TRANSLATIONS OF UKRAINIAN DIASPORA IN BRAZIL: NATION-BUILDING, IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT AND ACTIVISM

Abstract

The article pioneers a survey of literary translations by representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Brazil since WWII. The translation activity is studied within the broad historical, political, and ideological context; the research combines a socio-historical perspective with an empirical study of the translation flows and agents. Due to mass political emigration of Ukrainians in the 20th century, translation was used by emigrants to preserve and develop the Ukrainian language, literature and culture that did not have normal conditions for existence in the USSR, and to give voice to the Ukrainian writers who could not have their works published in their country. The role of literary translation in Ukrainian nation-building grew due to translators’ activism and collaboration of the diaspora in different countries as well as with translators in the Ukrainian SSR. A unique role in presenting the Ukrainian literary polysystem in its entirety to the world community belongs to the Ukrainian-born citizen of Brazil Vira Selianska.

Keywords
Literary translation; Ukrainian diaspora; Literary polysystem; Nation-building; Ideology; Activism

1. Introduction

Recent research has demonstrated the role of translation in nation-building (see Baer, 2019; Bermann & Wood, 2005; Dizdar, Gipper & Schreiber, 2015; Harmon & Osuchowska, 2019; Schäfer, 2018). For the Ukrainian nation, populating the territories that during the last centuries belonged to different states (the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR), translation played a pivotal role in constructing and preserving the national identity, developing the national culture, language and literature (see Strikha, 2006; Zorivchak, 2005; Rudnytska, 2021). Although researchers have scrutinized literary translations by some representatives of the diaspora (see Ivanytska, 2015; Kolomiyets, 2004) and the diasporic translation activity in general (Kachurovsky, 2008), the translations of the Ukrainian diaspora in Brazil as part of the nation-building project has not received scholarly attention.

The aim of the present article is to analyze the translation activity of the Ukrainian diaspora in Brazil after WWII within the broad historical, political, and ideological context to reveal the major factors that influenced this activity, as well as its effects. The research is based on the polysystem theory by Itamar Even-Zohar (1990) as literary translation greatly depended on the function of the system of translated literature within the Ukrainian literary polysystem and its role in Ukrainian nation-building. The development of the latter in the 20^th century, in its turn, was considerably predetermined by the Soviet ideology and opposition to it (see Aheieva, 2016; Fedotova, 2021). As will be discussed further, the diasporic literati saw their translation activity as a means to oppose the Soviet ideology and national policy, and this activity can be viewed as activism – the phenomenon, typical for many societies (see Baker, 2006, 2018; Carcelén-Estrada, 2018; Gould & Tahmasebian, 2020; Tymozcko, 2010).

2. Methods and Scope

In the first part of this paper, I will analyze the translations of the Western Ukrainian diaspora after WWII. I will then turn to the activity of Ukrainian-born citizens of Brazil in the sphere of literary translation and scrutinize it, taking into consideration its function in the system of translated literature within the Ukrainian literary polysystem. The research combines a socio-historical perspective with an empirical study of the flows of literary translations and translation agents. The latter comprises scrutiny of the repertoire of texts to be translated with an analysis of para-texts (forewords, commentaries, and interviews by translators and editors).

The study of the flows of literary translations is based on Foreign Ukraine database of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and Diasporiana electronic library database. As quite a number of translations, released in Western countries during the Soviet epoch, were republished in post-Soviet Ukraine, the data of Book Chronicle: The state bibliographical index of Ukraine (1991-2021) were also investigated.

3. Findings

Since the 1950s, dozens of translations in periodicals and over 40 books, translated by representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Brazil, have been published; the majority of these projects were realized by/with the participation of Vira Selianska. Working in collaboration with other diasporic literati and translators from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she aimed at making contemporary world literature accessible to Ukrainian readership and presenting Ukrainian literature in its entirety to Western readers. The latter acquired a special significance for the literary polysystem that suffered from restrictions of Soviet censorship. Unlike the Ukrainian SSR, where only ideologically appropriate literary works, corresponding to the Soviet aesthetics, could be published, Brazil and other countries did not impose any limitations on translation and publishing activities.

As mass emigration of Ukrainians in the 20^th century was caused by the defeat in the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917–21), Stalin purges and incompatibility with the Soviet ideology, educated emigrants used the printed word, including translated literature, to preserve and develop the Ukrainian language, literature and culture, to give voice to the Ukrainian writers who could not have their works published in their country. The role of literary translation in nation-building grew due to translators’ activism and collaboration of the diaspora in different countries and translators in the Ukrainian SSR.

