Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond

by John Hennessy (Translator)

Overview

In 2021, the world commemorates the 80th anniversary of the massacres of Jews at Babyn Yar. The present collection brings together for the first time the responses to the tragic events of September 1941 by Ukrainian Jewish and non-Jewish poets of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, presented here in the original and in English translation by Ostap Kin and John Hennessy. Written between 1941 and 2018 by over twenty poets, these poems belong to different literary canons, traditions, and time frames, while their authors come from several generations. Together, the poems in Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond create a language capable of portraying the suffering and destruction of the Ukrainian Jewish population during the Holocaust as well as other peoples murdered at the site.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674271722
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2023
Series:	Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature , #4
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Ostap Kin is the translator and editor of the anthology New York Elegies, which won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies’ Prize for Best Translation, and is the cotranslator of Serhiy Zhadan’s A New Orthography and Yuri Andrukhovych’s Songs for a Dead Rooster. He is Research Center Coordinator at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.

John Hennessy is the author of two poetry collections, Coney Island Pilgrims and Bridge and Tunnel. He is the poetry editor of The Common and is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. With Ostap Kin, Hennessy translated Serhiy Zhadan’s collection A New Orthography, for which they won the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for Translation.

Table of Contents

A Note on Transliteration Acknowledgments Introduction. Babyn Yar In Ukrainian Poetry Аркадій Анін Монолог ненародженого пам’ятника Monologue of a Monument Never Built Монолог пам’ятника Monologue of the Monument Микола Бажан Яр Ravine Валерія Богуславська Маріанні Кіяновській — на книжку «Бабин Яр. Голосами» For Marianna Kiyanovska—in Response to Her Book The Voices of Babyn Yar Леонід Череватенко Мікеланджело Michelangelo Медуза Горгона The Gorgon Medusa Єврейське питання: рік 1941-й 1941: The Jewish Question Борис Дабо-Ніколаєв Випробування трагедією Tested by Tragedy Іван Драч [22 червня 1966 року о 5 годині вечора…] [On June 22, 1966, at five in the afternoon] Київська легенда A Kyiv Legend Григорій Фалькович [Із тої страшної святої пори] [From that horrible holy time] [Бабине літо по Бабинім Ярі] [Indian summer in Babyn Yar] [Переддень священної суботи] [On the eve of the holy Sabbath] Мойсей Фішбейн Яр Ravine Яків Гальперін Сміх Laughter Сава Голованівський Вулиця Мельника Melnyk Street Денис Голубицький [Каміння моїх братів і небо моїх сестер] [The stones of my brothers and the sky of my sisters] Олекса Ющенко Бабин Яр Babyn Yar Ігор Качуровський Марті Тарнавській To Marta Tarnawsky Абрам Кацнельсон У Бабинім Яру In Babyn Yar Монолог онука Grandson’s Monologue Київ. 29 вересня. Бабин Яр Kyiv. September 29. Babyn Yar Маріанна Кіяновська [я би вмерла на вулиці цій або тій що за рогом] [i would die on this street or on the one around the corner] [за цю війну я навіть аж підріс] [i even managed to grow during the war] [я все ж таки це промовлю я все ж таки це прийму] [i will say it anyway i will accept it anyway] [ці вулиці вже руїни ще може не всі та вже] [these streets are already ruins maybe not all but already] [збираю колекцію три найостанніші тижні] [i’ve been getting together a collection for the last three weeks] [ось яр у якому розстрілює ганс] [here is the ravine where hans does his shooting] Дмитро Павличко [Ходивши біля Бабиного Яру] [Walking near Babyn Yar] [Край Бабиного Яру в небеса] [On the edge of Babyn Yar they raised] Реквієм. Бабин Яр Requiem for Babyn Yar Леонід Первомайський [Воскреси мене, майбутнє, для нового] [Resurrect me, future, for a new] В Бабинім Яру At Babyn Yar Володимир Підпалий Бабин Яр Babyn Yar Максим Рильський Єврейському народові To the Jewish People Юрій Щербак Баскетбол Basketball Василь Швець Бабин Яр Babyn Yar Володимир Сосюра Єврейському народові To the Jewish People Бабин Яр Babyn Yar Марта Тарнавська В житті моєму теж був Бабин Яр In my life too there was a Babyn Yar Павло Тичина Єврейському народові To the Jewish People Annotations Glossary Timeline Prior Publications In English Translation Illustration Credits Bibliography Index of Titles and First Lines in English Translation Index of Titles and First Lines in Ukrainian

Editorial Reviews

A welcome addition to the library [of] Ukrainian literature, history, and modern society. While its primary audience is scholars of Ukrainian and Slavic literatures, it is also highly relevant to anyone seeking to understand the Holocaust and World War II, as well as the existential problem of extreme human cruelty, such as that observed in Ukraine at present.

Ab Imperio - Martin Paulsen

Kin’s is the first and only collection to date to focus exclusively on Ukrainian-language poems…the inclusion of poems from distinct literary traditions and historical epochs offers valuable avenues towards our understanding of this complex topic. By bringing these horrendous events into the public eye, the poems’ heartbreaking insights thus offer reflections on the massacre and its ongoing significance, an act of memorialization within a changing political landscape in which an unresolved past remains.

Holocaust and Genocide Studies - Hazel Frankel

Temporally and stylistically expansive, Babyn Yar keeps company with other recent poetry that confronts the costs of war and genocide: Solmaz Sharif’s Look, Monica Sok’s A Nail the Evening Hangs On, and Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. Each poetic work catalogs grief intimately in the aftermath of political violence. That the Russia–Ukraine War is ongoing at the time of this writing infuses the anthology with a terrible urgency.

World Literature Today - Kathryn Savage

Remind[s] the reading public of not only the necessity of remembering history and taking a stand against evil, but also about the necessity of poetry as witness during a time of great atrocity.

New Eastern Europe - Nicole Yurcaba

The Ukrainian-language poetry on the Shoah, and here specifically on Babyn Yar, has largely passed under the radar. The present publication is a major rectification of this omission…The poems in Ostap Kin’s anthology bear eloquent testimony to the results of Nazi genocidal ideology and highlight once more the necessity both of critical thinking in the fight against antisemitism in all its current globalized forms and of the commemoration of the victims of antisemitism’s deadly consequences.

Eastern European Holocaust Studies - Gary D. Mole