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El último territorio
A más de una década de su independencia, Ucrania, el segundo país más grande de Europa, no aparece siquiera esbozado en nuestro mapa literario. En los brillantes ensayos que componen este volumen, Yuri Andrujovich, el escritor ucraniano de mayor fama internacional, se toma en serio los conocimientos limitados de su público occidental. Con un estilo personalísimo que aúna el sarcasmo más ácido y la más tierna empatía, Andrujovich nos describe la realidad de su país. Una realidad áspera y postsoviética (la catástrofe de Chernobyl, las huellas de la desaparecida Galitzia, la emigración hacia el oeste, la represión informativa, la mafia…), pero también poseedora de una herencia cultural extremadamente rica y compleja. Con un dominio absoluto para revelar todo un mundo en un apunte o un retrato-como el que ofrece, fabuloso, del bardo Taras Shevchenko-, Yuri Andrujovich se sirve tanto de la intuición poética como de la sagacidad del ensayista para capturar la problemática realidad ucraniana actual.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
7 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Yuri Andrukhovych
79 books297 followersSee also:
UKR Юрій Андрухович
BLG/RU Юрий Андрухович
Yuri Andrukhovych (13 March 1960, Ivano-Frankivsk) — is a contemporary Ukrainian writer, essayist, poet, translator and public figure. Among his most notable works are novels Рекреації (Recreations, 1992), The Moscoviad, (Московіада, 1993), Perverzion (Перверзія, 1996), Twelve circles (Дванадцять обручів, 2003), The Secret (Таємниця, 2003), and Justicia's lovers (Коханці юстиції, 2017).
Andrukhovych's biggest literary awards include:
* BBC Ukraine "Book of the Year" (2018) for novel «Justicia's lovers»
UKR Юрій Андрухович
BLG/RU Юрий Андрухович
Yuri Andrukhovych (13 March 1960, Ivano-Frankivsk) — is a contemporary Ukrainian writer, essayist, poet, translator and public figure. Among his most notable works are novels Рекреації (Recreations, 1992), The Moscoviad, (Московіада, 1993), Perverzion (Перверзія, 1996), Twelve circles (Дванадцять обручів, 2003), The Secret (Таємниця, 2003), and Justicia's lovers (Коханці юстиції, 2017).
Andrukhovych's biggest literary awards include:
* BBC Ukraine "Book of the Year" (2018) for novel «Justicia's lovers»
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 20, 2025
Garsaus Ukrainos rašytojo ir intelektualo esė rinkinys. Prieškarinės esė - nuo 1994 iki 2014 m. Paskutinė parašyta jau 2014-ų kovo mėn. Tos dvi paskutinės (keturioliktų metų) esė man buvo labiausios. Gal kad emociškai mane stipriausiai palietė. Jos ("Love and Hatred in Kyiv" ir "Seven Hundred Fierce Days, or the Role of a Contrabass in the Revolution") giliai ir poetiškai - apie Maidanus nugriaudėjusius per Ukrainos miestus, apie solidarumo atmosferą... Nors šiaip, visos buvo įdomios. Labai rekomenduoju.
"Odesa.
It had snowed in Odesa. The covered and somewhat stunned, colonial southern city nonetheless put up resistance with all of its bushes, trees, entryways, and balconies. The snow was temporary, but Odesa was, as always, immortal.
Two hours before our show we finished our final rehearsal and decided to go outside for a walk. The sea was somewhere close by. We made a right turn onto French Boulevard and ran down the step stairs of some park straight onto the beach. Before it got completely dark outside, we wanted to see the snow falling onto the see. It really did look black. We walked up to it closely, all the way to the tip of a breakwater.
Another step - and the future would have covered us, like a black wave. " March 2014
...o ta juoda banga visgi užliejo...
"Odesa.
It had snowed in Odesa. The covered and somewhat stunned, colonial southern city nonetheless put up resistance with all of its bushes, trees, entryways, and balconies. The snow was temporary, but Odesa was, as always, immortal.
Two hours before our show we finished our final rehearsal and decided to go outside for a walk. The sea was somewhere close by. We made a right turn onto French Boulevard and ran down the step stairs of some park straight onto the beach. Before it got completely dark outside, we wanted to see the snow falling onto the see. It really did look black. We walked up to it closely, all the way to the tip of a breakwater.
Another step - and the future would have covered us, like a black wave. " March 2014
...o ta juoda banga visgi užliejo...