4. Discussion

4.1 Ukrainian Translation in the 20^th Century: Sociopolitical and Ideological Context

Due to historical and sociopolitical reasons, ethnic Ukrainians who feel a spiritual connection to Ukraine are scattered in over thirty countries. Nevertheless, their translations can be viewed as components of the system of translated literature within the Ukrainian literary polysystem, especially as their translation activity was predetermined by the same aims – to develop and preserve the Ukrainian national identity, culture, language, and literature.

For most of the 20^th century, Ukraine was part of the USSR, so the Soviet ideology and national policy were among the major factors affecting this system. Under Soviet rule, literary translation was used as a powerful tool of ideological manipulation (Sherry, 2015). In the Ukrainian SSR, literary translations, like all published literature, were to enhance the dominant ideology and promote construction of the new “Soviet identity”¹. Correspondingly, the Soviet state censorial system² controlled the sphere of literary translation: only ideologically correct literary works could be published, and manipulated translations were not rare, there were considerable limitations to the use of the Ukrainian language³, and translators who tried to resist this policy were not allowed to publish their translations, could be imprisoned, and in some cases executed (Kalnychenko & Kolomiyets, 2022, p. 144-145; Strikha, 2006).

Many translators in the Ukrainian SSR used literary translation as a means of opposing the Soviet ideology: they tried to preserve the national identity through preserving and developing the national language and culture and to highlight the acute problems of the Soviet society that were censored in the original works by Ukrainian authors (Cherednychenko, 2009, p. 186-189; Strikha, 2006, p. 211-302).

As for the Ukrainian diaspora, some of them were actively engaged in translation activity which often had ideological underpinnings. First of all, there were two waves of mass political emigration – after the defeat in the Ukrainian War of Independence and during WWII when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians whose views were incompatible with the Soviet ideology left their motherland. Among them were many highly-educated people with a talent for writing. As will be discussed further, feeling no censorial pressure in the countries where they settled, they used the printed word to fight against the Soviet regime, to preserve and develop the Ukrainian culture, and they viewed translated literature as an important tool for that.

4.2 Translations of Diaspora as Part of the Ukrainian Nation-Building Project

Literary translation has served as one of the major tools for Ukrainian nation-building (see Striha, 2006; Zorivchak, 2005). Irrespective of their citizenship, major Ukrainian translators interacted much as they had common goals. Among them were: 1) accessibility of the world literature to Ukrainian readers in their native language; 2) assimilation of new themes, genres, and stylistics which promoted the development of the original Ukrainian literature; 3) highlighting issues, topical for the Ukrainian society (e.g. totalitarianism, human rights and freedoms⁴); 4) proving the status of the Ukrainian as a national language and developing its resources⁵; 5) presenting to the world community the Ukrainian people’s national character, culture, and literature.

These goals predetermined the choice of literary works. First of all, the masterpieces of world literature which had not been published in Ukrainian before were translated by the representatives of the diaspora (Shakespeare’s King Lear and fragments of Dante’s La Divina Commedia were translated by Vasyl Barka; Petrarch’s sonnets, the French epic Chanson de Roland, the anthology of German poetry of the 8^th–20^th centuries Stezhka kriz’ bezmir: sto nimets’kykh poezii (750–1950)[A Path Through Infinity: a Hundred of German Poems (750-1950)] by Ihor Kachurovsky; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and sonnets by Eahor Kostezky, etc.).

The consequences of this activity were far-reaching: Soviet regime could not tolerate the situation when masterpieces of world literature were translated into the language of a “Soviet people” in the West, not in the USSR. Examining translations of Shakespeare’s works, Lada Kolomiyets describes the situation when the diaspora’s translation activities promoted publishing Ukrainian translations, made in the USSR in the 1950s–60s: “[g]rowth of interest to Shakespeare’s sonnets among the leading emigrant poets, in its turn, served as a kind of a signal to the Soviet functionaries: Ukraine must counter the West with a Shakespeare ‘of its own’”(Kolomiyets, 2004, p. 357).

As a reaction, Soviet periodicals published 13 sonnets, translated by Stepan Karavansky in 1962–64, and two years later the Ukrainian SSR saw the first complete collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets in translations by Dmytro Palamarchuk (Kolomiyets, 2004).

