The life and tragic death of Vasyl Semyonovich Stus (1938–85) provides a stark reminder that repression in the Soviet Union did not end with the death of Stalin in 1953. Stus, a major poet, translator and political activist, was arrested in 1972 and, after 13 years in detention, died in a forced labour camp in 1985. This book, by the Ukrainian poet Alexander Korotko, is a poetic sequence of 14 poems, four of them in two parts, some of the titles of which (“Permafrost”; “Prison Camp”; “Slop”) evoke Stus’s ordeal.
The poems, written in Russian, are linked by passages in Ukrainian taken from Stus’s writings.
This is really a pentalingual book, consisting of Korotko’s original, followed by four translations. These catch the characteristic features of Korotko’s poetry: short lines; arresting images and copious literary and cross-cultural references.
Hopefully, this poem-sequence will prompt the publication of Stus’s own poetry in other European languages.
