Despite the political and economic situation, many interesting books were published

The Day has spoken with Volodymyr PANCHENKO, professor of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, editor of the popular website litakcent.com, author of many articles for our newspaper, and simply an old friend of ours.

The topic of the conversation was the review of year 2011. Of course, here is meant the review of situation in sphere of literature. LitAkcent with assistance of authoritative experts is now forming its rating: in January the winners in nominations “Fiction” and “Literary Criticism” will be awarded, besides anti award Golden Bubble will be presented – the only one in Ukraine so far.

“Despite the political and economic situation many interesting books were published this year,” noted Panchenko. “The books of various genres. For example, there is a boom of historical literature. Especially, when it comes to the period of Kyivan Rus’, the liberation movement of the late 20th century, and the UPA struggle… It is extremely important in order to find reconciliation within our nation.”

Answering the question about what could have caused such a deep interest the literary critic said that a person always wants to know more. Besides, the notorious twists and turns in the si-tuation with our national heroes fuel the interest.

“Speaking of fiction, there are many ratings in Ukraine, which, as they say, begin to make estimates,” he continued. “It is strange that one of the most interesting novels of this year Chas Smertokhrystiv (Time of Diechrists) by Yurii Shcherbak is not included in those ratings. Maybe, it is due to the generation gap problem. Young people perceive living classics almost as writers of ancient literature. It has been caused by historic breaks, which entail aesthetic faults. There is also very little communication between the ge-nerations. I would also like to mention Khronos by Taras Antypovych, which, in fact, is included in the ratings. By the way, recently Antypovych praised this novel by Shcherbak in an article he wrote for Den. Obviously, the reason for this is that there is a certain resemblance between these two pieces of writing. There has also been published Khuhu by Taras Fediuk. How-ever, he is a poet. There also has to come out in printing a book by Vasyl Herasymiuk.”

“Among the works of literary criticism I would like to note the research by Larysa Miroshnychenko, in which she examined texts by Lesia Ukrainka,” summed up our guest. “Lately the situation has shaped out when young researchers do not like to deal with manuscripts and texts. To my mind, a healthy dose of positivism – attention to facts, documents, and archives would not hurt modern Ukrai-nian literary criticism. After all, let’s wait for the announcement of the ratings, in particular, of the one organized by LitAkcent, then we will have the whole picture.”