The first decades of the eighteenth century were marked by an unbearable terror imposed on the Ukrainian people by

Peter I. It was the period when the first bans on the Ukrainian language publications (1721) were issued. Ukrainian scientists and talented people were either forced or lured to go to the culturally backward Russia. With the enthroning of Catherine II the Ukrainian nation was completely enslaved. It was no wonder that Ukrainian translation and belles-lettres in general fell into obscurity as a result of these oppressions. The official Russian language eventually took the upper hand. As a result, even the great philosopher H.Skovoroda had to perform his essentially free translations more in Russian than in bookish Ukrainian. His best known translations today are: an ode of the Flemish poet Hosiy (1504-1579), excerpts from Cicero's book On Old Age and Plutarch's work on Peace in One's Heart (translated in 1790). More prolific in translation than H.Skovoroda was his contemporary and fellow a Kyiv Mohyla Academy alumnus K.Kondratovych who translated Ovid's elegies (1759), twelve speeches by Cicero, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Cato's distichs (двовірші) and some other works by ancient Greek and Roman authors which remained unpublished, however.

The standstill in Ukrainian translation, which characterized the 17th and the larger part of the 18th centuries was broken in the last decade of the eighteenth century by the appearance of Pious Songs (Побожник) in 1791 in Pochaiv. This collection contained original Ukrainian poetic works, translations, free interpretations and free adaptations of pious songs and Psalms horn different languages into Ukrainian, Old Slavic and Polish. But the real outbreak and a regular epoch making event in Ukrainian literature, culture and translation happened at the very close of the eighteenth century, in 1797, when the first parts of I.Kotlyarevskyi's free adaptation (перелицювання) of Virgil's Депе came off the press in colloquial Ukrainian. The appearance of this brilliant work marked a significant historical turning-point in Ukrainian literature and culture. It had started a quite new period in the history of Ukrainian literary translation as well. Kotlyarevskyi's free adaptation of the Aeneid immediately began the eventual rejection of further translations in old bookish Ukrainian. It paved the way to a spontaneous, and uninterrupted functioning of spoken Ukrainian in original literature and in translated works. The first to have employed the manner of free interpretation after Kotlyarevskyi at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the poet and linguist P.Bilets'kyi-Nosenko who made a free adaptation of Ovid's epic poem under the title «Горпинида чи Вхопленая Прозерпина» (1818), which was published only in 1871. The artistic level of this free adaptation, however, could not compete in any way with the already popular free adaptation of the Aeneid by I. Kotlyarevskyi. As a result, it remained unpublished for more than five decades and consequently was unknown to Ukrainian readers.

Much more successful were free interpretations/free adaptations accomplished at a high literary level by the well-known Ukrainian poet P.Hulak-Artemovskyi. His free interpretation of I. Krassitski's Polish short poem under the title The Landlord and His Dog (1818) which he extended to more than fifty lines to become a regular poetic narrative, brought him recognition in Ukrainian literature. Free unextended translations were also made by this poet of Mickiewicz's ballads (Mrs. Twardowska), Gothe's poems (The Fisher), Horace's odes and some Psalms (from Old Slavic).

Almost the same year with Hrebinka published versification of Pushkin's poem Poltava, in a publishing house in Budapest was produced the historic Rusalka Dnistrovaya collection (1837) composed by M.Shashkevych, I. Vahylevych and Y.Holovats'kyi. This collection contained apart from these authors' own verses, translations by Vahylevych from the Czech (Kraledvorsky Manuscript), and from Old Ukrainian (The Tale of the Host of Ihor), as well as Y.Holovats'kyi's translation of Serbian songs. This collection marked the beginning of regular belles-lettres translations in Halychyna. Hence, the process of translation in Eastern (Russian) and Western (Austro-Hungarian) parts of divided Ukraine began and continued to develop at almost the same time and in the same manner, though the Eastern part of Ukraine had already several talented poets, prose writers, playwrights and translators. The greatest and the most influential of them in early 1840's was our national genius, poet and painter Taras Shevchenko. He had already succeeded to create his principal poetic masterpieces and had even successfully versified (1845) ten of David's Psa/msfrom Old Slavic into Ukrainian.

Participating in the process of unification of Ukrainian literature and culture into one national stream were also some other prominent figures of the first half and of the first decades of the second half of the nineteenth century. Among these were some already well-known Ukrainian poets and authors as Y.Hrebinka, M.Maksymovych, L.Borovykovs'kyi, Y.Fed'kovych (Austrian and German poetry), O.Shpyhots'kyi (Mickiewicz's works), K.Dumytrashko (The War between Frogs and Mice, from ancient Greek), M.Kostomarov (Byron's works), M.Staryts'kyi and others. All the above-mentioned poets and authors, though generally amateurish translators themselves, nevertheless inspired the succeeding men of letters to turn to this field of professional activity. Apart from these regular men of the pen, taking part in the process of translation were also some noted scientists as O.Potebnya and I. Puliuy and some others.

Soon, there appeared such great translators in Ukrainian literature as poets, authors and public figures P.Kulish, I.Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, O.Makoway and some others. P.Kulish (1819-1897), a close friend of T.Shevchenko, was also the first professional translator in the nineteenth century Ukraine. His large output includes the most outstanding works of Shakespeare (fifteen best-known tragedies and comedies, of worldwide renown, which were edited by I.Franko and published in 1902), Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (in blank verse), part of Don Juan and some other poems. He also translated several poems by Gothe, Schiller and Heine (from German), produced several free interpretations and free adaptations from Russian poetry (Pushkin, Fet, Nikitin, A.Tolstoy, D.Minayev). He was also the first to translate The Psalter (1879) and the Bible (together with Puliuy and Nechuy-Levyts'kyi) into contemporary Ukrainian. In addition, Kulish is the author of the contemporary Ukrainian alphabet.

The second half of the nineteenth century was marked by a regular revival of translation in Ukraine on the one hand and by ever increasing suppressions and direct prohibitions of the Ukrainian language and culture in Czarist Russia on the other (Valuyev's edict of 1863 and the Czar's Ems decree of 1876). As a result, the publishing of Ukrainian translations and works of Ukrainian national authors in general was greatly hindered. It survived only thanks to the Halychyna (Western Ukraine) publishers who received financial support from wealthy Ukrainian patriotic sponsors, whose names deserve to be mentioned again and again. Among the most influential of them were V.Symyrenko, Y.Chykalenko, M.Arkas and others.

During the period of these humiliating Czarist suppressions of Ukrainian literature and culture in the 1860's, 1880's and 1890's, many outstanding Ukrainian translations could not be published. This happened to accurate versifications of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey by O.Navrots'kyi and to the versified parts of the Odyssey and the Iliad by P.Nishchyns'kyi. Only much later were the free interpretation of the Iliad (Ільйонянка) by S.Rudans'kyi also published, along with excerpts of Homeric poems versified by P.Kulish, O.Potebnya, I. Franko, Lesya Ukrainka and some other translators. There was soon felt a general upsurge in the domain of literary translation during the second half of the nineteenth century in the Austro-Hungarian (Western) part of Ukraine. There translations or rather free adaptations began to appear at first in magazines and journals Dzvin, Zorya, Bukovyna, Dilo and others. Somewhat later, during the 1870's, larger works of West European and American authors in Ukrainian translation came off the press. Not all these works of art were translated directly from the original, however. Some had been accomplished first through Polish or German languages as it was with Y.Fed'kovych's translation of parts of Shakespeare's Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew, though his versification of Uhland's and Schiller's poems were achieved from their original (German) language.

