now in a new two-hour format, even more analytics, even more important topics, even more top guests: foreign experts, inclusion from abroad, about ukraine, the world, the front, society, and also feedback, you can express your opinion on the bad day with a phone survey, turn on and turn on, the verdict with serhiy rudenko, every weekday from 20:00 to 22:00 at espresso. greetings, good evening, my name is myroslava barchuk, this is a self-titled program, a joint project of ukrainian foam and the tv channel espresso. today we will talk about literature during the war, about what we read, about how the war actualizes ukrainian classics, about who will write about this historical time in which we live, and we will talk a little about translators. and literary

prizes, we will talk about all this with rostislav semkiv, my guest, rostislav semkiv is a literary critic, a teacher at the kyiv-molyan academy and the director of the smallskyp publishing house. greetings rostislav, thank you for coming to us. so, i have to start, not with the good, but with the bad. a few days ago, a scandal literally broke out in ukrainian social networks. with the maksym rylsky award for 2023, we learned that a few days ago the laureates were determined, and let me remind you, this is the oldest ukrainian translation award, and here you see a post by the state committee of television and radio, which informs us about what has been determined the laureates of the rylsky prize for the 23rd year, and the winners of this prize, in particular,

were dmytro drozdovsky and andrew shepard, for the translation from ukrainian into english of the collection of works irpin my home, the authors of which are children. everything would be fine, but the public debate is that dmytro drozdovsky is a person who has been caught plagiarizing several times, and it was more than once, he knows about it. academic community, and now dmytro rozdovsky is receiving the rylsky prize, moreover, bohdan stasyuk, another translator, wrote on facebook about who andrew shepard is, who together with drozdovsky is receiving the rylsky prize, and it turned out that, among other things, the translator andrew shepard is the editor of the british-russian magazine, of the british-russian society east-west review.

on the cover of the first issue for the past year of this publication, you can see a portrait of nikolai vtorov with children on a faberge egg and a lily of the valley, so this is it, this is what you see, these lily of the valley, actually, this is the collection of the sanctioned russian oligarch vekselberg, no i want to moralize, we are actually talking about... and about awards, and my first question to you, rossislav, is how should we treat such a story with this award, how should we react on this, or simply wait for such state awards to go away together with the generation of people who represent them, well , this is a bad story, especially since there are such unpleasant connections, and of course there are a lot of structures.

who under the guise of, let's say, slavistic studies in the world actually promoted russian studies, actually promoted this myth about great russian literature, they still work in the world and even in leading universities, but the majority of specialists, slavists are actually russians, this is a consequence of the imperial politicians it is clear that we have to fight with this, well, this is already an effect, of course, somewhere it is easier for them to access both prizes and resources in general, but the story itself is bad, it is very good that there is this resonance, it is clear that it is necessary to ask the question in a broader sense, why the ukrainian community, especially a community that is in a state of war, should pay for this. yes, if it is a state award,

there are, of course, radical views that there should be no state awards at all, but in any case it should be limited. uh, that's it more that, well, it can stay there, not , say, shevchenkivska, er, and enough, especially since, er, well, many of them are compromised where they compromise, where they are compromised, and very easily to determine whether the award is compromised or not, uh, has anyone seen this book, has it had any resonance, in general, what do we pay for, it makes sense to ask the question mercantilely, these are taxes, everyone. taxes, everyone is asking questions, there was a response from the film community, a call so that there would not be these discussions about what the state cinema finances, which films it finances, because very often these are films that many people do not

perceive, so there are some comedy series in the middle of war and tragedy, and they offered it, the response offers here. the budget, the budget of the state cinema should be transferred to the needs of the armed forces, and it is reasonable, well, even more so, i say, if the award has compromised itself, that is, the question should be asked, i think there should be some kind of general investigation, in which way such laureates were determined, the more, if there is a connection, well, with such a russian policy. because it is so accurate and the oligarch appears somewhere, this this magazine is definitely one of the means of promotion, the means of promotion of the russian interest. now it turns out that we, it turns out, that we somehow pay for it in some way and are tangential to it, that is, we legitimize it, actually this

contradicts with our general, with our general setting for the cancellation of russian culture, for denial. oblivion, there's a moratorium, i don't know, it can be discussed in different ways, but it's not necessary , so there should be a reaction and it's good that there is a resonance, there's also a story about reputation as such, yes, because it's not only about this man, who is andrew shepard, who heads this magazine of the russian british-russian society, but also about dmytro drozdovsky, about whom there were also many discussions. so bohdan tyholos , the director of the frank house, accused him of plagiarism, here the institute of literature recognized 64% of plagiarism in drozdovsky's work, and in parallel with this , the person continues to receive awards, that is, it turns out

