On Translating Yuri Andrukhovych

Yuri Andrukhovych wrote “Letters to Ukraine,” a cycle originally consisting of twenty poems, in the fall of 1990, at the beginning of his second year in the graduate program at the Literature Institute in Moscow. The cycle was published several times, in part or whole, throughout the nineties. But it hadn’t been collected in any poetry collection until 2013.

Constructed like a Latin ode with its addressee, the speaker of this cycle diligently yet ironically documents the life around him, catalogs his emotions in the heart of the empire, and sends these dispatches to his friend living on the empire’s periphery. At the heart of the cycle are his deliberations about one’s sophisticated relationship and role vis-à-vis an empire and the gradual separation constituted by a departure for the speaker’s native realm (as Czesław Miłosz would have put it). Contrary to the familiar peripheries and its inhabitants, the empire’s center is imposing and disturbing. 

At the same time, what is equally significant is Andrukhovych's embrace of Baroqueness as the fundamental feature of Ukraine's historical distinction. One of the aspects of this dialogue with the Past, with all its complexities, is a fascination with ruins. Concurrently, there are contemporary literary tunes and voices vividly heard on the level of intonation and message. He represents the tradition of learned poetry. These poems are full of knowledge—hidden and apparent—but knowledge isn’t the only thing there: one can also find irony and emotion. In other words, he combines these three features in his poems: knowledge, irony, and emotion.

Andrukhovych’s verse is full of metaphors and is based on solid rhythm. As translators, we aimed to attain a version that corresponds to the original Ukrainian as closely as possible and transmits its messages, rich in meanings and senses. We started by scanning the original rhythms, voice, and sound, and strove for the translated poems to preserve this attention to sound in English. The original’s sophisticated form was also taken into consideration.