Probably among the very first almost real translations published in Halychyna (Austrian part of Ukraine) in 1870's - 1880's were A.Dumas' Notes of the Old Captain (1874), H.Beecher-Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (published in 1877) and A.Daudet's novel Zouave (1887) brought into Ukrainian by O.Ovdykows'kyi. Among the almost regular translations was J.Edward's work Stephen Lawrence (1881) rendered into Ukrainian by N.Romanovych-Tkachenko and the free translation of C.Dickens' Christmas Carol (1880), The Cricket in the Hearth (1891) and somewhat later, of Oliver Twist. Freely interpreted/adapted were also some works by F.Bret Harte, Mark Twain and a number of others to be named later. Hence, the translation and publishing activity during the last decades of the nineteenth century in Halychyna and in neighbouring Bukovyna (Chernivtsi) and to some extent in Transcarpathia (Uzhhorod) was gathering momentum. An influential role in this process played the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society founded in 1873 (Lviv) and its Literary Journalwhere the best translations were published. In large measure, those translations appeared due to the titanic achievements in the domain of literary artistic translation of I. Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, O.Makoway among other great Ukrainian men and women of letters. This was also a political breakthrough which openly ignored the czarist prohibition of the Ukrainian language, literature and culture.

The Literary Journal and prior to it the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society itself received financial support from some personal funds belonging to such great patriots of Ukraine as P.Pelekhin, T.Dembyts'kyi, M.Hrushevskyi, O.Ohonovs'kyi, A.Bonchevs'kyi, O.Konys'kyi. The Literary Journal was also supported financially by the D.Mordovets' and I. Kotlyarevs'kyi social funds. Due to the support it managed to publish only in the first decade of the twentieth century the works of the following authors: Conan Doyle, T.S.Eliot (1903), Mark Twain (1904,1906), poetic works of West European and Russian authors translated by P.Hrabovs'kyi, some works of O.Wilde (1904), K.Ritter (1906), E.A.Poe (1906,1912), J.Milton (1906), works of some Australian authors (translated by I. Franko, 1910), as well as works of such well-known English and American authors as R.Kipling (1904,1910), C.Roberts (1911), C.Dickens and H.Longfellow (The Song of Hiawatha), (1912), J.London (1913) and several others.

Among the translators of these and other works besides I. Franko and his son Petro Franko were later N.Romanovych-Tkachenko, O.Mykhalevych, PKarmans'kyi, O.OIes', I.Petrusevych, D.Dontsov, Y.Siryi, A.Voloshyn, M.Lozyns'kyi, V.Stepankovs'kyi, M.Zahirnya, and some others.

The revival of literary translation in Eastern and Western parts of Ukraine in early 70's and especially in the 1880's was greatly enhanced by the creative work of one of the most prolific Ukrainian poets, playwrights, philosophers, scientists and public figures I. Franko (1856-1916). He began his manifold activities as a patriotically minded realist who expressed his ardent wish for his nation to attain freedom, a better life and education opportunities. Franko purposely turned to enriching his native belles-lettres with masterpieces of world literature in which he addressed the need of his native people in all genres of belles-lettres, philosophies and arts. To achieve this gigantic task, I.Franko would employ any possible way of conveying the content and artistic peculiarities of other nations' literary works. He employed faithful translation alongside of free interpretation and free adaptation or rehash (переробка) both of prose and poetic works from most contemporary and ancient European as well as Arabic, Persian and Indian languages. During his brilliant 40-year literary career, this creative giant managed to translate into Ukrainian thousands of poetic, prose, drama, historic and scientific works of almost all outstanding representative authors and poets from the richest traditions of world literature and culture. In his fifty-volume collection of works, which came off the press in Kyiv in 1970's, seven large volumes were dedicated solely to versification drawn from different languages and cultures of the world. His faithful translations, free interpretations and free adaptations originated from works created by scores of various authors spanning from ancient times until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Separate volumes in the collection are dedicated to Babylonian and ancient Greek, Indian and Arabian literary works as well as to contemporary Slavic, Italian, German, Austrian, Swiss and other literatures. Franko's methods of versifying foreign poetic works were aimed at acquainting Ukrainian readers with the world's best samples of poetic art. An active role in introducing Ukrainian readers to best works of other literatures was also played by Franko's close friend Osyp Makoway (1867-1925). He translated H.Heine (1885) from German, prose works from Polish (H.Sienkiewicz, E.Orzceczkowa, I.Dombrowski, S.Zeromski), Austrian (H.Sudermann, M.Ebner-Eschenbach, M.Konrad), Danish (E.P.Jakobsen), American (Mark Twain), British (Jerome K.Jerome), French (E.M.Prevost) and from other languages.

Among the most active Ukrainian translators after P.Kulish and I.Franko was our greatest poetess Lesya Ukrainka (1871 - 1913). She completed faithful prose translations of G.Hauptman's drama The Weavers and M.Maeterlinck's drama L'lntmse (in Ukrainian Неминуча). Besides these she also successfully translated some prose works of L.Yakobovsky (from German), P.G.Etzel and G.d'Espardes (from French), E.De Amicis (from Italian) as well as Franko's works into Russian. Lesya Ukrainka left behind a considerable number of faithful versifications as well as free versifications (переспіви) from all major European literary traditions. She began translating in the 1880's, with most of her versifications being drawn from her favourite German poet H.Heine, to whose works she turned again and again for over thirty years. From French poets, she chose the works of V.Hugo, from English G.G.Byron's works and excerpts from Shakespeare's Macbeth, from Italian some poems (or parts of them) by Ada Negri and Dante's works. She also translated poetic excerpts from ancient Indian, Egyptian and Greek. Besides these achievements Lesya Ukrainka translated into Ukrainian several Russian works (S.Y.Nadson, I. Turgenev and N.Gogol) as well as works by the outstanding Polish poets A.Mickiewicz and M.Konopnitska.

Alongside of these literary giants, were some other translators of prose and poetic works who contributed considerably to the Ukrainian literature and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of considerable note is PHrabovskyi (1864-1902), who made both faithful translations and free versifications of many works by several prominent poets of different national literatures. While still in his homeland, and later during his Siberian deportation, he versified (on the basis of interlinear translations) the works of great lyric poets as well as patriotically and socially expressive poets from several national languages. He chooses from English and American poets R.Burns, T.Hood, T.Moor, P.B.Shelley, H.W.Longfellow; from German H.Heine, L.Uhland, F.Freiligrath; from French C.Baudelair, O.Barbier; from Hungarian S.Petofi; from Bulgarian Kh.Botev; from Polish M.Konopnitska and from Russian K.Ryleyev, N.Nekrasov and some others. All these translations, like many others to be mentioned below were published primarily in Halychyna, where the Ukrainian language and literary activity was not forbidden as in czarist Russia.

During this same period P.Hrabovs'kyi worked with another prolific author and translator M.Staryts'kyi (1840-1906), who acquainted Ukrainian readers with a number of faithfully versified Serbian folk ballads (dumas) and poems of Yu. Slowacki (Poland). He also successfully versified the poems of Lermontov, Nekrasov and other Russian authors. Besides, M.Staryts'kyi also composed a very faithful versification of Hamlet's monologue (Shakespeare).