Besides the world literature “classics”, the diasporic translators paid attention to the works not published in the Ukrainian SSR⁶ due to ideological reasons: antitotalitarian Animal Farm by George Orwell in translations by Ivan Cherniatynsky (1947) and Iryna Dybko (1984), works by authors whose values and aesthetics were not considered appropriate for the Soviet reader (Samuel Becket, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Stefan Anton George, Ezra Pound, and many others)⁷.

Alongside this, no effort was spared to present to the world community Ukrainian literature in its entirety. While in the USSR only ideologically appropriate works could be published, the Ukrainian diaspora published a great variety of Ukrainian literary works in the original and in translations into English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish. These translations included first of all works by the Ukrainian “classics” of the 19^th – early 20^th centuries (Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Olha Kobylianska, Panas Myrny, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Vasyl Stefanyk), folk tales and songs, and those literary works which the Soviet censorship forbade – written by “unpersons”: repressed and deprived of the possibility to have their works published (Mykola Vorony, Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, Mykola Zerov, Larysa Starytska-Cherniakhivska, Mykola Khvyliovy, Vasyl Stus, Stefaniia Shabatura, and many others), political emigrants.

At the same time, representatives of the Western diaspora translated works by the leading authors of the Ukrainian SSR, cherished by the Soviet power (Mykola Bazhan, Oles Honchar, Andrii Malyshko, Maksym Rylsky), so that Ukrainian literature would be represented to the world community in its entirety. Besides translations into Romance and Germanic languages, Russian translations were also published (e.g., poetry by Zerov, Kostenko, Rylsky, and others, translated by Kachurovsky).

4.3 Translations by Ukrainians in Brazil: a case of activism

Although the Ukrainian population in Brazil is estimated at 600,000⁸, a unique role in introducing Ukrainian literature to the readership in Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries belongs to one person – the Ukrainian and Brazilian author and translator Vira Selianska (pen name Vira Vovk (Portuguese: Wira Wowk), b. 1926). Besides, she translated world literature into Ukrainian, and since the late 1950s, she initiated dozens of translations into Portuguese, German and Ukrainian, both independently and in collaboration.

In 1959, Antologia da Literatura Ucraniana was published in Portuguese translations by Selianska, Olena Kolody, another Ukrainian-born poet and translator, and Anna Maria Muricy. The anthology acquainted Brazilian readers with Ukrainian literature – from literary monuments of the 10^th century to the works created in the 1940s.

In 1972, two volumes of short stories were released: A Canoa no Mar: Contos Ucranianos [A Canoe in the Sea: Ukrainian stories] and Galos Bordados: Contos Ucranianos [Embroided Rooster: Ukrainian stories] in collaboration with Muricy, Cleonice Berardinelli, and Helena E. Fernandes.

The first volume represents prominent prose writers of the 19^th–20^th centuries, including those who were published extensively in the USSR as “ideologically appropriate” and “progressive” (writers of the pre-Soviet period (Kotsiubynsky, Vasyl Stefanyk) and prosaists Olexandr Dovzhenko and Yurii Yanovsky who lived under the Soviet regime and did not oppose it openly. Besides, the volume contains works, banned in the USSR (by Mykola Khvyliovy, executed by the Soviet regime, and by Western Ukrainian⁹ and diasporic authors (Bohdan Lepky, Sophia Yablonska, Yurii Kosach).

The second volume contains works created in the second half of the 20^th century by diasporic authors (Kostezky, Emma Andievska, Yuriy Tarnawsky) and those living in the USSR, mostly the so-called Sixtiers, who were distinguished by their liberal and anti-totalitarian views (Hryhir Tiutiunnyk, Yevhen Kontsevych, Vasyl Symonenko, Vasyl Zakharchenko, Yevhen Hutsalo, Valeriy Shevchuk), and whose works were not published in their own country in the 1970s when the ideological pressure grew stronger after the Khrushchev Thaw¹⁰; Symonenko and Zakharchenko became political prisoners then. Besides, the collection included works by Roman Ivanychuk, who was criticized by the Soviet “official critique” for presenting Ukraine’s historical past not in line with the Soviet narratives, and Volodymyr Drozd, who tried to reveal in his prose the psychology of “Homo Sovieticus, created in the laboratory of the sick Soviet society” (Donchyk, 1995, p. 370).

