“Unblock” the Genius!

On this spring day, one would like to read the writer’s lyrical heartfelt verses full of hope and peace – “about the two of me, transparent from insomnias,” about “the music of birch-trees,” and about “love and a summer free of alarms.” Many will do so today – they will mark the favorite poetess’ birthday by reciting poems. Poetry will sound at various places in diffe­rent voices – among the reciters there will be school and college students, wri­ters, journalists, and all those who enthuse over the writer’s oeuvre. But, apart from being the author of superb and very apt poems – lyrical, deeply civic, social, and acute – Lina Kostenko is also a brilliant political writer whose texts have remained topical for decades. And today, when the writer keeps silent, you should seek responses to many questions and challenges Ukraine is facing in her political articles and lectures.

SERHII YAKUTOVYCH’S ILLUSTRATION TO THE HISTORICAL NOVEL BERESTECHKO (KYIV, LYBID PUBLISHERS, 2010)

COMMENTARIES

“HER WRITING IS CLASSICAL BY ITS CLARITY, AND HER THINKING IS MODERN BY ITS COMPLEXITY AND DEPTH”

Ivan DZIUBA, literature expert, critic, public activist, dissident, Hero of Ukraine, member of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences:

“It is difficult to speak about Lina Kostenko, for I shoulder the burden of what I have said and written about her many times before. I personally know Ms. Kostenko. We have known each other for about 60 years since the 1950s. All my literary and civic life is associated with Lina Kostenko’s active presence even when she was forced to keep silent and her works were not published. But still all of us who had something to do with Ukrainian literature felt her spiritual presence, civic and ethical guidelines. What also makes this poetry dear to me, in addition to its civic honesty and firm attitude, is its esthetic level. I would say it is a transparent depth, when classical writing and modern thinking are combined. Her writing is classical by its clarity and her thinking is modern by its complexity and depth. They form a true harmony. ‘A harmony through the sorrow of dissonances,’ Lina says. This poetry embraces the whole drama of our present-day life and our history. At the same time, it is about the harmony of a personality who masters this gift – she is not depressed at but fully reconsiders the rea­lity. Ms. Kostenko is, in all probability, as deeply concerned about what is going on now as anybody else. I think, with due account of her entire oeuvre, that Ms. Kostenko will take a bitter, sad, even tragic in a way, but not a desperate, view on this, for she believes in the strength of herself and of our people. It seems to me so, but let us see and hear what she will say.”

“PERHAPS, IT’S NOT EVEN A VERSE”

Serhii TRYMBACH, chairman of the National League of Ukrainian Filmmakers:

“Occasionally someone would ask about Lina Kostenko: ‘Why does she remain silent? She is such a good poet… One word from her can change Ukraine!’

“This question might, of course, be countered with her own words: ‘And all the former right-hands are again in power. New age of cynicism is coming, and I exist above it.’ Do you want her to come and meet all those neo-cynics, proud of their ‘pro-Ukrainian’ stance and sporting bright blue-and-yellow halos over bobbed heads? Certainly no, it will not happen because it is simply impossible. As the poet adamantly said herself: ‘My horizons are where you are not.’ If you are not even close to her horizon, the conversation is as good as over…

“In one of her earlier artwork Lina Kostenko praises the evening sun, thanking for the day, ‘for the need of the word, like a prayer.’ ‘I only lived within the word’ – and how would you explain this to people used to perceiving the world only in pictures?

“And yet, the multitude of idle words (as well as films, paintings, sounds, etc.) grows in a frightful tempo. But the word of the Poet is entirely different in density – as it enters the mundane, it promptly shines with heat and brilliance in all directions, enlightening all the Sky and all the Earth. ‘Perhaps, it’s not even a verse, but flowers cast toward you’ – a flower to everyone who is able to hear and see...

Things were distressing and we have been sick,

The troubles came from west as well as east

It was all hopeless. Yet

Our honor never ceased.

And that is, probably, the real thing.

For what another fortune we can still

relinquish? Apart from never

having to commit a lie on strings.

“And it is indeed the real thing. All the rattle subsides when Kostenko’s word begins to shine. By the way, it is symbolic that she was born the day before the nights become shorter.”