An attempt to establish a canon?

A few days ago the Ye Bookstore launched an anthology edited by the philologist Vira Aheieva, a well-known Ukrainian literary scholar and critic. The book contains the finest examples of 20th-century Ukrainian short prose, including works by Olha Kobylianska, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Mykhailo Yatskiv, Vasyl Stefanyk, Mykola Khvylovy, Viktor Domontovych, Ihor Kostetsky, Hryhir Tiutiunnyk, Taras Prokhasko, and Oksana Zabuzhko. This is by no means a complete list of the brilliant authors assembled in this volume, who represent diverse manners and styles of writing connected to the modernist and avant-garde orientations and traditions. This was a generation of writers who sought to make a scrupulous analysis of the condition of the individual experiencing the collapse of established values and having to adapt to an entirely new space of time. This is the prose of a mentality revealed.

The participants and guests at the book launch had an opportunity to examine the 1,512-page anthology and take part in a lively debate on 20th-century Ukrainian literature and attempts to establish a certain canon of short prose dating to that period.

“You know, I am very glad that our anthology is being launched in this bookstore,” said Leonid Finkelshtein, the senior editor of Fakt Publishers. “This is where I saw Leonid Kuchma’s book shelved in the section ‘Books in Foreign Languages.’ Second, I would like to say that on Feb. 25 we celebrated the 107th birth anniversary of Lesia Ukrainka, and the newspapers, magazines, and television were full of promises to establish a cultural center named after her by the time of her forthcoming jubilee. Incidentally, next year we are supposed to ‘mark’ 35 years from the time any book by Lesia Ukrainka was last published in Ukraine! Why are we building centers instead of publishing books? Imagine: the collected works of even one Ukrainian author have not been published in all the years of independence! I am very bitter that the classics are practically not being published in Ukraine. Our publishing house is very happy that we managed to do this book. Ukrainian Short Prose of the XX Century: An Anthology is an attempt to establish the Ukrainian canon of those times; this is the beginning of the process. I have my own hierarchy of Ukrainian writers: almost living, eternally living, and those on the fringe. The anthology comprises the oeuvres of the eternally living authors.

“Right now many literary scholars are facing a temptation: to sum up the 20th century,” Aheieva underlined. “In my opinion, there should be several anthologies of this kind: one for poetry, a volume of women’s prose, men’s prose, etc. This project was suicidal for me in a way, because I took on too big a responsibility. While the first half of the 20th century is more or less solid, the second half consists of our contemporaries whom I added, even during their lifetimes, to the list of literary classics. In my view, a canon is a question of taste, a rather subjective idea that is tested by time alone. Our literature has quite an unusual history. For example, Western Europe first had modernism and then postmodernism, whereas in Ukraine, modernism was followed by socialist realism and only then by postmodernism, which has left a certain imprint on our literature. You know, there are writers most of whose works belonged to the socialist realist era, but we included them in this anthology because we found some works that are an exception, for example, the short prose of Leonid Pervomaisky.”

“I am very pleased that I was invited to work on this truly great book, the poet Vasyl Herasymiuk said. “I think we also need an anthology of Ukrainian poetry: it may be more difficult to do, but it is no less important than the prose volume. I would say that our prose writers are authors of poetic prose. I am very glad that the book includes works by Vasyl Portiak, which the Ukrainian reader badly needs. This is prose in which every character’s life is consonant with your own.”

“What is more important — the result or the canon — is quite a deep question,” said Deputy Minister of Education and Science Maksym Strikha, who is a literary scholar and translator. “Twentieth- century Ukrainian literature was tragic. At the same time, it is a ‘mine field’ because a lot of ‘icon painters’ sought to establish their own canon — patriotic, socialist, etc. They were all trying to prove that they were right and others were wrong. I find it interesting that many of the writers included in the anthology used to fling mud at each other, but in this book they are together, which means that they still had something in common. The main feature of this book is that it is interesting to read no matter what page you open. In my opinion, this is not a canon yet, it’s a beginning, an attempt to reconsider the legacy of 20th-century Ukrainian writers.”

“I believe this book is the first attempt to revise modern Ukrainian literature, which some of our very educated compatriots call ‘UkrSuchLit’ (a pun on suchasnyi, ‘modern,’ and suchyi, ‘bitchy’ — Ed.),” said the writer Oksana Zabuzhko, the author of the anthology’s brief biographical survey. “There have already been attempts to revise and reconsider modern Ukrainian literature in theoretical and philosophical terms: suffice it to recall Solomia Pavlychko’s book The Discourse of Modernism in Ukrainian Literature. I am very sorry that we still do not have a history of 20th-century Ukrainian literature. This anthology is an attempt to bring our heritage back to the contemporary reader. Literature as a whole entity does not exist. Most Ukrainians, at best, when they are asked about our writers, name Taras Shevchenko. Therefore, most of the authors in this book will be a discovery for many Ukrainians. This is our national ‘uniqueness.’ I personally regret that this anthology has no works by Borys Antonenko-Davydovych and too few by Hryhir Tiutiunnyk. I consider the latter a genius of Ukrainian short prose. For me, the best review of the book is its cover, which is a photograph of the new ‘building’ of 20th-century Ukrainian literature that we are getting to know today.”