Subjective Demiurges 

However, literary circles had mixed reactions to the book. Rumor has it that some friends do not talk anymore to ideologists of the Return of the Demiurges project. We thought it would be interesting to speak with one of them - compiler of the Encyclopedia's glossary section and Pleroma journal editor Volodymyr Yeshkilev.

Q.: What purpose did you have in mind when you started your work on the Encyclopedia?

A.: I think all literary experts in Ukraine have the impression that there are several Ukrainian literatures which are not compatible in terms of both their aesthetics and personal relationships between the writers.  I believe the time has come to establish a hierarchy and divide the literature into discourse spheres. I find that there are three such spheres of discourse in contemporary Ukrainian literature. The first one, which I call testamentary-rustic, belongs to the colonial practice and represents several hundred peasants who proved to be faithful adherents of the communist ideology and were able to rhyme "Marichka" (a female character of many Ukrainian folk songs) with "smerichka" (a fir tree, often mentioned in Ukrainian folklore). Those people were admitted to universities, taught the art of speaking, awarded the title of writer, and later started to manufacture literature in vast quantities.

The second sphere is post-modernist, represented by few names, but thank God we at least have them. The third sphere is neo-modernist discourse. Belonging to it are Ihor Rymaruk, Vasyl Herasymiuk, Oksana Zabuzhko, and others who have broken away from the rustic tradition.  Yet, for some unknown reason, the school textbook of literature ends today with Ivan Drach and Mykola Vinhranovsky. So one of the Encyclopedia's objectives was to present the popular literature not commonly found in textbooks.

Q.: Your criteria seem very subjective; however, the very notion of an encyclopedia implies universality, as much objectivity and as little personal opinion as possible.

A.: Today, only those who have never properly studied the history of world philosophy talk about objectivity. The notion of objectivity has been removed from philosophic circulation since there is absolutely no adequacy between the notion under discussion and the corresponding object in real life.

Q.: And what about comprehensiveness?

A.: To cover all possible discourse spheres is a syndrome of encyclopedic stupidity, which, by the way, is discussed in one of the Encyclopedia's entries.

Q.: So the Encyclopedia is a personal view of the authors on the literary situation in Ukraine?

A.: Yes and no. Of course, it is an "internal" encyclopedia written by Yuriy Andrukhovych, Oleh Hutsuliak, Taras Vozniak, and others. But one needs to keep in mind that it is not academic but demiurgical because it aims not so much at representing what is available, rather at digging into it and trying to change it. This encyclopedia is an active, even aggressive one; it offers a certain myth of Ukrainian literature. If this myth is accepted at least partially, the book will accomplish its mission.

The encyclopedia is meant for the general reading public and can perform only the function of an information source. It does not distort facts; it provides information about authors, book titles and the like.

This project can also be viewed as a philosophic treatise shaped in encyclopedic format. The theoretical part of the encyclopedia is my Return of the Demiurges philosophic doctrine that assumes the replacement of the post-modernist epoch by a demiurgical one with a different system of styles, genres, and creativity.

Q.: What time span does the encyclopedia cover?

A.: It covers the period when Ukrainian literature was dominated by the testamentary-rustic discourse, which was deconstructed in the 1970s.  Among diaspora, however, it happened earlier, with the appearance of the New York group. In Ukraine, live literature starts with the authors of the Kyiv school, such as Vorobiov, Lysheha, Chubai, Vynnychuk - the "underground semydesiatnyky" (writers of the 70s), as Andrukhovych calls them. This is the reason why the reader supplement to the Encyclopedia, which represents works by 52 authors, starts with the 1970s. It also includes works by Tarnavsky and Andiyevska, who came into literature earlier.

Q.: I personally was surprised not to find some names that, in my view, should have been included in the glossary section. For instance, Stus.

A.: It is a brief encyclopedia. Entries on Stus, Kalynets and Melnychuk will definitely be included in the next revised and expanded edition called The Process. The list of writers has not been exhausted.  The issue is that Andrukhovych and I were the only ones who regularly worked on the Encyclopedia, and we physically could not manage the amount of work
meant for a large group of authors.

Q.: The critics'opinion that the Encyclopedia "suffers" from regionalism, and foremost Ivano-Frankivsk regionalism, does not seem entirely groundless to me.

A.:  I think Ukraine today has a Stanislaviv (the former name of Ivano-Frankivsk) phenomenon on one hand and scattered figures on the other. In Kyiv, all writers are constantly fighting with one another. In Lviv, there are only some individuals. Uzhhorod has Midianka, Kharkiv has Zhadan, and Ternopil has Makhno and Haida. However, only Ivano-Frankivsk has a solid group of people that have managed to set up a creative environment. This fact is acknowledged even by foreign literary experts.

Q.:  Did you expect project editor Yuriy Andrukhovych to disagree with your concept of demiurgy?

A.:  I should say that collaborating with Yuriy Andrukhovych was a tremendously positive experience for me. He is a person who combines talent with rare tact and a sense of moderation. I knew he would disagree with me because he has a different kind of literary experience - less philosophy and more literature. One can say that Andrukhovych is excessively literary.

Q.: But perhaps it is you who is excessively philosophical?

A.: There is a struggle going on inside me between a literary expert and a philosopher. Now I am trying to separate philosophy from my literary activity.

Q.: I have the impression that through this project you consciously tried to provoke a literary debate.

A.: Yes, I did, although I realize that it is not difficult to do today since the situation of mutual over-appraisal has become so typical that simply telling the truth causes a scandal. However, in my opinion, the real scandal is the fact that 90% of late 20th century Ukrainian literature represented in school textbooks is graphomania.