it published. In my view, Sedliar’s illustrations are like the works of Matisse and Picasso, his contempories. We began to work on the book. At first we wanted to make a facsimile of the first edition but then, when we took a closer look, we saw that Taras Shevchenko’s texts had been blue-penciled (a common practice in the 1930s): for example, they printed ‘Tatar invaders’ instead of ‘Muscovite invaders,’ etc. So we decided to reproduce the book’s aesthetics and add them to Shevchenko’s original texts. We also wrote about the artist’s and the book’s story. This was done by Rudzytsky and Stepan Zakharkin, or associate and book editor.
“We worked on The Kobzar for 18 months, often discussing about the editorial trade. The first edition (1931) was in black and white, the second one (1933) was furnished with drawings, but the publishers withdrew some very interesting separating characters between the poet’s different texts. No original illustrations – either black-and-white or colored – had survived. We decided to make a third edition by combining the best of the two previous ones. We made page proofs of the book and began searching for money to print it. We turned to our partners, notably the Oranta print shop, with which Dukh I Litera has been cooperating for five years. Experienced designers worked to clean up the drawings because reprinting can affect quality drastically. In a word, we did a tremendous amount of work so as to fully meet professional standards. We received two prestigious Lviv Fair prizes. They were selecting the 15 best books of the year. Two of our books, The Kobzar and Thoughts, were put on the list. Then we received one more award from the Yatseniuk Foundation. The foundation conducted an interactive poll on what is Ukraine’s most influential book in the past few years. The winner was Pascal’s Thoughts translated by Perepadia and Khoma, published by Dukh I Litera.
“After publishing The Kobzar, we organized, in cooperation with the National Art Museum, an exhibit of Vasyl Sedliar’s oeuvre. We displayed photographs of the 1920s—1930s, documents, enlarged colored illustrations of The Kobzar, and the master’s pictures kept at the museum. We also published a small catalogue of the exhibition. In other words, it was a celebration of the book and the artist.”
What is so special about the highly prized book Thoughts by Blaise Pascal?
“I find it difficult to answer the question why precisely Thoughts won the award. I think 10—20 people at most had read it by that time. But this may just be rumor. Tynianov once said that myths and legends are more significant than reality. It may be so. But, to tell the truth, our book was done very well. It was translated by Anatol Perepadia. He is from the cohort of the Ukrainian translators of genius, who preserved Ukrainian culture in the mid-20th century. Perepadia translated more from French than any other translator from other language. Thanks to him, Marcel Proust (six volumes), Michel Montaigne (three volumes), Albert Camus, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Francois Rabelais and others could ‘speak’ Ukrainian. He also translated from Italian. To reproduce the language of the 17th or 18th century, Perepadia would delve into not only French but also Ukrainian texts of that era. I am sure researchers will explore and analyze the master’s secrets. When the famous master Mykola Lukash died without finishing the translation of Don Quixote, Perepadia did the job. Unfortunately, Anatol passed away last year. We were happy to work with him and published Montaigne’s texts… Thoughts was the last manuscript that he handed over to us. Oleh Khoma, a talented philosopher and editor, also worked on the book. You will not find any other Ukrainian book which has 400 pages of text and 200 pages of commentaries and indices. I think this also astonished the Lviv Fair committee. Besides, Iryna Pasternak did a very original design of the book.”
What projects are Dukh I Litera publishers working on now?
“We are working on the European Dictionary of Philosophy. This is a huge volume published in France. The publication special in that translations can include additional articles connected with national cultures. The project now involves several countries, and everybody is translating this dictionary, which is important for early 21st century humanism. The Ukrainian translation of the first volume came out earlier than others. This project is managed by our publishing house director Kostiantyn Sihov. More than 10 Ukrainian editors and translators were invited to an international conference in France, devoted to this dictionary. We are also preparing the translation of Jerzy Ficowski’s book on the great Polish writer and artist Bruno Schulz. Ficowski prepared Schulz’s texts for publication and wrote influential articles about him. Incidentally, the Ukrainian translation of Bruno Schulz is brilliant. I know both Russian and Polish, and I think the team composed of Y. Prokhasko, T. Vozniak, and M. Yakovyna did a great job. Ms. Oleksandra Koval has published this book twice, and I congratulate her on a successful project.”
Are there any interesting names among the present-day Ukrainian writers and thinkers?
“It seems to me there are not as many as I would like. There are some original thinkers from the older generations, let us hope there will be some in the next one. Yevhen Sverstiuk has written some very penetrating pieces of political writing. He helped Ukrainian society become reacquainted with Biblical texts and the Christian tradition. Myroslav Marynovych, who also comes from the milieu of former dissidents, is another interesting author. We are preparing a multi-volume publication of his works. It is very good and original philosophical and political writing. There are some interesting texts by Zinovii Antoniuk (also from the older generation). We recently published some of his books, in conjunction with Kharkiv human rights group. One of them is historical, a piece for which he was once arrested, and another ponders the present. In my opinion, these are Chaadaev-level texts. They explore the obsequiousness of the current Ukrainian society, which springs from the mentality of a rural person who has moved to the city. The books of latter-day ‘patriots’ idealize the countryside as a romantic past. This may be true, but Zinovii Antoniuk is a very alert thinker who closely follows what is going on in Ukrainian society. It seems to me that he offers very interesting concepts to reconsider the psychology of current Ukrainian public and political figures, examining their treachery, venality, and inconsistency, from the angle of the mentality of urbanized provincial people. Texts on ethics by Viktor Malakhov, a professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, are immensely interesting. I also enjoy the writings of Maryna Novikova, a Simferopol University professor, who deals with the problems of a dialogue between cultures. We have published her book on Ukrainian translators, her dialogues with Kochur and Lukash. Ukraine has formed quite a good school of historians, who reach the current professional standards. Natalia Yakovenko is a very profound historian of 17th and 18th centuries. Yaroslav Hrytsak is extremely aware of the modern debates and trends worldwide. His interests also embrace the 19th and the 20th centuries. Of great interest are texts by Vsevolod Rechytsky, a jurist, constitutional law expert, and a philosopher of law. I always closely follow the writing of Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Eleonora Solovei, and Vira Aheieva. There are also some good theater and cinema reviewers, but this is different, for we are speaking about theoreticians. Let us come back to this in a few years time, I am sure new names will be waiting.”
