Description

Between 1968 and 1975 two prominent Ukrainian émigré writers and translators, Ihor Kostetsky and Oleh Zujewskyj, published a monumental two-volume edition of Ukrainian translations of poetry and prose by the charismatic German symbolist poet Stefan George (1868-1933), one of the most influential cultural figures in Germany in the early 20th century. Some literary critics, such as Robert Norton, considered George to be “one of the most famous men Germany has ever produced.” But in post-World War II Germany the legacy of this poet and cultural leader who was once called “the most powerful man in the world” has been marginalized and largely forgotten. Kostetsky’s and Zujewskyj’s edition represented in its time one of the most fundamental collections of George’s works in translation. Apart from the translations of George’s literary texts, the two volumes they published also included copious notes and commentaries as well as a 200-page introduction by Kostetsky, in which this leading Ukrainian intellectual used the figure of George as a model for his discussion of the evolution of Ukrainian literature within the general European context.

This current new two-volume hardcover edition of Вибраний Стефан Ґеорґе, edited by Marko Robert Stech, was published in Kyiv in March 2022 in the CIUS-sponsored series Україна і світ: Перехрестя культур [Ukraine and the World: The Crossroads of Cultures]. The objective of this series is to present exceptionally important (even though often not adequately known) accomplishments of Ukrainian writers, cultural figures, and intellectuals in an international context. Apart from the revised text of the original two-volume set, volume 2 of the current edition also contains an ample collection of Kostetsky’s letters to Zujewskyj, which reveal the historical context in which the original translations had been conceptualized and executed, as well as a lengthy and detailed review article about the original edition written by the Canadian literary scholar Oleksandra Chernenko.