ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The success of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series can be attributed to the efforts and abilities of many individuals. The idea for the series belongs to Catharine Nepomnyashchy and Blair Ruble, who were, at the time the series was founded, the directors of the Harriman and Kennan Institutes, respectively. Blair also moderated Andrey Kurkov’s and Viktor Neborak’s events at Kennan, and his genuine interest in the series truly helped it progress over the years. I am grateful to Matthew Rojansky, Director of the Kennan Institute since 2013, for continuing to co-sponsor the series. Renata Kosc-Harmatiy was the primary organizer of the series on the Kennan side for its initial years; when Renata left the institute, Lidiya Zubytska, Liz Malinkin, and then Joseph Dressen took over. I organized and moderated all the series events at the Harriman and moderated all but the two abovementioned events at the Kennan. I thank all my colleagues at the Kennan Institute for their cooperation in this common endeavor.

It would not have been possible to conduct the Series as we wanted to—in English—without the efforts of our various interpreters: Yuri Shevchuk, Ali Kinsella, and Lesia Kalynska at the Harriman and Oles Berezhny, Matilda Kuklish, Peter Voitsekhovsky, and Roman Ponos at the Kennan. Thanks to Andrew Bihun and the Washington Group for sponsoring receptions for many of the Kennan Series events. A special thanks to Victor Morozov for tending to many of the Series guests while they were in Washington, D.C.

I am thankful to my fellow translators whose translations make up this volume: Michael M. Naydan, Virlana Tkacz, Wanda Phipps, Vitaly Chernetsky, Askold Melnyczuk, Olena Jennings, Patrick Cornesss, Natalia Pomirko, Bohdan Boychuk, Myrosia Stefaniuk, Yaryna Yakubyak, Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj, Jars Balan, Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky, and Svetlana Lavochkina. Without their talents and hard work, this volume would not have been possible.

I am grateful to Suhrkamp for allowing me to include translations of Yuri Andrukhovych’s essay “Iks, 1970-1986” and Serhiy Zhadan’s story “Vlasnyk naikrashchoho kluba dlia heiv” in the volume free of charge. Thank you to Andrey Kurkov’s publisher, Diogenes Verlag AG, for allowing me to include a translation of a fragment of his novel Lvovskaia gastrol Dzhimi Khendriksa also free of charge.

Some of the translations included in this volume have been published previously. My translation of the abovementioned Yuri Andrukhovych’s essay, entitled “The Star Absinthe: Notes on a Bitter Anniversary,” was first published by University of Toronto Press in My Final Territory: Selected Essays (2017). I am grateful to Sribne Slovo for allowing me to include in this volume the following translations of Viktor Neborak poems, which previously appeared in their publication The Flying Head and Other Poems (Lviv: Sribne Slovo, 2005): “Genesis of the Flying Head,” “Monologue from a Canine Pretext,” “A Drum-Tympanum,” “She,” “An Itty Bitty Ditty ‘bout Mr. Bazio,” and “Green sounds echo . . . .”

I thank Litopys for giving their permission to republish translations of two poems—Viktor Neborak’s “Fish” and Ivan Malkovych’s “At Home”—that had previously appeared in their anthology A Hundred Years of Youth, edited and compiled by Olha Luchuk and Michael M. Naydan (Lviv: Litopys, 2000).

Zephyr Press allowed us to republish the translation of the Viktor Neborak’s poem entitled “Supper” that appeared in From Three Worlds: New Writing from Ukraine, edited by Ed Hogan, Askold Melnyczuk, Michael Naydan, Mykola Riabchuk, and Oksana Zabuzhko (Boston, MA, and Moscow: Zephyr Press and Glas, 1996).

The following translations were previously published in the Fall 2010 issue of International Poetry Review, Vol. XXXVI—No. 2: Viktor Neborak’s “The Writer” and “The Poet”; Marjana Savka’s “My Beloved Sun” and “Organs of Sense”; and Ivan Malkovych’s “The Village Teacher’s Lesson” and “The Music That Walked Away.”

The following translated poems previously appeared in the online journal Poetry International Rotterdam (http://www.poetryinternational-web.net/pi/site/country/item/26): Ivan Malkovych’s “Bird’s Elegy” and “The Man”; Andriy Bondar’s “Jogging,” “Genes,” “Fantasy,” “Just Don’t Push Me Away,” “The Men of My Country,” “Slavic Gods,” and “The Roman Alphabet”; and Serhiy Zhadan’s “Paprika” and “Chinese Cooking.”

Much gratitude to Arrowsmith Press for allowing me to republish the following Askold Melnyczuk’s translations of Marjana Savka’s poems which first appeared in its publication Eight Notes from the Blue Angel (Medford, MA: Arrowsmith Press, 2007): “From a Short History of Dance,” “Who, Marlene, Who?,” “Books We’ve Never Read,” “In This City,” “For Yann Tiersen,” “Baghdad Night,” “Boston, April 2007,” and “Easter Jazz.”

Vasyl Gabor’s story “High Water” was first published in Ukrainian Literature: A Journal of Translations, Vol. 3 (October, 2011): 243-246.

Serhiy Zhadan’s “Alcohol” first appeared in New European Poets, edited by Kevin Prufer and Wayne Miller (Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2008) and “ . . . not to wake her up . . . .” in Two Lines World Writing in Translation (2007). Zhadan’s “Hotel Business” was first published in Absinthe: New European Writing 7 (2007).

A warm thanks to Ron Meyer and Nestor Gula whose careful eyes and subsequent editorial suggestions on some of the materials in this volume were a great help.

I am grateful to the Harriman Institute for rewarding this volume with a Faculty Publication Grant in 2016 which helped the book come to fruition. This volume was also co-recipient of a 2016 National Endowment for the Humanities grant. I am elated that the NEH acknowledges the importance of contemporary Ukrainian literature in the world today, and am thankful to them for supporting the widening of its presence in this world.

Thank you to Academic Studies Press, its Director and Publisher Igor Nemirovsky, and its Ukrainian Studies Series Editor Vitaly Chernetsky for believing in my idea for the White Chalk of Days anthology and for helping me to realize it. Thanks to Academic Studies Press acquisition editors Oleh Kotsyuba, Faith Wilson Stein, and Meghan Vicks. It was a pleasure working with them; their excitement about this project was infectious and inspiring.

I am thrilled that legendary artist Vlodko Kaufman and his unique talents are part of this anthology project and am grateful to him for providing his original drawings for the book’s design. Mr. Kaufman is a visual and performance artist, and is also Artistic Director of the Dzyga Art Association in Lviv, Ukraine. His work is tightly intertwined with many branches of the Ukrainian literary scene. Connected with Ukrainian literature since the 1970s when, as a student at the School for Applied Art in Lviv, Kaufman began associating with Hrytsko Chubai, he has designed many of the publications of post-Soviet Ukrainian writers. The writers featured in this anthology have regularly presented at Dzyga over the past twenty years.

Finally, I would like to thank all the authors who participated in the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series for trusting me, for agreeing to take part in the Series, and for making it so pleasurable and rewarding to present Ukrainian literature in the U.S. over the past nine years.

Mark Andryczyk