With the growing influence of the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society in mid 1880's and especially in the 1890's and early 1900's more and more Ukrainian men of letters took part in the process of literary artistic translation. Thus, I. Belay (1856-1921) completed translations from works of French authors Erckmann-Chatrian and the Spanish author Pedro de Alarcon. He also translated C.Dickens' Christmas Carol (under the title The New Year Bells). The poet K.Bilylovskyi (1856-1938) versified some best-known poems and ballads of J.W.Gothe, F.Schiller, H.Heine and also one of T.Shevchenko's poems into German. The author and polyglot TBordulyak (1863-1936) also began his literary activity in the 1880's and 1890's with the translation of some I.Turgenev's and F.Dostoyevskyi's prose works. Later, he translated several works from German (H.Heine, N.Lenau), Hungarian (K.Mikszat), Polish (H.Sienkiewicz), ancient Greek (Sophocles' Electra), Italian (some cantos from Dante's The Divine Comedy), as well as from old Ukrainian (The Tale of the Host oflhor).

Many translations from a variety of foreign literary traditions were accomplished in the first decades of the twentieth century by less known today authors and poets. Among these was the Stalinist terror victim O.SIuts'kyi (1883-1941), who actively participated in the social, political and cultural life in Halychyna. He translated from Czech (J.Machar's poem Napoleon, 1902), from Russian I.Turgenev's poetic prose (1903), from Polish S.Vesnyanski's poem Deaf of Ophelia (1907), from German H.Hofmannsthal's drama Deaf of Titian (1918) and other works. To be mentioned is also V.Borovyk (1863-1938), who translated J.Milton's Paradise Lost and some prose works of the Russian authors (V.Harshyn, G.Machtet). Active during the first decades of the 20th century was also the poet M. Vdowychenko (1876-1919), who translated several works into Ukrainian from Polish (Mickiewicz, Konopnicka) and Russian (Pushkin, Lermontov, Korolenko) belles-lettres.

An outstanding poet and a brilliant master of poetic versification was M.Voronyi (1871-1937) who made an incomparably great contribution to Ukrainian belles-lettres and to artistic translation from different foreign languages. A victim of the Stalinist terror against the Ukrainian intellectuals in the 1930's, M.Voronyi successfully versified poetic works from French (E.Pottier, Rougetde Lisle, S.Prud'homme, P.Verlaine, M.Maeterlinck); German (H.Heine), Italian (part of Dante's Divine Comedy), English (Shakespeare), as well as from Eastern belles-letters (Japanese and Persian).

But undoubtedly the most active translators in the first decades of the twentieth century (with the exception of I. Franko and Lesya Ukrainka) were the members of the Hrinchenkos family. The outstanding poet, author, literary critic, editor and lexicographer Borys Hrinchenko (1863-1910) accomplished translations/versifications and free translations, which were mostly shortened versions of the originals, from works of German and Austrian classical authors (J.W.Gothe, F.Schiller, H.Heine, G.Hauptmann, A.Schnizler), from French belles-lettres (V.Hugo, A.France), from English (D.Defoe), Polish (B.Cherwinski) and Russian (A.Pushkin, A.Maikov, A.PIeshcheyev). B.Hrinchenko's wife, Maria Zahirnya (1863-1928), employed both translation and free adaptation of classical works by H.A.Andersen, A.Daudet, H.Beecher-Stowe, H.Ibsen, H.Sudermann, M.Maeterlinck, C.Goldoni, Mark Twain and also works by L.Tolstoi, I. Turgenev, M.Saltykov-Shchedrin, D.Mamin-Sibiryak, M.Leskov among others. Their daughter Nastya Hrinchenko (1884-1908) actively participated in the creation of a whole Ukrainian juvenile library which comprised works by foreign authors hitherto unknown or little known to our young readers. She completed Ukrainian adaptations and edited or truncated works of the authors who enjoyed popularity during those years: Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), H.Ibsen (Hedda Habler and The Sea Woman), of some better known works of French (A.France), German (H.Saudermann), Danish (H.Brandes), Italian (E.De Amicis) and South African (O.Schreiner) and other authors.

This veritable constellation of patriotic men of letters and translators would be incomplete without the well-known poet and translator V.Samiylenko (1864-1925) whose translations were mostly from the Romance languages. He began in 1887 with the translation of a part of Homer's Iliad, which was followed by ten cantos of Dante's The Divine Comedy (1902), Blasco Ibahez's Small Cabin (Хатина, 1910), Moliere'sand Bernard's comedies (1901-1917), Mendes' poetic works (1919) and others. Needless to say that like almost all translations and original works of Ukrainian authors of the second half of the nineteenth century, Samiylenko's own poetic works and translations were published in Halychyna as well.

A place of high honour among these translators also belongs to the greatest Ukrainian polyglot (over 60 European and also Arabic, Persian and other languages), who was a prominent linguist, poet and versifier from many Eastern (Arabic, Persian, Indian) and Western European languages, a close friend of Lesya Ukrainka and Ivan Franko and a tragic victim of Stalinist terror Ahatangel Krymskyi (1871-1942). He was the first to acquaint the Ukrainian readers with the greatest Persian and Tadjik poets Hafiz, Rudaki, Saadi, Firdousi and others. Apart from Eastern belles-lettres A.Krymskyi translated also the poetic works of English (Byron), German (Heine), Russian (Kol'tsov, Nekrasov) and other European poets.

Our history of belles-lettres translation in the twentieth century divides into some primarily unfavourable and trying times for the Ukrainian people. The first and the shortest period embraces the years 1917-1921, when the close ties which had existed before between the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian parts of Ukraine were fully restored as a result of Ukraine's gaining independence in 1917. During that short and unstable period of two wars with Bolshevist Russia not much could be translated. Hence, fiction works previously translated and published in Lviv, Chernivtsi or other places were now republished in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava and other cities of Ukraine. Some of the translated works were brought from Halychyna (Western part of Ukraine) where books were published by the Vsesvitnya Biblioteka (World Library). The publishing house was founded by I. Kalynovych. This publishing house issued translated works of different foreign authors during 1914,1917-1921. Among the published works were Poems by F.Schiller (1914), Dramatic Works by A.Pushkin, the well-known poem Hermann and Dorothea by J.W.Gothe, the comedy Clouds by Aristophanes, narratives by H.Hofmannsthal, Death of Titian, The Rolland Song (all published in 1918), and others. Among their translators were I. Franko, O.Luts'kyi, P.Dyatlov, V.Shchurat and others. These translated works could also be read in the then Ukraine. Among the very first to appear as early as 1917-1918 in Ukraine were also J.London's Stories of the North (translated by N.Romanovych-Tkachenko) and some other works translated before (The Happy Prince by O.Wilde, Treasure Island by R.C.Stevenson, Uncle Tom's Cabin by H.Beecher-Stowe, etc.). Quite a new Ukrainian translation which appeared among the notables during those years was, however, J.London's Iron Hee/(1918) accomplished by V.Trotsyna and a few others. Practically republished during the first and last years of Ukraine's independence in 1920-1921 were also several works of R.Kipling (Mowgli, 1920), E.A.Poe (The Red Death, 1922), W.Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew, 1922) and some others.

The artistic level of those translations, which were mostly free adaptations (except The Iron Heel, which was neither shortened nor adapted), left much to be desired. They mostly contained many lexico-semantic, syntactic/structural and stylistic inexactitudes which could often even pervert the meaning of the original sense units, as it was the case with V.Trotsyna's translation of The Iron Heel. The Ukrainian version of this J.London's work was marked by very many conspicuous literalisms of all kinds. There were, naturally, a few regular faithful translations too, as, for example, the little shortened O.OIes's versification of H.Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha reprinted in Kharkiv in 1923 (after first being published in Lviv in 1912).