In 1973, Selianska prepared the collection A Nova Arte Ucraniana [A New Ukrainian Art] of contemporary Ukrainian poetry in Portuguese translations supplemented with photos of art objects by Ukrainian artists. The collection offers a wide array of poetic works, created both in Ukraine and other countries: the USA (Bohdan Rubchak, Marko Tsarynnyk, Khrystia Kolenska, Oleh Zuevsky, Bohdan Boychuk, Patricia Kylyna, Yuriy Kolomyets, Zhenia Vasylkivska, Uliana Blyzniak, Yuriy Tarnawsky), Canada (Lida Palii, Iryna Makaryk), Germany (Kateryna Gorbach, Emma Andiewska), Bulgaria (Stepan Gostyniak, Yosyf Zbigley), Belgium (Roman Babowal), France (Marta Kalytowska).

As for the authors from the Ukrainian SSR, the translator included different poetry schools to present the authors who were widely published in their country and fitted in with the Soviet authorities (Volodymyr Zatulyviter, Viltaly Korotich, Ivan Drach) and the Sixtiers who could get their works published only within certain periods when censorial pressure was not so strong (Iryna Zhylenko, Robert Tretiakov, Yevhen Hutsalo, Roman Kudlyk, Vasyl Ruban, Valery Illia, Lina Kostenko, Vasyl Holoborodko, Viktor Kordun).

The translator also gave voice to the authors who could publish their works in the USSR only in Samizdat¹¹ (Mykola Vorobyov, Hryhorii Chubai) and poets who were political prisoners (Ivan Hnatiuk, Vasyl Stus, Ihor Kalynets, Ivan Sokulsky) or died due to the actions of the Soviet militia (Vasyl Symonenko). The collection also included works by young and little-known Bohdan Martsinko and Borys Kornienko.

In 1975, the collection was also published in German translation by Selianska (Der Baum: Ukrainische Kunst heute).

In 1977, Selianska in collaboration with Maria Teresa dos Santos Arantes et al. prepared the Anthology Viburno Rubro: Antologia da literatura ucraniana dos seus princípios até 1950 [Red Viburnum. An anthology of Ukrainian literature from the beginning till 1950]. This anthology was, in fact, the second edition of Antologia da Literatura Ucraniana (1959), giving a broader picture of Ukrainian literature of the period.

In the 1970s, Selianska translated a number of works by French, German, and Spanish authors into Ukrainian which were published in Suchasnist publishing house, founded by the Ukrainian diaspora in Munich. In 1968, Blahovishchennia Marii was released, the first Ukrainian translation of L’Annonce faite à Marie, the drama by devout Catholic Paul Claudel whose works were never published in the Ukrainian SSR. Verhiv’ia Machu Pichu, the first Ukrainian translation of Pablo Neruda’s Alturas de Macchu Picchu, was released in 1970. Although this author was widely published in the Soviet Union in Russian translations, it was the first Ukrainian rendering.

In 1974, Suchasnist publishing house released Chotyry Dramy [Four Dramas], the first Ukrainian translations of Federico Garcia Lorca’s dramas, made by Selianska, Oswald Burghardt, and Hryhoriy Kochur. This collection was the result of the collaboration of two diasporic translators – Selianska (Brazil) and Burghardt (Germany) – and Kochur, the unofficial leader of the Ukrainian translation school in the USSR who in 1974 was deprived of the right to publish his works in the Soviet publishing houses due to ideological reasons; only his initials (H.K.) were mentioned in the Munich edition¹².

Another book – Hostyna Staroii Damy [The Visit of an Old Lady] by Friedrich Dürrenmatt – was translated by Selianska in collaboration with the Soviet citizen Yevhen Kryzhevych and published by Suchasnist the same year; this edition also had only initials of Kryzhevych – Ye. K.

In 1979, Na Hori publishing house, founded by the Ukrainian diaspora in Stuttgart, released Selianska’s translations of Charles Baudelaire’s poems – 6 virshiv z “Kvitiv zla” [Six Verses from Les Fleurs du mal]. It is worth mentioning that Baudelaire’s works were published in Ukraine in 1897 and 1903 – before the Bolshevik revolution – and then only in 1989, when the Soviet censorship system was not functioning properly anymore. Both Neruda and Lorca were well-known in the Soviet Union, and their works were published regularly in Russian; nevertheless, diasporic translations were the first to allow Ukrainians to read these works in their native language. As for Dürrenmatt, he was not published in the USSR in the 1970s¹³.

Within the following two decades, the series Vertep¹⁴ (1978–92) of twelve books in Selianska’s translations were published; these books can be grouped as follows:

1. collections of Ukrainian folklore (Contos Populares Ucranianos [Ukrainian Folktales] (1983), Cancioneiro de Natal [Christmas Caroler], 1988; Cânticos da Primavera [Traditional Songs], 1990);

2. works by outstanding Ukrainian authors of the 18^th – early 20^th centuries, belonging to the national canon: Hryhorii Skovoroda (Fábulas [Fables], 1978), Taras Shevchenko (O Sohno [The Dream], 1980), Ivan Franko (Moisés [Moses], 1981), Vasyl Stephanyk (Cruz de Pedra e Outros Contos [The Stone Cross and Other Stories], 1982) Lesia Ukrainka (Don Juan, 1983), Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (Sombras des Ancestrais Esquecidos¹⁵ [Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors], 1985), Marko Vovchok (Marússia [Marusia], 1988);

3. works by the poets who not always enjoyed unanimous recognition: Bohdan-Ihor Antonych¹⁶ (A Jarra Eslava [The Slavic Jug], 1989) and Pavlo Tychyna¹⁷ (Dourado Eco [Golden Murmur], 1992).

In 1983, the collection Vybrani Poesii [Selected poems] by Olena Kolody in Ukrainian translations by Selianska was released; another collection of Kolody’s Portuguese works translated into Ukrainian – Bezkonechne Svitlo [Infinite Light] – was published by Selianska in 1997. Kolody also participated in translating Ukrainian literature in Portuguese – as a translator and stylistic editor of the above-mentioned Anthologies (1959, 1977) and the translator of six poems, published in Word and Fame of Shevchenko: An anthology of Shevchenko’s poetry in foreign translations (Chicago, 1964).

During the 1990s–2000s, Selianska translated and initiated publication of the series Pyssanka [Pysanka¹⁸] that included the works by the following categories of authors:

1. the Sixtiers (O Dia Verde [Green Day] by Vasyl Holoborodko (1991), O Caminho [The Way] by Valery Shevchuk (1995), O Fogo Sagrado [The Sacred Fire] by Ihor Kalynets (1997), Estórias [Stories] by Mykola Vinhranovsky (1998), Solo de Flauta [Flute Solo] (1999) and Evangelho segundo Andorinha [Gospel of Second Swallow] (2005) by Iryna Zhylenko), by Viktor Kordun, whose works were banned from publishing in the USSR (Solstício [Solstice], 2006);

2. the victims of the Soviet regime Ivan Svitlychny, Vasyl Symonenko, and Vasyl Stus (O Castiçal [The Candlestick], 1998);

3. the Samizdat writer Mykola Vorobiov (Signos [Signs], 1994);

4. widely-published in the Ukrainian SSR Ivan Drach (Asas [Basis], 1993) and Dmytro Pavlychko (Não grites para mim, Oceano! [Don’t Shout at Me, Ocean!], 2008);

5. the innovator poet and dramatist Sofia Maidanska (Rio Montês [River Mountain] 1998);

6. diasporic authors – Luzes na Água [Lights in the Water] (poems by Lida Palii, 1997) and O Grupa de Nova York: Colmeia [The New York Group¹⁹: Beehive] (poems by Emma Andiewska, Bohdan Boychuk, Patricia Kylyna, Bohdan Rubchak, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Zhenia Vasylkivska, Vira Vovk, 1993).

The poems by representatives of The New-York Group in Portuguese translations were also published by Selianska in 2008, in two collections – O Grupa de Nova York: Antologia Lírica [The New York Group: Anthology of poetry] and O Grupa de Nova York. Colmeia – Antologia Lírica – 2 [The New York Group. Beehive. Anthology of poetry – 2]. The same year she published the anthology of these works in German translation New Yorker Dichterruppe (Anthologie der Lyrik).

In 2009, two more collections of Ukrainian poetry were published – Sinos. Antologia da Poesia Ucraniana [Signs. Anthology of Ukrainian poetry], translated by Selianska and Kolody, and Videira. Pequena Antologia da Nova Lírica Ucraniana [Vine. Small Anthology of New Ukrainian Poetry] in translations by Selianska. The first book includes poetic works, created in the 11^th–20^th centuries: folklore songs, fragments of the anonymous epic poem of the 12^th century The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, poems of the late 18^th–19^th centuries (by Kotliarevsky, Hrebinka, Shevchenko, Stepan Rudansky and many others) and works by over a hundred (!) twentieth-century Ukrainian authors from all regions of Ukraine and other countries.