July 31, 2011
Magnífico conjunto de ensayos sobre el pasado y el presente de Ucrania. Muy recomendable
August 17, 2019
The English-speaking reader should first note that this is by no means all of Andrukhovych's essays. These essays were selected for an English-speaking audience, and therefore they are all basically guaranteed to appeal to Western audiences, especially those who (like me) are interested in national and regional identities throughout history. I can't comment on how representative these essays are of Andrukhovych's output, but I can comment on what the Western reader will get out of them.
The style of these essays is fairly similar to Andrukhovych's prose — witty, savage, self-aware, lively. There is, of course, less experimentation than The Moscoviad or Perverzion, but there is a little — in one essay Andrukhovych ends with an ode, while in another, he slips into stream-of-consciousness before regaining control over the essay form, in a mirror of his emotional experiences. Some background knowledge of Ukrainian history is helpful, but the footnotes are useful for contextualizing everything beyond the basics. Most essays are short, no longer than 10 pages (some as short as 3). The longest essay by far is the first one, "Central Eastern Revision", which takes up about half of the book. The essays are sorted in chronological order, which makes it fun to see how ideas seeded in early essays are cultivated in later ones. Whether you like them or not, I suggest that you read all of them to fully understand the ideas Andrukhovych develops in these essays.
There are roughly three categories of essays:
1. The first category dives into the history of Andrukhovych's native Galicia, exploring its Austro-Hungarian influences ("Erz-Herz-Perz"), its easily-misunderstood multiculturalism ("The City-Ship", "Carpathologica Cosmophilica"), its inherently "postmodern" nature ("Time and Place"), and its genuineness and bustle compared to Kyiv ("A Little Bit of Urban Studies").
2. The second category (which overlaps with the first) explores Ukraine's relationship with the West, which can be as far as America (as in "Four Million of Our Agents") or as near as Poland ("A Land of Dreams").
3. The third category is everything else. Topics range from Euromaidan ("Love and Hatred in Kyiv," which is also an NYT opinion article, and "Seven Hundred Fierce Days") to Chernobyl ("The Star Absinthe") to observations on Ukrainian émigrés in Germany ("Meeting Place Germaschka") to an essay on his choice to write in Ukrainian ("What Language Are You From") to Andrukhovych's own genealogy (the longest by far of all the essays, his autobiographical essay, "Central-Eastern Revision").
Notes on individual essays:
- I highly recommend every essay in the first category to anyone interested in Galicia's history. "Erz-Herz-Perz" is particularly thorough and imaginative. "Time and Place" is hilarious and anyone who wants a good-spirited self-roast of postmodernism will delight in it. Americans may find food for thought in "The City-Ship", whose discussion of underlying tensions in "multicultural" Lviv brings to mind the American "melting pot" myth and its omissions.
- "Meeting Place Germaschka" examines emigration from the point of view of someone who chose to stay in the emigrated-from country. It may be fruitfully juxtaposed with literature written from the point of view of emigrants/immigrants.
- "What Language Are You From" is not about what you think it is. Yes, it discusses the Ukrainian language's living "in the shadow" of Russian on the international plane. But it is primarily a defense of Andrukhovych's decisions to write in Ukrainian to all speakers of hegemonic languages, including Western ones. (I don't think when he wrote it he knew he was going to have it translated into English!)
- "Seven Hundred Fierce Days", which is about Andrukhovych's tour of Ukraine during the week leading up to Yanukovych's flight from Ukraine in Feb. 2014, captures the radical change in how people relate to each other that Marci Shore documents in The Ukrainian Night. It and "Love and Hatred" cover some of the same ground, but "Seven Hundred Fierce Days" goes into much greater and more personal detail, while "Love and Hatred", originally written as an op-ed, is more skimmable.
The only essay I would suggest patience with is "Central-Eastern Revision". It meanders from topic to topic in such a way that you won't see what it's getting at until you've finished it. But it is well worth the read if you are interested in how the great events of the 20th century impacted individual lives.
The style of these essays is fairly similar to Andrukhovych's prose — witty, savage, self-aware, lively. There is, of course, less experimentation than The Moscoviad or Perverzion, but there is a little — in one essay Andrukhovych ends with an ode, while in another, he slips into stream-of-consciousness before regaining control over the essay form, in a mirror of his emotional experiences. Some background knowledge of Ukrainian history is helpful, but the footnotes are useful for contextualizing everything beyond the basics. Most essays are short, no longer than 10 pages (some as short as 3). The longest essay by far is the first one, "Central Eastern Revision", which takes up about half of the book. The essays are sorted in chronological order, which makes it fun to see how ideas seeded in early essays are cultivated in later ones. Whether you like them or not, I suggest that you read all of them to fully understand the ideas Andrukhovych develops in these essays.