The second period, this time in Soviet Ukraine's history of translation, began in 1923-1925 with the adoption of highly promising plans for the next 5 to 10 years (up to 1930's) which were supposed to give the readers separate works and collections of translated belles-lettres works by many outstanding foreign authors. The first to appear were partly abridged J.F.Cooper's novels of the Leather Stocking series: The Deerslayer translated by O.Baikar (pen name of F.Shelud'ko), The Pathfinder (translated by M.Lebedynets'), and The Spy (an abridged and free translation by D.Kardynalovs'kyi). A still larger, twenty-seven brochure-size volume collection of Jack London's works (originally planned as a fifty-volume collection) appeared during 1927-1932. This collection was prepared by the translators M.Ryabova, M.Lysychenko, M.Gray, O.Burhardt, I. Ryl'skyi (M.Ryl'skyi's brother) and others. Probably the highest level of prose interpretation in the 1920's and 1930's was shown by Mykola Ivanov (1886 -1945), who translated into Ukrainian several masterpieces from French (Rabelais' GargantuaandPantagruel), English (J.F.Cooper, H.G.Wells, W.Shakespeare) and other languages. Translations of high artistic quality were always produced by Lesya Ukrainka's sister Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk (1877-1945), who began translating as far back as 1892 (C.Dickens' short stories). She selected for Ukrainian children the best prose works by E.Seton-Thompson, R.Kipling, George Sand, P.Loti and others. Her translations continued to be published during Ukraine's independence in 1918 as well. She also translated some novels of Guy de Maupassant {Our Heart, 1930), A.Dumas' Queen Margot (1930), V.Hugo's The Year of Ninety-Three, Les Miserables (1932), short stories by I.Turgenev and other works of great authors. Undoubtedly the most outstanding translator of poetic works during 1920's - early 1930's was Mykola Zerov (1890-1937). As a professor and scholar in ancient literatures and in the field of translation, he improved and successfully applied new, effective methods of faithful versification, which established his leading position among the Neoclassicists and Ukrainian translators. Among Zerov's accomplishments were several brilliant translations of works by ancient Greek, Roman and West European poets. His first collection was comprised of works authored by several Roman poets (Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, and Martial) and was published in the Anthology of Roman Poets (Kyiv, 1920). These translations represented a paragon of truly artistic versification for many years to come. M.Zerov managed to faithfully convey not only their main content, but also the artistic merits and the spirit (pragmatic orientation) of the originals. His translations maintain the ease and poetic beauty found in each original author's work. An ardent fighter against any translations of doubtful artistic quality as well as against any author's works of this kind, Zerov supported the ideas of M.Khvylyovyi who raised his voice in support of the «West European» way of development of arts. He defined as «Asiatic» the Communist or «proletarian», as it was officially called, way of development of literature and arts in the U.S.S.R. Zerov not only shared this view of Khvylyovyi but also practically realized the main principles of Khvylyovyi through his exemplary original and translated poems. A really high artistic level of Zerov's versification was confirmed again in his new collection of translations published in 1923 which included, apart from the Roman poets, also the works of the French poet J.Heredia (1842-1905). The up-to-date methods of artistic versification and adherence to neoclassicism in opposition to the inconsistent artistic translation of poetic works of the day, made the Communist critics, who were ignorant of and hostile to neoclassicism even more incensed. As a result, M.Zerov, P.Fylypovych, M.Draikhmara and hundreds of other outstanding Ukrainian poets, authors and scientists were arrested in early 1930's and suffered a martyr's death during the waning days of October and the first days of November 1937 in Sandarmokh (Karelia), but their mass graves were found in deep forest only in 1997. Their execution was dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917.»

All translations by the Neoclassicists illustrated the highest level of artistic versification of the 1920's and 1930's in regard to content, artistic merits, and pragmatic orientation of each foreign belles-lettres work. A standard of masterly versification during the years of the so-called Ukrainian renaissance, however, were and will always remain Zerov's translations. He occupies a leading position as an exemplary poetic master whose versifications even today, more than 70 years after their publication, remain artistically complete and mostly unsurpassed. Another prominent place in the constellation of the Neoclassicists belongs to the poet Oswald Burhardt, pen name Yuriy Klen (1897-1947), who happened to survive during the Bolshevist holocaust and terror in the 1920's and 1930's probably because of his German descent. His first significant Ukrainian collection of German poets (The Iron Sonnets) appeared in 1925 and was followed by more translations of world's greatest English, German and French poets (Shakespeare, Shelley, Gothe, Rilke, Rembaud, Valery, Mallarme, Verlaine and others). Close to O.Burghardt stood M.Draikhmara (1889-1937), who also pursued the aim of enriching our literature and culture via faithful artistic versification and who met his martyr's death together with M.Zerov in Sandarmokh in 1937. He translated mainly the works of the most outstanding French poets (S.Bodlaire, P.Verlaine, S.Leconte de Lisle, S.Mallarme, Sully Prud'homme) and completed Dante's The Divine Comedy, which was confiscated by the NKVD1 during his arrest and was never found again after that. He also translated Polish (A.Mickiewicz), Czech (J.Hora, J.Mahard), Russian (A.Pushkin, M.Lermontov, A.BIok, S.Yesenin) and poets of other nationalities.

Unquestionably, the most outstanding place among the surviving Neoclassicists, and one who made a significant contribution to llki.unian literature and culture by his poetic translation, belongs to Maxym Rylskyi (1895-1964). He outlasted all his co-literary companions and managed to introduce via his high quality Ukrainian translations many masterpieces of world literature. His translations originated from Polish (Mickiewicz, Slowacki), French (Hugo, Verlaine, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, Voltaire, Musset, Gautier, Heredia, Maeterlinck), German (Gothe), Russian (Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Blok) and other national literatures. M.Rylskyi was also a very active literary OTltlc of translation who practically laid the foundation for scientific Ukrainian criticism of belles-lettres translation in Soviet times. His won grounded theoretical articles and reviews of several translations helped considerably to raise the level of faithfulness in the succeeding prose and poetic translations in Ukraine.

The number of Ukrainian poets/authors who were also translators, and victims to the Bolshevist terror in the 1920's and 1930's, by far exceeds, however, the whole group of the Neoclassicists. Worth mentioning, at least briefly, among them are first and foremost the following: the brilliant poet, researcher and translator M.Johansen (1895-1937), who left behind quality translations from English (G.G.Byron, E.A.Poe and H.G.Wells); D.Zahul (1890-1937), who inslated from German (H.Heine, F.Schiller, J.W.Gothe, J.Becher), I i.inish (Andersen-Noxe); I. Kulyk (1897-1937), who translated the works of W.Whitman; M.lrchan (1897-1937), whose translations were from Polish, Czech and German literatures and V.Bobynskyi (1898-1938), the translator of some works of Polish, French, Russian and German authors.

