TRANSLATIONS OF PROSE IN THE UKRAINIAN DIASPORA: PROBLEMS, SEARCHES, READINGS AND LITERARY REVIEWS

Abstract

The article deals with translations of prose works by I. Bagryany, V. Barka, I. Kachurovsky and V. Samchuk in foreign languages. The problems that arose when working on translations, reading and literary reviews were analyzed. Beginning in the 1940s, I. Bagryany, Y. Kosach, I. Kostetsky, and U. Samchuk tried to find their way to the German and French readers. I. Bagryany’s novel “Tigers” (“Das Gesetz der Taiga”) was admired the German youth. In the 1950s, the Soviet secret services bought the entire circulation of the French translation of U. Samchuk’s novel “Maria” so that the world community could obtain information about the Holodomor of 1933. The article focuses on French translations of U. Samchuk’s novels “Maria”, I. Bagryany’s “Garden of Gethsemane” V. Barka’s “Yellow Prince”. I. Kachurovsky’s dilogy ‘The Way of the Unknown”, which was translated by Yu. Tkachuk into English, is also mentioned. The English translation was published under the title “Because deserters are immortal” (1979). In this way, the translator brought to the fore the universal issues of the work to interest foreign readers. The study analyzes problems that caused difficulties in publishing Ukrainian novels in other languages, including financial problems, and the active work of Soviet secret services, which prevented translated texts from reaching foreign readers, and translators’ lack of awareness of historical and social realities. which are mentioned in the works of Ukrainian writers. For the first time, unknown letters of the mentioned writers to various addressees are published, as well as letters to them containing information about reprints and translations of their works. The epistolary history of several editions and translations of U. Samchuk’s novel “Maria” vividly illustrated the main problems due to which the novels of the Ukrainian Diaspora reached foreign readers extremely slowly and was in fact not present in the world literary and artistic continuum.