According to Selianska, before Ukrainian independence, “the poets’ word was fighting for its existence… sacrificing its best sons and daughters for the subjugated nation” (Wowk, 2009, p. 4), and among the most important themes were those of freedom, patriotism, heroism, Ukrainian history, traditions, and symbols; in contemporary Ukraine, the importance of literature as a means of opposition decreased considerably, and poetry is more concentrated on personal experiences and has greater formal diversity (Wowk, 2009). The latter trends are represented in the second anthology, which includes works created in the 21^st century.

Since the 1960s, Selianska has been fostering links with Ukrainian literati; she advocated the Ukrainian dissidents in the USSR, held correspondence with them (Astaf’iev & Dziuba, 2016). In her interview with Viktoriia Kostiuchenko, she speaks of her mission: to acquaint Portuguese-speaking readers with Ukrainian poetry and prose; for that, she translated, published, and purposefully “disseminated Ukrainian literature” among Brazilian academics and students, sent the books to libraries of Brazil and other countries (Kostiuchenko, 2008).

Besides works of Ukrainian literature translated by/with the participation of Selianska, a book of poems by Franko was released in 1981 – Para o Brasil [To Brazil], translated into Portuguese by Omelian Govdyda. The bilingual edition contains three poems about the first Ukrainian immigrants to Brazil and is dedicated to the 90^th anniversary of their arrival (1891).

In sum, the analysis of literary translations of the Ukrainian diaspora in Brazil testifies to the importance of Vira Selianska’s activism as almost all Portuguese translations of Ukrainian literature were made and published by her. The Ukrainians’ translation activity in Brazil was part of the nation-building project, realized by ethnic Ukrainians in different countries. The research will promote a better understanding of the role of translations of the diaspora in the Ukrainian nation-building, and research perspectives include study of translation projects realized by Ukrainians in other countries, inter alia, Argentina.

• 1
  According to Bolshaia Sovetskaia Entsyklopediia, the Soviet people were “a new supra-national, social community” that “developed in the USSR as a result of socialist transformations and convergence of working classes and strata, all nations and ethnic groups” (1969-78, p. 25).
• 2
  For details see Fedotova (2009).
• 3
  To eliminate the Ukrainian identity, the Soviet language policy was not only to limit the sphere of use of the Ukrainian, but also its resources: only lexical and grammatical units, bearing a strong resemblance to the Russian language, could be used, and the Ukrainian would thus eventually become superfluous (for details see Ukrainska mova, 2005).
• 4
  Some diasporic editions were, in fact, protest acts against the Soviet ideological pressure and repressions in the literary sphere, e.g.: The Muse in Prison: eleven sketches of Ukrainian poets killed by Communists and twenty-two translations of their poems (translated by Yar Slavutych, 1966); Poetry from the barbed wire sections in the Ukrainian Review (1977, Vol. 24.3, 24.4); Poetry of Ukrainian women political prisoners in the USSR collection in Zhinochyi Svit/Woman’s World magazine (1977, Vol. 28.9); the anthology Before the Storm: Soviet Ukrainian Fiction of the 1920s (1986).
• 5
  Translators in the Ukrainian SSR were allowed to use the lexemes and grammatical structures which were similar to the Russian ones; representatives of the Western Ukrainian diaspora used all resources of the Ukrainian, including archaisms, vernacularisms, etc., and experimented with the language. For example, Todos Osmachka creatively explored the scope of Ukrainian word-building and lexical combinability in his translations (Kolomiyets, 2004, p. 305-316); Eahor Kostezky saw the diasporic literati’s mission in saving the Ukrainian, repressed by the Soviet power, through developing new syntactical structures, creating lexemes and phraseological units (1958, p. 9-10).
• 6
  At least till the late 1980s when the Soviet censorship relaxed considerably.
• 7
  For more information see Rudnytska (2021).
• 8
  According to the Ukrainian World Congress data (https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/country-info/brazil/).
• 9
  Western Ukraine was part of Poland before the Soviet occupation of 1939; many of the writers born there emigrated to the West during WWII.
• 10
  The period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when ideological censorship and repression in the USSR were relaxed.
• 11
  Samizdat [self-publishing], a form of dissident activity aimed at publishing materials, evading Soviet censorship.
• 12
  Having any connection with emigrants was extremely dangerous for a Soviet citizen, not to mention publishing something in diasporic publishing houses and periodicals. Kochur served a 10-year prison sentence and deportation as a “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist” in the 1940s–50s, and in the 1970s he was banned from publishing for “nationalism”, supporting dissidents, communicating with diasporic writers, etc. (see Savchyn, 2014).
• 13
  After Dürrenmatt visited the Soviet Union, he wrote the short story Der Sturz, a caricature of Khrushchev and his colleagues.
• 14
  Vertep is a Ukrainian folk puppet show of the 17^th–19^th centuries.
• 15
  Translated into Portuguese by Selianska, Muricy, and Theresia de Oliveira; translated into German by Selianska, Sabine Grosskopf, and Udo Dengler.
• 16
  In the USSR, Bohdan-Ihor Antonych (1909-37) was banned and thus unknown till the 1960s when his works were published in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the USA.
• 17
  Pavlo Tychyna (1891–67) gained success in the early 1920s; when many of his colleagues fell victim to Stalin’s purges, Tychyna started writing poems abiding the norms of the socialist realism and singing the praises of the Communist party. Although his early poems (included in the collection by Selianska) received universal acclaim, his later works were highly praised by the Soviet “official critique” and sharply criticized by Tychyna’s colleagues; e.g. Vasyl Stus defined Tychyna’s later works as “feeble versification praxis” (2015, p. 83).
• 18
  Ukrainian painted Easter egg.
• 19
  The New York Group is a group of Ukrainian émigré modernist poets that originated in New York in the mid-1950s; they eagerly experimented with poetic forms.

