KHRESCHATYK magazine in a new format

The magazine KHRESCHATYK, which is so important in the literary world of emigration, which was started 25 years ago and is published in Germany, has been accepting works in Ukrainian for publication since March of this year. This is already the second issue of the magazine (97 in total) was published in two languages, and this greatly enriched the literary content of this publication.

There is a lot of Kyiv in this room. Complex juicy philosophical prose by Boris Rudenko, short stories about Kyiv by Oleksandr Halper, a native of Kyiv, who moved to New York a long time ago, young crazy, almost Kharmsiv prose by Sashko Novikov, an excerpt from a novel about Kyiv in the 90s by Elena Mordovina, a fantastic novel by Volodymyr Matveev. Poetic Kyiv is represented by the unique and brilliant Oleksandr Kabanov – the number opens with his selection. Kyiv poets Oleksandr Sprentsy, Ihor Kuryliv, Andrii Gushchin, Ivan Kulinsky, Oleksandr Motsar, Vitaly Boryspolets, Vlad Dmitriev and the same Boris Rudenko make up the main landscape of this issue. The poetic translations of Pavlo Maslak from Kiev are also noteworthy.

From the first pages of this issue, we plunge into the dizzying, familiar metaphorical nature of Oleksandr Kabanov’s poetry, into his kaleidoscopic vision of the world. However, the war exposed the senses, and we finally discover the magical engine that drives his work in the poet we have known for a long time. To everyone who asked the question, what is the secret of Kabanov’s poetry, the poet reveals this secret in this selection: “Homer is the last guide who is looking for a person” (Russian). The endless search for a person – in oneself, in another, in a neighbor, in a beloved woman, even in a blood enemy – this is the core of this kaleidoscope, around which Kaban’s poetic mysteries unfold endlessly.

Now, through the prism of war, everything is read differently. And it is not only about how it passes through us, through our destinies, which, of course, is directly reflected in the authors’ texts, such as, for example, in the collection “Military Notebooks” by Andrii Gushchyn. But the war seems to record everything that was “before”, and simple everyday stories about the life of pre-war Kyiv turn into treasures. Poet and novelist Oleksandr Halper, who has lived in New York for a long time, visited his native Kyiv’s Nyvky shortly before the war, and his touching short stories about the peaceful city already evoke incomparable nostalgia. Even further away from us is the Kyiv of the 90s, into which we immerse ourselves, reading an excerpt from Olena Mordovina’s novel “Half to Death” – and we are no longer interested so much in plot vicissitudes, but in the panorama of Kyiv stories that opens before us, from the past, which gone from us forever like that naked old woman in the corridor tunnel – in the last century and millennium, somewhere in Kurenivka. “Remember the city like this / as you see it while it turns the corner / in your imagination – and even in it – do not look back / until time has split like a nut / flying around in pieces of timelessness…” (Ivan Kulinskyi). Even further, beyond any time, like Marcel Proust, the prose of the true master of Ukrainian literature, Borys Rudenko, is an excerpt from his novel “Reeds on Glass”. Unhurried, thick European prose with rumbling echoes of emptiness and a barely perceptible glow of time from under the thin web of words. “Remember the city like this / as you see it while it turns the corner / in your imagination – and even in it – do not look back / until time has split like a nut / flying around in pieces of timelessness…” (Ivan Kulinskyi). Even further, beyond any time, like Marcel Proust, the prose of the true master of Ukrainian literature, Borys Rudenko, is an excerpt from his novel “Reeds on Glass”. Unhurried, thick European prose with rumbling echoes of emptiness and a barely perceptible glow of time from under the thin web of words. “Remember the city like this / as you see it while it turns the corner / in your imagination – and even in it – do not look back / until time has split like a nut / flying around in pieces of timelessness…” (Ivan Kulinskyi). Even further, beyond any time, like Marcel Proust, the prose of the true master of Ukrainian literature, Borys Rudenko, is an excerpt from his novel “Reeds on Glass”. Unhurried, thick European prose with rumbling echoes of emptiness and a barely perceptible glow of time from under the thin web of words.

Kyiv and Jerusalem are on the eternal roll call, which is why the story of the amazing Israeli author Mark Zaichyk is perceived so organically in this “Kyiv” issue – and whatever he writes about – about Eshkol Avenue in Jerusalem, about a Haifa coffee shop or about a slaughterhouse in Rosh- Aini – all this toponymy in some mystical way gives the highest meaning to what is happening, even the most mundane. This story is about the present, the roots of which are deeply rooted in the Soviet past, and the author, as a true researcher, tries to trace the depth and power of these roots, which feeds what continues to happen now, in our time, sprouting from another layer of reality.

In war and pre-war times, literature is generally filled with mysticism. In this issue of the magazine, there was a place for frank mysticism – Volodymyr Matveev’s fantastic novel “Longing” – in the tradition of Bulgakov from Kiev, and Marquesian magical realism. Mykola Karamenov’s military novel “Torn Dust” about the attempt to conquer an Indian tribe by Captain Domenico Almadovar’s squad is far from the war that is happening now, but the hair stands on end, the invisible sand begins to grind on the teeth, when you reread the scenes about the suffering captive children from thirst, as if the action is taking place not in the God-forsaken Mexican desert, but in modern-day Mariupol. And it is difficult to get rid of this feeling. Now we look through the prism of this war. This novel is so well, classically well written – that it is even difficult to imagine

In the “Translations” section, we find both the familiar Friedrich Nietzsche and Galaktion Tabidze (translated by Pavel Maslak), Gunther Eich, Georg Trakl and Paul Celan (translated by Leonid Berdychevsky), as well as authors about whom our reader is most likely hears for the first time For many readers, the Belgian poet Paul Snook (1933-1981), a representative of the experimentalist movement that arose in the middle of the last century in the Netherlands and Flanders, will be a discovery. A selection of his poems is presented in this issue in excellent translations by Anastasia Andreeva.

In the “Contexts” section, Anna Bagryana’s literary article “The Last Religion” about artists from the family of Boryspils is worthy of attention. The author focuses on the artist Platon Boryspolets, who created and gained recognition in the 19th century, and his descendant, the poet Vitaly Boryspolets.

In general, the changes that have taken place with the KHRESCHATYK magazine are definitely pleasing. In these difficult times, KHRESCHATYK is completely with its homeland, with its native Ukraine. It could not be otherwise, because, as stated in the “Khreshchatykva” selection of Vitaly Boryspilets:

A person who renounced the Motherland

plants trees  

with withered roots

enjoying the aroma

paper flowers

admires it from heaven

from which the stars disappeared

sharpie with paws

wingless birds

She is comfortable

because in another world

everyone doesn’t care about that

that you have no face

KHRESCHATYK magazine has always had a face, always has and will have, because, despite the magazine’s emigrant roots, its creators have a sense of the Motherland, a sense of dignity and responsibility before great literature, before their people.

Ostap Ponomar