{"id":4697,"date":"2021-11-20T15:52:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T15:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vocilibereurss.fupress.net\/?p=4697"},"modified":"2021-12-19T21:11:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T21:11:25","slug":"vasyl-stus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vocilibereurss.fupress.net\/en\/vasyl-stus\/","title":{"rendered":"Vasyl’ Stus"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]\n
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The poet Vasyl’ Stus. Source: \u0415ncyclopedia of\u00a0 Ukraine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Vasyl<\/span>\u2019\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span>\u00a0(1938-1985) has been defined as the greatest Ukrainian poet of the second half of the twentieth century.\u00a0<\/span>In spite of<\/span> the importance of his literary output in the history of modern contemporary poetry, his fame in the Ukraine is linked to his activity as a dissident and his participation in the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Stus<\/span>\u00a0was born in the\u00a0<\/span>Vinnytsia<\/span>\u00a0region of western Ukraine, but his family moved to Donbas when he was a child. He studied at\u00a0<\/span>Donets\u2019k<\/span>\u00a0(then\u00a0<\/span>Stalino<\/span>) Pedagogical Institute and planned to move to\u00a0<\/span>Kyjiv<\/span>\u00a0to undertake graduate studies at the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He managed to move to\u00a0<\/span>Kyjiv<\/span>\u00a0in 1963, when the local literary scene was undergoing a conservative restructuring after experiencing the relative artistic freedom brought about by the Thaw between the late Fifties and the first two years of the Sixties.\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span> had been active as a poet since the mid-Fifties and was keen to pursue a career as both a creative writer and literary scholar. While his first attempt to have a selection of his juvenilia published failed <\/span>in spite of<\/span>\u00a0positive internal reviews,\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span> benefitted from the stimulating atmosphere among his fellow <\/span>shistdesiatnyky<\/span><\/i>.
\n<\/span>In 1965,\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span> took part in a protest against a wave of arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals, which resulted in his expulsion from the Institute of Literature and the end of his budding literary career. Between 1965 and 1972, <\/span>Stus<\/span> took manual jobs to provide for his family but he continued writing both poetry and criticism. Around 1970, he produced two major collections of poetry, \u202f<\/span>Zymovi<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>dereva<\/span><\/i>\u202f(<\/span>Winter Trees) and\u202f<\/span>Veselyi<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>tsvyntar<\/span><\/i>\u202f(<\/span>The Merry Cemetery).\u202f <\/span>Zymovi<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>dereva<\/span><\/i>\u202fwas smuggled to the West and published in <\/span>tamizdat<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Veselyi tsvyntar<\/em>\u00a0was published in samizdat<\/em> and distributed among a handful of Stus’s friends and colleagues<\/span>. The differences between the two collections are striking. While\u202f<\/span>Zymovi<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>dereva<\/span><\/i>, being conceived as an anthology of\u00a0<\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span> poetry from the Sixties, is a kaleidoscope of strikingly different styles and thematic clusters,\u202f<\/span>Veselyi<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>tsvyntar<\/span><\/i>\u202fis a monological poetic construction devoted to dismantling the absurdity of\u00a0<\/span>everyday Soviet life and language.
\nIn early 1972, together with several other Ukrainian intellectuals,\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span>\u00a0was arrested. He spent most of the year in a KGB building in central\u00a0<\/span>Kyjiv<\/span>\u202fawaiting sentencing. During those months, <\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span> poetry came to full maturity.
\nIn 1972, his<\/span> original works were complemented by a wide selection of translations of Goethe\u2019s poetry, which came to constitute the second part of his collection\u202f<\/span>Chas<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>tvorchosti<\/span><\/i>\u00a0\/\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Dichtenszeit<\/span><\/i>\u202f(<\/span>Poetry time \/\u00a0Dichtenszeit). The book, hermetic in style and thematically subject-centred, clearly shows\u00a0<\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0intertextual dialogue with the European modernist tradition of the first half of the century. Between 1973 and 1979,\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span>\u00a0served his sentence, first in Mordovia and then near Magadan. During those years,\u00a0<\/span>he<\/span> never abandoned his literary endeavours and composed works that would be published in his major book of poetry, \u202f<\/span>Palimpsesty<\/span><\/i>\u202f(<\/span>Palimpsests), and worked on an equally impressive collection of translations, mostly from German poetry; the most recurrent theme in his letters to his family is Rilke\u2019s poetry and the challenges that <\/span>he<\/span>\u00a0faced translating it. In 1979,\u00a0<\/span>Stus<\/span> was permitted to go back to <\/span>Kyjiv<\/span>. However, his engagement with the dissident movement led to his second arrest in 1980. In the notorious Perm\u2019-36 labour camp in <\/span>Kuchino<\/span>, near Perm\u2019,\u00a0<\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0already precarious health conditions deteriorated considerably. He died in September 1985. In 1989,\u00a0<\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0remains were transferred to\u00a0<\/span>Kyjiv<\/span>. The\u00a0<\/span>event, attended by an impressive crowd of people, has been described as an important episode in the months that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine\u2019s declaration of independence.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Stus<\/span> soon became a hero of an independent Ukraine and his poetry came to be seem as <\/span>an embodiment of the author\u2019s contemporary political engagement. This has often resulted in unsatisfactory readings of <\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span> literary legacy as his<\/span> poetry is a reactivation of th<\/span>e<\/span>\u00a0rich modernist impulse in Ukrainian literary culture that had been tragically interrupted in the Thirties with the physical annihilation of a large cohort of writers and intellectuals.\u00a0<\/span>Stus\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0intense intertextual dialogue with poets such as Rilke, Pasternak and\u00a0<\/span>Tsvetaeva<\/span>\u00a0testifies to the depth of his engagement with modernist literature, while his letters explicitly show his conscious desire to act as a leading innovator of Ukrainian literary culture.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alessandro Achilli
\n<\/strong><\/em>[30th June 2021]\n

Editions<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n