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.
Dmytro Drozdovskyi, editor of the international literary magazine Vsesvit, shared his impressions of the new…
Glagoslav Publications has presented a five-language edition of Alexander Korotko’s poem “Stus” — a work…