References

• Aheieva, Vira. Dorohy i seredohkrestia [Roads and Crossroads] Lviv: Vydavnytstvo staroho leva, 2016.
• Astaf’iev, O. H. & Dziuba, I. M. “Vovk Vira”. Entsyklopediia suchasnoi Ukrainy [Encyclopedia of Contemporary Ukraine], Kyiv: Instytut entsyklopedychnykh doslidzhen NAN Ukrainy, 2016. Available at: https://esu.com.ua/search_articles.php?id=35205 Access in: Dec. 15, 2021.
  » https://esu.com.ua/search_articles.php?id=35205
• Baer, Brian James. “Nations and nation-building”. In: Baker, Mona & Saldanha, Gabriela (Eds.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies 3. ed. Abington: Routledge, 2019. p. 360-365.
• Baker, Mona. “Audiovisual Translation and Activism”. In: Pérez-González, Luis (Ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Audiovisual Translation Abington: Routledge, 2018. p. 453-467.
• Baker, Mona. “Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community.” The Massachusetts Review, 47(3), p. 462-84, 2006.
• Bermann, Sandra & Wood, Michael. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation. Princeton: UP, 2005.
• Book Chronicle: The state bibliographical index of Ukraine Kyiv: Knyzhna palata Ukrainy, 1991-2021.
• Carcelén-Estrada, Antonia. ”Translation and activism”. In: Fernández, Fruela & Evans, Jonathan (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Politics Abington: Routledge, 2018. p. 261-277.
• Cherednychenko, Oleksandr. “Perekladatskyi dorobok Hryhoriia Kochura” [Translation Legacy of Hryhorii Kochur]. Vsesvit, 5, p. 185-190, 2009.
• Dizdar, Dilek; Gipper, Andreas & Schreiber, Michael (Eds.). Nationenbildung und Übersetzung [Nation-Building and Translation] Berlin: Frank and Timme, 2015.
• Donchyk, V. H. (Ed.). Istoriia ukrainskoi literatury XX stolittia [History of Ukrainian Literature of the 20^th Century] Book 2. Kyiv: Lybid, 1995.
• Even-Zohar, Itamar. Polysystem Theory. Polysystem Studies. Special issue of Poetics Today, 1(11), p. 9-26, 1990.
• Fedotova, Oksana Olehivna. “Ideolohichni obmezhennia burzhuazno-natsionalistychnoii literatury v radianskii Ukraini u 1930-kh – pershii polovyni 1970-kh r.r.” [Ideological Restrictions of Bourgeois-Nationalistic Literature in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s – early 1940s]. In: Varadi, Nataliia Fedorivna et al. Modern Historical Science: Changes and development synergy of research studies Riga: Baltija Publishing, 2021. p. 146-163.
• Fedotova, Oksana Olehivna. Politychna tsenzura drukovanykh vydan v USRR-URSR (1917-1990) [Political Censorship of Printed Sources in the Ukrainian SSR (1917-1990)] Kyiv: Parlamentske vydavnytstvo, 2009.
• Gould, Rebecca Ruth & Tahmasebian, Kayvan (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism Abington: Routledge, 2020.
• Harmon, Lucyna & Osuchowska, Dorota (Eds.). National Identity in Translation Bern: Peter Lang Verlag, 2019.
• Ivanytska, Mariia. Osobystist perekladacha v ukrainsko-nimetskykh literaturnykh vzaiemynakh [Translato's Personality in Ukrainian-German Literary Relations] Chernivtsi: Knyhy – XXI, 2015.
• Kachurovsky, Ihor. “Peredakladachi ukrainskoi diiaspory” [Translators of Ukrainian Diaspora]. In: Kachurovsky, Ihor. Promenysti sylvety [Lambent Silhouettes] Kyiv: Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2008.
