READING POETRY BY VASYL STUS IN ENGLISH: TRANSLATIONAL JUSTICE AND ENTANGLED EDITORIAL PRACTICES

Abstract

The present article appears to be the first comprehensive examination of the reading and reception of Vasyl Stus’ poetic works in English translation, exploring the details of when, where, and under what circumstances they were rendered and published. Through a diachronic study, the paper thus compiles the history of translating Vasyl Stus, spanning from the initial poetic renditions by Marco Carynnyk to Yaropolk Lassovsky’s compilation of Stus’s free verse poetry in English, and encompassing contemporary interpretations by Bohdan Tokarsky, Nina Murray, Uilleam Blacker, Alan Zhukowski and others, published in leading international magazines. The translators who have enabled the entry of Stus’s poetic works into English have different profiles and positionalities, which articulates their selection of texts for rendition and aesthetic affinities, yet all of them are keen promoters of modern Ukrainian poetry. The paper reveals the interconnectedness of Carynnyk’s roles as both the compiler of the second Ukrainian poetry volume of Stus published in the diaspora (Munich) and the translator of Stus’s poetry into English, highlighting the complex nature of his editorial and translation practices. It also addresses the multimodal aesthetic interpretation of Stus’s poetry presented by Oleksandr Fraze-Frazenko in English translation, where art, music and poetic word are intricately interwoven. The article hence puts forth a perspective on translational justice and contributes to its broader discussion in the context of Ukrainian literature and its reception in the English-language world. Apart from that, the study underscores that translating into English becomes a means of exploring – through the lens of Stus’s poetry – the shifting linguistic and cultural environments in treating Ukrainian literature worldwide.