Because of the Bolshevist terror and suppression during the mid 1920's and all through the 1930's, the far-reaching plans of publishing foreign belles-lettres translations adopted in 1923-1925, were only partly realized. There were published only incomplete collections of novels/narratives and separate best-known works by the world's most outstanding authors. Thus, from French belles-lettres there appeared some new translations (together with the republished ones during 1929-1930) of Zola's eighteen-volume collection of prose works, which were accomplished by the then familiar, and the now unknown translators, as N.Romanovych-Tkachenko, O.Pashkevych, K.Rubinskyi, K.Kakhykevych, O.Yezernets'ka, A.Volkovych, M.ll'tychna, V.Dubrovskyi, L. and V.Pakharevskyi, V.Chernyakhivs'ka, the young M.Tereshchenko and some others. In the same years Guy de Maupassant's ten volume collection came off the press in Kyiv and Kharkiv, some of his novels/narratives being republished without any changes from their nineteenth century translations. Among the translators were O.Kosach-Kryvyniuk, V.Shchurat, B.Kozlovskyi, M.Vyshnivska, Ye.Tymchenko, Ivan and M.Ryl'skyis, V.Derzhavyn, V.Pidmohyl'nyi and others. Some separate works of great French authors already known to Ukrainian readers from the nineteenth century translations, published in Halychyna, were republished in late 1920s - early and mid 1930's as well. These were A.Daudet's most popular works as Letters from the Windwill (1926), Tartarin from Tarascon (1936) and also some others translated in the preceding years by I. Franko, M.Chaichenko (Hrinchenko), M.Hrushevs'ka, V.Shcherbakivska, M.lvanov and A.Lyubchenko. Among these were also Honore de Balzac's works, some of which had also been translated in the nineteenth century. Thus, in 1895 Father Gorio came off the press in M.Podolyns'kyi's translation, and in 1927 it appeared under the title Gorio in S.Rodzevych'es qualified translation. Apart from these, translated and published were some other of Balzac's famous works as La Peau de Chagrin (1929) in V.Vrazhlyvyi's (Shtan'ko) translation, the Poor Relatives and Cousine Bette (1929) respectively in Y.Starynkevych'es and Y.Drobyazko's Ukrainian versions. In the 1920's and 1930's there were translated, republished or retranslated well-known works by J.Verne, among the translators being already familiar names of N.Romanovych-Tkachenko, A.Bilets'kyi, TChortoryz'ka, E.Rzhevuts'ka and others. No less frequently translated and published were also works by PMerime, namely: Colomba (1927), Carmen (1930), The Chronicle of King Charles /X(1930), Jacquerie (1936), which were translated respectively by M.Konstantynopols'kyi, S.Buda, M.Tereshchenko and others. The list of the French authors would be incomplete without H.Malot (1830-1907), whose work Without Kith and Kin (Without A Family) was twice translated and published in 1926 and 1931.

Very popular with Ukrainian readers during the late 1920's and all through the 1930's were two French language Belgian authors: Ch. de Coster with his highly artistic novel Till Ulenspiegel, which first appeared in a shortened version (1928) in L.Krasovs'kyi's translation end its second almost complete edition in Y.Yegorova's and S.Sakydon's translation of 1935, and M.Maeterlinck, whose works wore translated by P.Hrabovs'kyi, L.Ukrayinka and later by M.Voronyi, M loreshchenko, M.Ryl'skyi, Ye.Tymchenko and others.

A considerably more important place in the 1920's and 1930's belonged to translation of classical British and American authors whose novels, narratives, short stories and poems were not well-known to now Ukrainian readers. The list of the most outstanding authors was headed by such prominent names as C.Dickens, whose works, as was mentioned, appeared in Ukrainian as far back as 1880 (Christmas) and 1882 (The Chimes) which were translated respectively by Y ( Hosnyts'kyi and I. Belay. In the 1930's some other works of the were published, namely: A Tale of Two Cities, Dombey and ІОЛ (both in 1930), The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1937), David Copperfield (1939). These and other works were presented by the highly qualified translators N.Surovtseva, V.Chernyakhivs'ka, M.lvanov, M.Saharda, K.Shmyhovs'kyi, YKorets'kyi «nd others. In 1928 appeared a two-volume collection of Conan Doyle's selected works and a separate edition of The Lost World which was followed by The Dog of the Baskerville's (1937). The works were translated by M.lvanov, S.Vilkhovyi, M.Kalynovych, V.Petrovs'kyi, 11 Knsyanenko, M.Roshkovs'kyi, M.Lysychenko and others. In 1930 l l Voynich's narrative Jack Richmond was published in M.Lysychenko's and M.Ryabova's translation. The 1920's and 1930's llto witnessed the appearance of some other works by prominent English and American authors in Ukrainian translation. These were d.issical works directed toward juvenile readers for the main part. The in si to be published and republished (also in Halychyna), which fell under Polish occupation, were the works of G.K.Chesterton, H.B.Beecher-Stowe, R.L.Stevenson, W.Shakespeare (A Midsummer Niqht's Dream, 1927, all published in L'viv), H.G.Wells (1928), D.Defoe (1929, L'viv), W.Scott (Quentin Dorward, 1931), E.L.Voynich (The Gadfly, 1929, 1936, 1939), J.Conrad (1925, 1928 - two volumes), R.Kipling, C.Bronte and others. As to American authors, whose works wore repeatedly published in Ukrainian translation in those years, Mark I w.iin should be mentioned first (The Adventures of Tom Sawyerand The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), as well as E.A.Poe's detective stories, O.Henry's stories (published in 1924,1926,1928,1930) and the narrative Cabbages and Kings (1932) first translated into Ukrainian by M.Ryabova.

As a result, there appeared several works containing much і evolutionary spirit and having mediocre artistic value. Ukrainian reader, received now works by authors who were practically unknown in the West such as C.Bercovici (collections of his Short Stories, 1927, 1929), M.Gold {Short Stories, 1929; Selected Poems, 1931), Myra Page (The Approaching Storm, 1934). There were also published some real belles-lettres works of T.Dreiser (Short Stories, 1929,1930); novels of J.Dos Passos (Manhattan, 1933; The Soldiers, 1934 and others); a several volume collection of U.Sinclair's novels, some of which were changed into plays and staged (Jimmy Higgins), etc. There also began to be translated and published works of this trend from German (B.Kellermann, W.Bredel, B.Brecht, E.Weinert, F.Wolf, A.Seghers), French (A.Barbusse, LAragon), Russian (R.Panfiorov, M.Shaginyan), etc. Translation of belles-lettres was also carried out in the 1920's and 1930's in Western parts of Ukraine occupied by Poland and I tumania (Chernivtsi region). Active in the Polish part of Ukraine were such prominent public figures and scientists as V.Shchurat, who hanslated mostly English and French poets, P.Karmans'kyi (French, German, Italian poets) and M.Rudnyts'kyi, who usually accomplished free interpretations of Honore de Balzac's and P.Merimee's works. During this period notable Ukrainian diaspora translators also actively worked in Western countries (O.OIes', S.Hordyns'kyi and others). Their translations, naturally, remained unknown to Ukrainian readers who lived behind the Iron Curtain.

The late 1930's and the beginning of 1940's marked the end of the second period in Soviet Ukraine's history of translation. The defining characteristic of this period was a gradual rebirth and active development of belles-lettres translation at its initial stage and a slowdown with apparent symptoms of stagnation at its closing stage. Persecutions, trials, murders and deportations to the Far North or to Siberia of many prominent Ukrainian translators such as M.Zerov, D.Zahul, V.Mysyk, M.Drai-Khmara, V.Pidmohyl'nyi, B.Ten, S.Fylypovych, H.Kochur and several others prevented them from enriching the Ukrainian literary tradition with masterpieces of world literature. The terror during these times almost stopped the entire process of cultural revival which had been initiated in Ukraine during the early 1920's. As I result, there remained only a few active translators who continued to acquaint the Ukrainian readers during the 1930's and early 1940's with the best works of Western and Eastern belles-lettres. Their list is short and includes M.Ryl'skyi (he translated Polish, French and Russian poetry), M.lvanov (English and French prose works), Y.Korets'kyi (Byron, Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens, Mayakovs'kiy), LPervomais'kyi (German poets) and the mediocre versifier M.Zisman (Gothe, Schiller, Lermontov.