• Kalnychenko, Oleksandr & Kolomiyets, Lada. “Translation in Ukraine During the Stalinist Period: Literary Translation Policies and Practices”. In: Rundle, Christopher; Lange, Anne & Monticelli, Daniele. Translation Under Communism Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. p. 141-172.
• Kolomiyets, Lada. Kontseptualno-metodolohichni zasady suchasnoho ukrainskoho poetychnoho perekladu [Conceptual and Methodological Underpinnings of Contemporary Ukrainian Poetic Translation] Kyiv: VPTS “Kyivskyi universitet”, 2004.
• Kostezky, Eahor. Ukrainskyi perekladach Shekspirovykh sonetiv [The Ukrainian Translator of Shakespeare's Sonnets]. In: Shakespeare, William. Shekspirovi Sonety [Shakespeare's Sonnets] Translated into Ukraian by Eahor Kostezky. Stuttgart: Na hori, 1958. p. 5-18.
• Kostiuchenko, Viktoriia. “Vira Vovk: chytachi v Brazylii i Portuhalii maiut odne dzherelo, to ie moi vydannia” [Vira Vovk: Readers in Brazil and Portugal have one source – my publications]. Ukraina Moloda. 12 April 2008. Web. Available at: https://umoloda.kyiv.ua/number/164/0/40802/ Access in: Dec. 15, 2021.
  » https://umoloda.kyiv.ua/number/164/0/40802/
• Rudnytska, Nataliia. Pereklad i ideolohiia (vid kintsia XIX stolittia do siohodennia) [Translation and Ideology (from the late 19^th century till today)] Vinnytsia: Nova Knyha, 2021.
• Savchyn, Valentyna. Mykola Lukash - podvyzhnyk ukrainskoho khudozhnioho perekladu [Mykola Lukash - an Advocate of Ukrainian Literary Translation] Lviv: Litopys, 2014.
• Schäfer, Dagmar. “Translation history, knowledge and nation building in China”. In: Harding, Sue-Ann & Carbonell Cort's, Ovidi (Eds.). . Abington: Routledge, 2018. p. 134-153.
• Sherry, Samantha. Discourses of Regulation and Resistance: Censoring Translation in the Stalin and Khrushchev Era Soviet Union Edinburgh: UP, 2015.
• “Sovetskii narod” [Soviet people]. Bolshaia Sovetskaia Entsyklopediia 3. ed. Vol. 24, Book 1. Moscow: Sovetskaia Entsyklopediia, 1969-78. 30 vols.
• Stus, Vasyl. Fenomen doby (Skhodzhennia na Holhofu slavy) [The Phenomenon of the Age (Ascending the Golgotha of Fame)] Kyiv: Klio, 2015.
• Strikha, Maksym. Ukrainskyi khudozhnii pereklad: mizh literaturoiu i natsietvorenniam [Ukrainian Literary Translation: Between Literature and Nation Building] Kyiv: Fakt, 2006.
• Tymozcko, Maria. “Translation, Resistance, Activism: An Overview”. In: Tymoczko, Maria (Ed.). Translation, Resistance, Activism Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. p. 1-22.
• Ukrainska mova u XX storichchi: istoriia linhvotsydu: dokumenty i materialy [The Ukrainian Language in the 20^th Century: documents and materials] Kyiv: Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2005.
• Wowk, Wira. Vstupne Slovo [Foreword]. Videira. Pequena antologia da nova lirica Ucraniana [Vine. Small Anthology of New Ukrainian Poetry]. Salvador: Contraste Editora Gráfica, 2009.
• Zorivchak, Roksolana. “Pereklad iak natsiietvorchyi chynnyk v istorychno-kulturolohichnii kontseptsii Ivana Franka” [Translation as a Factor of Nation Building in Ivan Franko's Historical-Cultural Conception]. Zapysky NTSH, 250, p. 497-517, 2005.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 June 2023
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  11 May 2022
• Accepted
  25 Aug 2022
• Published
  Nov 2022