that there are some different parts of the community, both cultural ukrainian, and people, people people without reputation and people with reputation. and these communities, these worlds do not seem to change, no intersect, you said about state cinema, yes, many people criticize merina kuderchuk there, yes or a lot, but all the same, this parallel reality continues to exist, and so here, people with a reputation, people without a reputation, and these are two worlds that cannot, who can't , it's clear, come to an agreement, but they can't fight each other either, you see, when it comes to the institution of reputation, i start thinking... about the lingering romanticism of the ukrainian community, because it's good if the institution reputation there is such a thing, but it is something so amorphous and uncertain, that is, there must be clear structural decisions, yes, that is, someone must sue, there is

a discussion about plagiarism, it is necessary to sue, that is, there is a law according to which it must work, right? mechanisms, but now there is another struggle for the introduction of suitable candidates, candidates who are actually responsible for the ukrainian cultural fund, yes, that is, there are structures, it is necessary to use these provisions that have been approved, as a rule, the provisions are good, just apply attention, try to do and take some steps to make it change. because it will not change by itself, i.e. the reputation can be ruined, but people forget that in the end people do not have exactly the same problems, there must be organizational conclusions, that is, people from disrepute, they are mostly so skilled that it is very difficult for them purely formally, it is very such

bureaucratized people, by the way, i want to quote andrew bonder, another great writer, translator, who wrote on facebook about this story, and you know, why did it happen, i mean with an award for this andrew shepard, because to the place where there is no honor and conscience, where the detached reigns. russian peace comes from the reality of bureaucracy and flowery nihilism under the mask of a souk official. and i'm sorry that i'm talking about this for so long , about us, i promised you to start talking about what we read, how we perceive literature, but this also applies, yes, because everything is very intensified during the war. and i, starting to talk about literature, will start a little with history. on january 22, the day of the catholic church, i noticed that we are congratulating each other on the networks

with the day of catholic church, and we are in our bubblershka we write that this is the day of the cathedral, it is dedicated to so-and-so, because 105 years ago it happened that the zuner united, the fourth universal and so on, i saw that i thought that this was a symptom of what it means that the nation was deprived of these knowledge, if we tell each other about it, yes, because americans do not welcome. each other with thanksgiving day there or there independent day what, but you know there on july 4, 76th year 1776 such and such happened, and just as surely in literature, and just as surely in literature that we, that we now we re-read the classics and say oh that's how it was, that's what it was about, what are the authors now, apart from, let's say, the obvious ones there, let's say, tiger hunters, crimson? or the barques with the yellow prince, which for you personally

opened up in a new way during this war? well, they actually opened up, in fact , authors started to open up a long time ago, yes, in the 90s, and but we went even further, they had that resonance, that is, now they are reaching a wider resonance , what had, what was accessible, the academic community, somewhere education... community, for a long time it was somewhere in such a shadow, i remember very well the attitude towards bagryany back there 10 years ago, that is, there were quite a lot of skeptics who said that he is so journalistic, and he talks about politics and politics all the time, so that means it may not be the garden of gethsemane is already well written there, these are political works, and now they are on time. emphasized, because they, in fact, are about such a rather direct confrontation there

with the empire with russia, the russian world, and it is good that these texts receive such an impulse, that is, an important text that returned somewhere now, there was a text, well, it is out of bounds pain by roman spatoryansky, he wrote it in the 21st year, 1621, he was a combatant, he survived the war, the first world war, captivity, then his return from captivity, and this is one of the earliest such texts about the first world war in general in european literature , one of the first, but for a long time, well, they knew, experts there knew that there was such a work, but it remained so unknown for a long time, because, well, there are a number of reasons, after all, he fought as part of austrian. army, he wanted to get into the legion of snipers, but did not get in, he fought as part of the austrian army, but

against the russian army, accordingly , he was not perceived in the union either, but he is still such a very serious anti-war work, that is, against the war, against those who start the war, everything is very clearly laid out there place, now he's back, he was reissued by his wife, and hey, there's this one there. of those texts, which, it is very difficult , you need to prepare for reading it, but you must read it in school, well, if not read textually, then at least remember, but in the end , it is not very big to read, so very an important text, of course , it is covered in a different way now , the authors of the shot revival are perceived in a completely different way, yes, that is, now because the tragedy has become, unfortunately,... now close, and we really see that they are dying, that is,

the authors are dying , writers die, and again and again , and many people have, yes, friends, relatives who died, that is, death has become, unfortunately, closer, and therefore this tragedy, because it is a tragedy, and i do not know if there is any other literature, where as many writers would be shot in one day as the third assessment and everyone begins to realize that on the one hand, well, when pidmohylyny was shot, he was 34 or something like that, that is, it is quite a bit, on the other hand, he managed to write some short prose and two very good novels during these 34 years , that is, it took place in such a short time, as well as

wave and other ee among which were simply brilliant, as there for example. mykola kulich , a playwright, and this realization that we had such great authors, and then they were forced to shut up, or, for example, zinnoida tulup, this is the first such a big one, because before her , too, several women wrote on historical topics, but she has such a first known, serious historical novel of a manhunter, here she is... it was published there in the year 36-37 , she was immediately arrested and sent away, she spent something like 10 or 15 years in exile in siberia, and she returned, and she no longer wrote, that is, at a time when in europe, a decade before, a norwegian woman writer was awarded the nobel prize for a historical novel,

they send us to kolyma, that is, well as in our union, this is not our state. that is, this feeling is on the one hand a tragedy, on the other hand a feeling of a lost entire area of ​​literature, but this results in a strong desire to get acquainted with what was done, because after all, a lot was done, and this applies to the whole literature in general, but also individual personnel, here you can talk about everyone, somewhere, everyone separately, and there are really a lot of names that did not manage to do much, but managed to do something, and this results in such a very serious interest in the classics, re-evaluation, the fact that for a long time the school moved according to such

a post-soviet inertia, er, well, some topic these typical topics were emphasized there, er up to... uniformity, there serfdom, serfdom, village, serfdom, and others were not were mentioned, yes, that is, the school, you have it, the soviet school, but for a long time it also continued in the ukrainian school, yes, that is, don’t listen to levitskyi, now there remains the kaydashev family, and this is a story about, then, quarrels in the village , let's put it this way, now it has been emphasized by the series, it is good for this text, but it is necessary to show... here you go ukrainian culture, this is russian culture , that is, he then saw this civilizational divide that we have now, that we are beginning to realize, many are beginning to realize only now, it is in the clouds, and on the other hand, this is the kyiv text, it is about

the city, it about urban habits, everyday life, way of life. that is, it is important to show that literature was not as weak and monotonous as it was shown in soviet times, it is clear why, well, with a certain inertia for a long time later, kobylyanska’s earth was also read for a long time, again the village, the conflict for earth, now it’s good, the program has changed a little , they are reading waltz melancholic now, the text is emancipatory, the text is again urban, urbanistic, where there is something to think about, although earth also has something to think about and, it is also a good text, just it was greatly simplified, everything was always simplified to such a bare social relationship of some kind, so it needs to be rethought, it is being rethought, and now that is why there is such an interest in the classics, do you think that you said that a new

national myth is being created, yes... it is being formed, well in fact, a national myth has already been formulated of ukraine, what kind of myth is this, and is a new canon of literature being created in the same way, or will it affect literature in the same way, or is it, or these things are not connected, here first of all it should be noted that the myth, again, there was another the soviet statement, a myth as a distortion of reality, as something that opposes science, there are some dark ideas. myth, mythology is a sacred sacred story about heroes, and since we now have heroes, a new mythology is being created in us. and, of course, its result will be the emergence of an epic, that is, an epic layer will appear in ukrainian literature, next to the novel, does not mean

that novels will stop being written, but it is already being created, there you can quote songs, here poetry, song, they react faster, and from them , accordingly, an epic is formed, such an epic of the sich shooters, again there are a lot of songs, these are epic ballads, and marches, and requiems, and humorous songs, that is , it is such a rather wide layer, but some of them are epic about riflemen who fight for the freedom of ukraine, and in our country now there are simply completely mythological figures, yes a mythological figure, i say positively, it's like there and hercules. this is the same, and now there are already figures that acquire the signs of such legendary status, maybe, if someone does not like the word tongues, we can talk about legendary figures, so there are

legendary figures, there are cyborgs, so there are the heavenly hundred, cyborgs, there is the ghost of kyiv, yes, of course, there are even some legendary figures that have a somewhat humorous, comical appearance, but they still work as legendary figures, for example, pespatron, oh... that's all, it's a legendary creature and, well, a hero, but somehow it makes you smile, but there are quite a few seriously, is there azovstal , that is, yes, that is, it is very important that such a thing appears, because it means that the feat will not be leveled, it will not be forgotten, and you wrote in your wonderful book the adventures of ukrainian literature, which, which i'm going to ask you separately, but... uh, you've written about, about the time of the titans, you have this whole chapter called the time of the titans, about this big shift, the big energy in literature after the first world

war when these great novelists appeared , starting with joyce, thomas mann, kavka and all the rest, how do you, how do you imagine our literature, our culture , after such a ... bloodletting that we have now, do we have, do we have a chance for the time of the titans? i think so, i think it's a sad, but pattern, uh, after great upheavals, there comes a time of great literature, it's not because , well actually. this is a problem, that this happens, but this happens in principle always, because literature is about experience, war is a very extreme and very powerful

experience, and now there is a lot of war war-related experience, this is the first , of course, the experience of those who are in direct confrontation, the experience of soldiers, the experience of trenches, trenches, but this experience of volunteers, this experience of refugees, migration, this is the experience of occupation, this, that is, it is a lot , this is the experience of being in the vaults, so many different points that will be discussed, well, and on the other hand, in fact, many people are starting to write, there are several writing courses there, there are courses, by the way, specifically for veterans. the voice of war at internews, there is the summer of the world, there is a whole series writing courses, and they now have a lot of listeners, that is, people want to pass

on this experience, they want to write out, it is also therapeutic, on the one hand, for example , the collection, the voice of war, the first anthology can be found online, people want to write out, spread this experience , that's why there are new writers and writers, they are already being written about, and there are those who, having gone to the front, were already not bad, well, good, or not bad and writers, poets, or even quite titled, here, for example, dmytro lazutki, he is now in to the short list of the shevchenko prize, by the way, there are prizes that are adequately defined. but simply a question of trust or distrust of those who get there, yes, that is, there in

the public. there is oleksandr mehet, then there is yaryna chornogu, yaryna chornogus, well, they wrote even before that, and yerena chornogus, and lazutkin, and artem cheh, there is arkiyan kamysh, chapai, well, that is , there was a whole series of pavlo matyush, you can list them, here in elizaveta zharikova is a poet, she is literally the first, well, the collection was published before the war, there is igor mitrov, but there are also those which... and started in wartime, actually under the influence of war experiences, about which before that, well , less heard or not heard, there, like valery puzik, there, let's say, or martin brest, or oleksiy paikin, that is, their , is vitaly zapeka there, they started writing already after the beginning, after the beginning, but still after the 14th, yes, that is, the war was already going on, and they began to appear, there is tsutsyk, by the way, a look at... but who

are the dogs, this is vitaly constipation, he appeared somewhere in the 16th or 15th year, and he now already has several books, that is, in fact, new ones there are many authors and women authors, even if they all come back from the war unscathed, and they will write, and it will be such an outbreak, as after the first or the second world war, of course, there will be unpleasant things, the next question is so difficult, it will probably be, about the moral right to write, i will now ask the editor to show, to show a screenshot of the article, the actual interview that hanna ulyura took with natalka bilotserkivets, a beautiful poet, and here natalka bilotserkivets says something like this, here is such an opinion, i am interested in hearing your analysis .

natalka bilotserkivets writes: i read it recently interesting idea that the best works about war will be written by those who did not fight directly. i even admit that the best works about our war, primarily cinema and prose, can be created even by non -ukrainians and not in ukraine. for those who have been on the battlefield, it can be excruciatingly difficult to move away from the inevitable battlefield perception of only black and white, absolute evil and unerring good. so, are single, short, black-and-white works, high -level works possible, but not full-scale, not only in the sense of size, in the sense of complexity plots and characters. i was very impressed by this idea, because it is very subtle, what do you think? well, i really like poetry, er, natalky bilotserkivets, she is one of the best poets, at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century

, but here i... agree, even if we think about the same first world war and such iconic works that are known to everyone, there is remarque, hemingway, yvlinvo, okay, hasyk in a different key, ernst jünger, well, that is, there is a whole set of these texts that are more known, they are all combatants, that is, obviously someone wrote about war from afar, so these... works appeared somewhere, but we know about the war, first of all the works of combatants, of course, this does not mean that such works cannot appear, and we understand, well, for example, we understand , which means that the waveman did not shoot his mother, but he wrote it imagining it, yes, that is, experience in literature happens like that, experience can be imagined, and it will be a strong text, as we

know. that kotsyubynskyi came to the curve for a week, looked and wrote the best text about the carpathians so far, but many of carpathian authors may not agree , but okay, it turned out like this, that is, he did not have much experience of the carpathians, he got there twice there or three times there several times and wrote a better text about the carpathians, so it is quite possible. but er, direct experience still matters, and that's why i think that er , the strongest books will be written by those who have direct experience, but i say there are very different experiences, there are experiences, for example, of emigration, and those who is now in exile, they will write about it, there is an experience of children in a bomb shelter, and those who experienced it, they it will be written, yes, that is, it is...