The Second World War and the German occupation of Ukraine had for three years completely stopped any belles-lettres translation in the country. Hence, all work had to begin anew in 1944-1945 with the establishing of the publishing houses and republishing of some translations, which were completed before the war. Only in late 1940's the first newly translated foreign belles-lettres works began to appear in Ukrainian, though their number was very small. Therefore, the years 1944-1950 constitute a transitional period in the history of Soviet Ukrainian translation. Only in early 1950's, and especially after Stalin's death in 1953, the first signs of revival in belles-lettres translation began to be really felt. It became finally a reality only during Khrushchov's «thaw» and after the return from the concentration camps of some outstanding translators. This coincided with the peak in the literary activity of Ukraine's most versatile translator Mykola Lukash. The condemnation of Stalin's cult of personality in late 1950's loosened for a short time the ideological grip on Ukrainian intelligentsia. As a result, there appeared a war-hardened generation of talented and patriotically minded editors and translators, who graduated after the war from philological faculties of universities and institutes. It was during those years that several new editorial departments for translating works from foreign languages were opened at some major publishing houses. It was then that the question of quality of the translated belles-lettres works seriously and officially arose. As a consequence, in 1956 Oleksa Kundzich published his critical articles on the state of literary translation in Ukraine, in which he put forward a categorical demand to reject literalism and improve the artistic level of translation. In 1958, after a twenty-four years hiatus the translators' Vsesvit journal came to life again. Thus, during the late 1950's and early 1960's, when the natural revival of artistic translation and its scientific criticism had almost taken root, the third period in Ukraine's history of Iftnslation began. It was soon marked in the mid 1960's, however, with new persecutions and reprisals against such prominent translations H.Kochur, M.Lukash,I.Switlychnyi,V.Marchenko,I.Yushchuk, A.Perepadya, R.Dotsenko, O.Terekh and others, who were in the of the Sixties Movement. They came under longer and heavy fire of the Communist ideologists. This last wave of Soviet persecutions and reprisals against Ukrainian intellectuals slowed down only in the IN irlod of Gorbachov's restructuring (Perestroika) during 1985-1989. The third period in Soviet Ukrainian translation was also marked by the common understanding of the need for higher standard of artistic requirements, which were finally put before all translators of belles-letter by noted literary critics in the late 1950's and early 1960's. It was then that many regular samples of faithfully translated works of great foreign literary masters were published. This inspired the succeeding generation of post-war translators to follow the fine example of Ryl'skyi, Lukash, Mysyk, Tereshchenko, Borys Ten, and others. The older generation of translators, who were active already during the late 1920's and early 1930's and who produced highly faithful translations, were represented by some masters of the pen. First place among them belongs to Maksym Ryl'skyi (1895-1964), the patriarch the twentieth century Ukrainian translation, who has created highly skilled poetic versifications from Polish (A.Mickiewicz's, Yu.Slowacki's and Yu.Tuwim's major works) and Russian (works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Blok, Voloshyn). But un doubt fully the greatest number of smaller and larger poetic works were translated from French: J.PMolliere's Tartuffe, The Marriage of Figaroby P.Beaumarchais, as well as Sidby P.Corneille, Fedra by J.Racine, The Misanthrope and I he Poetic Arts by N.Boileau, the Virgin of Orleans by F- M.Voltaire, and also several smaller poems of V.Hugo, A.de Musset, T.Gautier, J.Heredia, P.Verlaine, M.Maeterlinck, and others. Ryl'skyi has also translated some English poets (Shakespeare). Among the first-rate masters of the pen is also Valerian Pidmohyl'nyi (1901-1938), a prominent Ukrainian prose writer and translator who found his martyr's death together with M.Zerov, M.Draikhmara, L.Kurbas and hundreds of other Stalinist GULAG victims in Sandarmokh in late October or oarly November 1937. He succeeded in recreating several masterpieces of French belles-lettres, among them being The Prison by P. Amp, Candidby D.Diderot, Letters from the Windmillby A.Daudet, Colomba by PMerimee, works by J.Verne and J.Romanis. During 1927-1930 he prepared and edited Balzac's and E.Zola's (18 volumes) as well as G.de Maupassant's 10 volume works. He also translated H.Flaubert's Madame Bovaryand V.Hugo's Ninety-Three (1928), Jargal(\ 928), The Man Who Laughs (1930) and Les Miserables (1930).

As a translator, V.Pidmohyl'nyi excelled in his artistically un-surpassed skill for conveying the individual peculiarities of style and characteristics of each prose masterpiece of foreign writers. His translations are close to the originals, utilizing an equally rich Ukrainian lexicon, reflecting the versatility of stylistic devices and the individual author's means of expression.

Exceptionally masterful versifications from Western and Eastern belles-lettres were performed by one more veteran translator and Soviet concentration camp inmate, Vasyl' Mysyk (1907-1983). His translation output comprises one half of R.Burns' poems, which rank among the best versifications of the Scottish bard in all Slavic languages. Besides, Mysyk left behind extraordinary translations of some works by Shakespeare, Byron, Milton, Shelley, Keats, Longfellow. Moreover, he was the only qualified translator, who besides A.Krymskyi, was able to render works of some Eastern classics directly from the original. He revealed in Ukrainian the works of old Persian and Tajik world-wide known classics A.Firdousi, Abu Ali Husain Ibn Seana, Omar Khayam, M.Saadi, Sh. Hafiz as well as some French classics (J.du Bellay, P.Scarron) and several others.

Meanwhile, another veteran translator and poet, who had a narrow escape from getting into the Stalinist GULAG, Mykola Tereshchenko (1898-1966) performed versifications from French (a collection of the seventeenth-eighteenth century poets F.Malhebre, B.Le Fontenelle, C.Perrot, J.Rousseau, D.Diderot, L.de Lisle, E.Parny, A.Chenier and others). He also translated French classic poets of the nineteenth century (E.Verlaine, P.EIuard and others). Besides that Tereshchenko edited many poetic versifications of other translators (including M.Lukash's first complete translation of Gothe's masterpiece Faust). No less significant versifications were performed by Yevhen Drobyazko (1898-1980), who was the first to artistically recreate The Divine Comedyby Dante in Ukrainian (1975). This achievement established the reputation of Y.Drobyazko as a real master of translation, who also produced some quality translations from German (Heine, Gothe, Schiller), French (Moliere, H.de Balzac), Italian (Eduardo de Filippo), Russian (A.Pushkin, A.Griboyedov, I.Krylov, A.Herzen, V.Mayakovskiy), Polish (Yu.Slowacki, Yu.Tuwim), Czech (V.Nezval) and works of some other prominent foreign authors.

To this constellation of talented translators belongs also Iryna Steshenko (1898-1987), a former actress of the Berezil theatre in Kharkiv. A highly educated person, she translated poetry and prose from French (G.Apollinaire, J.-B.Moliere, A.Michott, Guy de Maupassant), English (W.Shakespeare, M.Twain, J.London, J.Fletcher), German (J.-W.G6the, F.Schiller, S.Zweig), Italian (C.Goldoni), Norwegian (H.Ibsen) and Russian (M.Gorki, A.Ostrovskiy). In her translations she paid great attention to the logical cohesion of phrases in lines and stanzas, to euphony of verses and to the natural ease of speech as well as to the rendition of the inner force pertained to the source language idiom. Prominent in the galaxy of this older generation translators was Borys Ten (1897-1983), the pen name of Vasyl' Khomychevs'kyi. A poet and former Stalinist terror victim, he was the first to produce entire masterly translations of Homer's Iliad and the Odysseyin Ukrainian. Besides, he edited M.Bilyk's translation of Virgil's Aeneidand provided the Ukrainian theatre with a collection set of dramas by the most outstanding ancient Greek playwrights as Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschylus and others. Borys Ten also translated the works of Shakespeare (King Richard III).

A considerable contribution to Ukrainian belles-lettres was made by M.Bazhan (1904-1983), whose most important work in the domain of translation was the versification of Shota Rustaveli's Knight in The Panther's Skin, which all prominent Georgian poets considered to be a masterly translation. Bazhan had also translated several other classical works of Georgian literature (D. Huramishvili) as well as some poems by Italian (Dante, Michelangelo Bounarotti, P. Pasolini), German (Gothe, Helderlin, Rilke, S. Selan), Polish (Yu. Slowacki, A. Mickiewicz), Russian (A. Pushkin, V. Mayakovskiy), Indian (R. Tagore) and other luthors poetic works.

A noticeable place among the older generation of Ukrainian translators belongs to M.Zerov's emigrant brother Mykhailo Orest (1901-1963), who versified from several West European languages and literatures, as French (P.Verlaine, J.Heredia, C.Baudelaire, Lecont de Lisle, and A. Chenier), German (G. Staff, F. Nitzsche, F. Novalis), English (E.B.Browning), Russian (I. Annenskiy, N. Humilyov), Italian (G.Cavalcanti), and also from Spanish, Portuguese and other languages. Besides, M.Orest is the author of three larger collections of translated poetic works in Ukrainian: The Anthology of French Poetry, The Anthology of German Poetic Works and The Mussel and the Sea Anthology of European Poetry.

Active both in the pre-war 1930's, in the post-war 1940's and also later were some poets, who versified from several foreign languages, though not always directly from the originals but on the basis of interlinear translations. Thus, the poet L.Pervomays'kyi would translate and publish German poets Rilke, Heine, Walter von der Vogelweide and the Russian poetry of Pushkin, Lermontov directly from their originals. At the same time, poetic works of Hungarian, French, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Burmese, Persian or Tajik authors could be translated by him, naturally, only on the basis of interlinear translations.

The long list of outstanding Ukrainian prose and poetry translators, who happened to live through the years of Stalinist oppressions during the 1930's, 1940's and later years, and who either perished in the concentration camps or were forced to interrupt their literary activities for that same reason, would be incomplete without some more at least most noted names. One of them is the prolific translator of West European authors Sydir Sakydon (1896-1974), who was forced to flee in the late 1930's to Russia's Smolensk region where he managed to hide himself from the NKVD persecution and thus escape the Stalinist concentration camp. He had worked in the everfrost area all through the 1940's and returned to Ukraine only after Khrushchov's «thaw». S.Sakydon produced several faithful translations from some foreign languages: German (J.W.Gothe, E.-T-A.Hofmann), French (de Coster, R.Rolland), Polish (Zeromski), Czech (K.Capek), Serbo-Croatian (B.Nusic) and others. Also of note is Yuriy Nazarenko (1904-1991), an active participant of the Sixties Movement and translator from German (Schiller, Hauptmann), French (Verne, Verlaine, Hugo), Polish (Orzeszkowa), Byelorussian (Ya.Kolas, Krapiva, Tank).

As was already mentioned, in late 1950's and early 1960's there came into being and arrayed themselves around Ukrainian publishing houses in Kyiv, Kharkiv, L'viv and some other cities, a new linguistic generation of talented translators. Their proclaimed aim was to translate only directly from the original and fully employ the riches of the Ukrainian language. Some talented translators also grouped around the newly revived (1958) literary Vsesvitjournal. Most of these younger generation men of letters were ideological and spiritual adherents of the two most outspoken opponents of Russif ication of the Ukrainian people Hryhoriy Kochur and Mykola Lukash, who were themselves very talented in poetry and prose translation from several foreign languages. Neither of them would field to the con-stant pressure and intimidation on the part of the Soviet authorities which accused the translators of «archaization of the Ukrainian language» and other «deadly sins» of the kind. As has been mentioned, M.Lukash (1919-1988), a polyglot and an equally brilliant prose and poetry translator from eleven languages began to be published after World War II. He contributed greatly to the enrichment of Ukrainian literature with exemplary versions of many masterpieces of world literature such as Faust oi Gothe, Decameron oi Boccaccio, /Madame Bovary of Flaubert, The Fate of Man by Imre Madac, Don Quixote of Cervantes (in co-authorship with A.Perepadya) and several other important works by West European classics. M.Lukash was also a prolific translator of mainly French poets (Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Apollinaire, etc.) as well of Spanish (Lorca, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon), German (Gothe, Schiller, etc.), English (R.Burns), Polish (Mickiewicz), Hungarian (E.Adi, I.Madach) and several others. His translations are distinguished by a rich and versatile Ukrainian lexicon, accurate idiomatic equivalents, high expressiveness and ease corresponding to those of the originals. In addition to his academic credentials, Lukash, as H.Kochur and I. Svitlychnyi before him, was a symbol of persistence and unyielding defence of the right of the Ukrainian language and culture to their free and independent development and functioning.

H.Kochur (1908-1994), a former student of M.Zerov and higher school lecturer in foreign literatures spent several years in Soviet concentration camps. He was a scrupulous versifier from foreign languages such as ancient Greek (Alcaeus, Sappho), contemporary Greek (C.Cavafes, Y.Ritsos) and especially the French classics (A.Vigny, C.Baudelaire, PVerlaine, A.Rimbaud, P.Valery, Saint-John Perse and some others). He also translated English and American classics (R.Burns, T.S.Eliot, John Milton, P.B.Shelley, G.G.Byron, J.Keats, H.W.Longfellow), Polish classics (Yu.Slowacki, Yu.Tuwim), Czech, Jewish, Lithuanian and other national poets. An inspirational role belonged to Kochur as he influenced and guided the Ukrainian translators during his chairmanship of the Translator's section in the Ukrainian Writers Union in early and mid 1960's.

Among other younger and older generations of translators who grouped around Kochur and Lukash are first of all Mykyta Shumylo, a translator from the Russian, D.Palamarchuk, O.Terekh, A.Perepadya, Y.Popovych, O.Senyuk, Borys Ten, I. Steshenko, R.Dotsenko, P.Sokolovs'kyi and others to be more extensively characterized below.

Very close to the new generation of translators spiritually was the participant of the Sixties Movement Feofan Sklyar (1903-1979). He was a poet and scrupulous editor of many poetic translations carried out from West European languages by his colleagues, but he also versified the works of German Renaissance poets Sebastian Brandt (The Ship of Fools) and Hans Sachs (The Country of Idlers) published in the Vsesvit journal. Apart from these he also gave our readers a collection of excellent translations of P.Ronsard's poems into Ukrainian.