There are roughly three categories of essays:
1. The first category dives into the history of Andrukhovych's native Galicia, exploring its Austro-Hungarian influences ("Erz-Herz-Perz"), its easily-misunderstood multiculturalism ("The City-Ship", "Carpathologica Cosmophilica"), its inherently "postmodern" nature ("Time and Place"), and its genuineness and bustle compared to Kyiv ("A Little Bit of Urban Studies").
2. The second category (which overlaps with the first) explores Ukraine's relationship with the West, which can be as far as America (as in "Four Million of Our Agents") or as near as Poland ("A Land of Dreams").
3. The third category is everything else. Topics range from Euromaidan ("Love and Hatred in Kyiv," which is also an NYT opinion article, and "Seven Hundred Fierce Days") to Chernobyl ("The Star Absinthe") to observations on Ukrainian émigrés in Germany ("Meeting Place Germaschka") to an essay on his choice to write in Ukrainian ("What Language Are You From") to Andrukhovych's own genealogy (the longest by far of all the essays, his autobiographical essay, "Central-Eastern Revision").
Notes on individual essays:
- I highly recommend every essay in the first category to anyone interested in Galicia's history. "Erz-Herz-Perz" is particularly thorough and imaginative. "Time and Place" is hilarious and anyone who wants a good-spirited self-roast of postmodernism will delight in it. Americans may find food for thought in "The City-Ship", whose discussion of underlying tensions in "multicultural" Lviv brings to mind the American "melting pot" myth and its omissions.
- "Meeting Place Germaschka" examines emigration from the point of view of someone who chose to stay in the emigrated-from country. It may be fruitfully juxtaposed with literature written from the point of view of emigrants/immigrants.
- "What Language Are You From" is not about what you think it is. Yes, it discusses the Ukrainian language's living "in the shadow" of Russian on the international plane. But it is primarily a defense of Andrukhovych's decisions to write in Ukrainian to all speakers of hegemonic languages, including Western ones. (I don't think when he wrote it he knew he was going to have it translated into English!)
- "Seven Hundred Fierce Days", which is about Andrukhovych's tour of Ukraine during the week leading up to Yanukovych's flight from Ukraine in Feb. 2014, captures the radical change in how people relate to each other that Marci Shore documents in The Ukrainian Night. It and "Love and Hatred" cover some of the same ground, but "Seven Hundred Fierce Days" goes into much greater and more personal detail, while "Love and Hatred", originally written as an op-ed, is more skimmable.
The only essay I would suggest patience with is "Central-Eastern Revision". It meanders from topic to topic in such a way that you won't see what it's getting at until you've finished it. But it is well worth the read if you are interested in how the great events of the 20th century impacted individual lives.
March 10, 2022
Eine wirklich fantastische Essay-Sammlung. Ohne davor ein Wort von Yuri Andrukhovych gehört zu haben, kaufte ich mir es als Anschlusslektüre zu Kerstin Jobst "Geschichte der Ukraine". Ich wollte einen persönlicheren, näheren Blick auf die Ukraine, was diese Essay-Sammlung mit vielen Essays aus den 9oer Jahren in einer besonderen Art und Weise vermittelt. Von Lwiw, Kiev, über den Donbas, bis hin zu Andrukhovychs Heimatstadt Stanislau - Anekdoten, Gefühle und eine immer zu präsente Tristesse begleiten den Leser. Während Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Ukraine eine Rolle spielen, liegt der Fokus auf der oft bitteren Realität der Gegenwart eines Grenzlandes zwischen Osten und Westen, von Galizien bis zum Donbas, ein Land, das seinen Weg noch sucht. Nicht alle Essays mögen noch aktuell sein, dennoch, es lohnt sich.
April 13, 2024
Even though these essays were selected for an English-speaking audience, most of them were still over my head. I really enjoyed the first essay which is an autobiographical sketch, and also by far the longest piece. It was witty and lively with a trick ending that didn't feel manipulative like trick endings can. So we were rolling! Then we got really into geography and identity and I got lost, most strikingly with the essays Carpathologia Cosmophilica and the title essay. Cannot tell you what I read. The only other essay that I really enjoyed was "A Little Bit of Urban Studies" which compared Lviv and Kiev.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews