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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 2017 WWW.UNWLA.ORG 7 REFLECTIONS ON VASYL STUS by Ania Savage If poet Vasyl Stus had survived the Soviet gulag, he would be marking his 79 th birthday on January 6, the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve. Unfortunate- ly, Stus died in 1985, in the prime of his life and creative output, shortly after being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He and his poetry merit at- tention and recognition on this solemn anniversary. Vasyl Semenovych Stus was born in 1938 in the Vinnytsia Oblast, but his parents migrated east to Donetsk, where Stus attended local schools and graduated with honors from Donetsk University. In 1963, he enrolled at the Shevchenko Institute of Literature of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. This appears to be the period of his radicalization and the start of harrassment by Soviet censors. He became involved in the cultural ferment in Ukraine and met its leaders and participants, who came to be known as the “shestydesiatnyky” (the people of the six- ties).” Stus’s first two volumes of poetry were rejected by Soviet censors. Then, on September 7, 1972, he was arrested for “anti-Soviet agitation.” He served a five-year term in prison, followed by two years of ex- ile in Russia. He returned to Kyiv in 1979 and soon joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, a human rights organization created in 1976 with the goal of monitoring Soviet compliance with the human rights provi- sions of Helsinki Accords signed in 1975. Eight months later, he was again arrested and sentenced to serve an additional 15 years (10 years' imprisonment and 5 years of exile). This second incarceration in the strict-regime camp in the Perm Oblast was unbearable. He was allowed no visits by his family and was continually harassed by the authorities. His health deteriorated, and his writings were confiscated and destroyed. In desperation, and despite worsening health, Stus went on a hunger strike. Denied medical attention, Vasyl Stus died in solitary confinement on September 4, 1985. Four years after his death, Stus’s remains were brought back to Kyiv, where an estimated 30,000 people attended his funeral. In 1993 Stus was posthumously awarded the Taras Shevchenko State Prize for Literature. On June 11, 2016, Donetsk National university, relocated from the war zone in Donetsk to Vinny- tsia, was renamed in his honor, a fitting tribute for someone with his intellect and strong will because even while being persecuted, Stus was able to share his poetry with others. Some of his work was smug- gled to the West and published in German and English. Other poems survived with his family and were published by his son Dmytro in the 1990s. Many of his poems express his longing for his homeland and his family. Often, the motherland becomes one with the memory of his mother or his wife. This imagery is reflected in the three poems offered here in the original Ukrainian and in English translation. The lat- ter does not attempt to replicate the intricate rhyming Stus used. Rather, the translation strives to cap- ture the imagery and ethos of the poetry. It is worth noting that Stus has a robust presence on the Inter- net. Sites with English-language materials on Stus include Wikipedia, the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, and the website of the University of Alberta. Translator’s Note: I have been working on translating Stus’ poetry for several years and have re- ceived encouragement and help from many people along the way. Special thanks go to two women who spent much time on moving forward my efforts with good humor and patience: Natal- ya Voloshynovych, Senior Lecturer of Volyn National University, for preworking the literal transla- tionof the selected poems and Olha Paris, formerly of Kherson, Ukraine, who now resides in the United States, is a UNWLA member, and spent hours helping polish the “umpteenth” draft with a smile. About the translator: Ania Savage, who taught at Kyiv State University in the early 1990s as well as in Crimea, is the author of two award-winning books on Ukraine. Return to Ukraine is her ac- count of the days following Ukraine’s declaration of independence in 1991. She is also the translator of Thousands of Roads , an autobiography by “Marichka,” a woman who joined the UPA as an adolescent courier and remained in the underground until she was captured in the early 1950s. Both books are available on amazon.com.
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