The post-war generation of Ukrainian translators who worked in various publishing houses or arrayed themselves during the 1960's around the Vsesvit journal has given our national literature several prominent masters of the pen. They contributed greatly to the quantitative growth and higher qualitative standard of Ukrainian belles-lettres works, which were enthusiastically received by the reading public. Masterly translations of world literature attracted more readers in the 1950's and 1980's, than the mostly mediocre poetic and prose works of many national authors writing under the yoke of the ideological principles of the so called «Socialist realism».

A leading position in the history of Ukrainian post-war translation have occupied some translators of prose and poetic works from Germanic and Romanic languages. Namely, Rostyslav Dotsenko (b. 1931), a former Soviet concentration camp victim and active participant of the Sixties Movement. He produced excellent prose translations from English (works by O.Wilde, Mark Twain, J.F.Cooper, W.Faulkner, E.A.Poe), French (J.-P.Sartre), Polish and other literatures. Mar Pinchevskyi (1930-1984), who translated prose works from literatures of the English language countries (Gr. Britain, the U.S.A., Canada, Australia). He produced Ukrainian versions of novels and narratives of E.Hemingway, W.Saroyan, S.Maugham, W.Faulkner, F.S.Fitzgerald and others. Oleksandr Terekh (b. 1928) enriched our belles-lettres with an exemplary Ukrainian version of J.Galsworthy's most outstanding series The Forsyte Saga. Besides, he has translated some other prose works of the English language authors (J.Joyce, R.Bradbury, P.Ballentine, D.Salinger, G.Trease).

Some Ukrainian translators also worked successfully in more than one foreign language, the most outstanding of them being Yuryi Lisnyak (1929-1992), a former Soviet concentration camp victim as well and an active participant of the Sixties Movement. He left behind exemplary artistic prose and poetry translations from Czech (A.lrasek), German (H.Nachbar, M.-B.Schulz, B.Brecht, H.B6II, H.Mann), English (J.K.Jerome, C.Dickens, R.OIdington, B.D.Golding, H.Melville, W.Shakespeare), French (A.France, H.de Balzac) and other authors. Lisnyak was the chief editor of the new complete six-volume edition (1984-1986) of the complete works of Shakespeare in Ukrainian (translated by M.Ryl'skyi, O.Mokrovol'skyi, I.Steshenko, Borys Ten, H.Kochur, D.Palamarchuk, V.Koptilov and some others).

Petro Sokolovskyi (1926-2000), a participant of the Sixties Movement and a prolific translator from some West European languages, such as English (D.Cusack, C.Bronte, J.London, J.AIdrid-ge, F.Bret Harte), Spanish (F.Benites, V.B.Ibahes, J.S.Puig, C.J.Sela, C.L.Falids), Italian (G.Piovene, J.Vasari, C.Cassola, C.Malaparte, A.Moravia), French (J.Verne, E.Bazen, H.Chevalier) and others.

Yevhen Popovych (b. 1930) has dedicated his creative activities to the exclusive translation of the German language belles-lettres. He has brought into Ukrainian the most outstanding prose works of German, Austrian and some Swiss authors. For almost 40 years he has produced masterly translations of a veritable library of well-known novels, narratives, dramas and short stories written by the greatest authors as J.W.Gothe, H.Heine, E.N.Remarque, H.Hesse, M.Frisch, H.B6II, G.E.Lessing, J.Roth, J.Mosdorf, T.Mann and some others. Popovych in his translations pays an extraordinary attention to the faithful rendition of the main characteristic features pertaining to the syntactic structures and artistic style of every belles-lettres work, its expressiveness and ease like that within the logical sentence structures of the source language works. Like M.Lukash and Yu.Lisnyak, Y.Popovych ranks among the most outstanding Ukrainian translators of the second half of the 20th century.

Among the very prolific translators of the 1960's -1990's was also Volodymyr Mytrofanow (1929-1998), who turned into Ukrainian about forty books by prominent American and German classic writers. The authors were Mark Twain (The Gilded Age, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer); novels, narratives and collections of short stories by E.M.Hemingway, H.Beecher-Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, T.Mayne Reid's Headless Horseman as well as novels, narratives and collections of short stories of N.Lewis, R.P.Warren, T.Capote, S.King, R.D.Bradbury, G.M.Synge, PH.Abrahams, B.Brecht's Carrier of Arturo L//'(from German) and several others. Some contribution to Ukrainian belles-lettres was also made by N.Hordiyenko-Andrianova (1921 - 1996), who translated prose works from Russian (V.Korolenko, A.Herzen, A.Kuprin, A.Ostrovskiy), German (L.Renn, A.Welma, B.Apitz, B.Brecht), French (A.France, Ch. de Coster's Till Ulenspiegel) and from Esperanto (V.Yaroshenko).

Mykhailo Lytvynets' (b.1933) translated several best poetic works mostly from contemporary Romanic languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and others). His most outstanding versification into Ukrainian is The Luisiades by the Portuguese Renaissance poet Luis Camoens. Apart from this he produced translations of some best works of separate French poets (P.Beranger, V.Hugo), Spanish language poets (G.Mistral, B.Carrion, H.Marti, H.de Esponceda, P.Neruda, N.Guillen), Italian poets (G.Leopardi) and others.

Several well-known works written in Romanic languages were successfully brought into Ukrainian by another prolific translator H.Filipchuk (b. 1936). Among these are almost 30 novels and narra-tives representing the most outstanding French authors: E.Zola, H.Flaubert, A.Malraux, P.Merle, B.CIavel, A.Marquet, H.Crussy, PGamarra, and also some works of the Spanish language authors as Roa Bastos, D.Medio and others. Quite noticeable during the 1970's -1999's was also Lohvynenko O.P.(b. 1946), a translator of several prose and drama works by German, Swiss, British and American literatures authors as L.Frank, S.Lenz, E.Strittmatter, H.Hartuna, B.Kellermann, F.Durrenmatt, H.B6II, H.Kruschell, P.Handtke, H.Hesse, K.Ransmayer, M.Frisch, W.Scott, R.Stouter, D.Salinger, H.Wells, I. Show, E.O'Neill and others.

Active among the upcoming younger generation of Ukrainian translators, who have already won wide recognition in the last dec-ades of the twentieth century is O.Mokrovols'kyi (b. 1946). He has accomplished a number of poetic and prose translations from English (G.G.Byron, J.Chiardy, P.B.Shelley, W.Shakespeare, D.H.Lawrence, W.Collins, R.Graves), Italian (S.Quasimodo, G.Leopardi, T.Tasso, L.Ariosto), German (G.Brezan), Spanish (A.Grosso, D.AIohso) and other languages. Also of note is M.Moskalenko (b. 1948), who translates mostly from French (P.EIuard, V.Hugo, Saint-John Perse) and Spanish (F.H.Lorca, H.Marti and some others).

A prominent position among the new generation of talented Ukrainian translators is occupied by A.Sodomora (b. 1937). He has performed faithful translations of several major works of famous Roman poets and authors as Horace, Ovid (Metamorphoses), Lucretius, Seneca, and of ancient Greek playwrights as Aristophanes, Menander, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. Several works of ancient Greek and Roman poets (Virgil, Horace, Tirtacus, Tibullus and others) were translated by Sodomora's predecessor M.Bilyk (1889-1970). His most significant translations ar

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 957