Lina Kostenko

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Lina Wassyliwna Kostenko ( Ukrainian Ліна Василівна Костенко ; born March 19, 1930 in Rschyschtschiw , Kiev Oblast , Ukrainian SSR ) is a Ukrainian poet. She is one of the most important representatives of Ukrainian poetry of the 20th century and is a forerunner of the generation of poets in the political and artistic " thaw period " after 1956 in the Soviet Union .

Lina Kostenko 2006

Life

The daughter of a teacher couple, Lina Kostenko was born in 1930 in the small town of Rschyschtschiw, but grew up in Kiev , where her family moved in 1936. After graduating from secondary school, she first studied at the Kiev Pedagogical Institute and then continued her studies at the Maxim Gorky Institute for Literature in Moscow until graduation in 1956 . Her first collection of poems, Prominnja semli ( The Rays of the Earth , 1957), as well as the volume Witryla ( The Sails ) that followed in 1958, received the attention of audiences and critics.

Kostenko's three publications by 1961, in which she was able to defy state censorship attempts, consolidated her fame as a poet. Shortly before going to press in 1963, the book of poems Sorjanyj intehral ( The Star Integral ) was refused publication because it did not accept changes requested by the censor. A television script from 1964 in which Kostenko thematized the fate of Ukrainian poets who died in World War II ( Perewirte swoji hodynnyky, Checks your clocks ), was initially rejected and later produced in such an alienated form, among other titles, that Kostenko differed from the Authorship distanced. These incidents initiated a phase of the publication ban that lasted 16 years until 1977. During this time, her poems were distributed as private copies in the so-called samizdat , sometimes without her knowledge.

It was not until 1977 that Kostenko experienced a comeback in public with Nad berehamy witschnoji riki ( On the banks of the eternal stream ). Four more volumes of poetry were published by 1989, of which the penultimate, Wybranne ( Selected Poems ) also contained works from the period of the publication ban . The last volume of poetry by Lina Kostenko was published in 1999 under the title Berestetschko ( Little Birch ).

A decisive event for Kostenko's late work - as for the whole of Ukrainian society - was the Chernobyl catastrophe . She not only processed them in poems, scripts and articles, but is also involved in organizations that work against the oblivion of events.

Lina Kostenko lives and works in Kiev; she has two children.

poetry

Lina Kostenko's work is characterized by an intellectual independence and resistance to the prohibition of thinking and censorship. The focus is always on the person, whom she draws strong and honest. She often chooses historical figures and events as motifs for her work, as many artists do in repressive systems, in order to allow the audience to draw parallels with current issues. The artist's situation within a totalitarian state can be seen in many of her works from the 1970s, during the publication ban:

Can't you paint the wind
the transparent wind on a light background,
then paint wide, tall oaks,
who sway in the wind to the ground '.

Kostenko's translator Anna-Halja Horbatsch makes comparisons with Anna Akhmatova and observes a subtle irony in her work that occasionally turns into sarcasm in her later work. Mourning and grief over Chornobyl, but also anger and anger over unscrupulousness, with which major projects like the Chornobyl nuclear power plant have been realized, run through the cost of newer poems.

The world is full of ashes
but the lungs of mankind have long since got used to it.

Awards

Works

Volumes of poetry

  • Prominnja semli ( Проміння землі - The rays of the earth , 1957)
  • Witryla ( Вітрила - The Sails , 1958)
  • Mandriwky serzja ( Мандрівки серця - Wanderings of the Heart , 1961)
  • Sorjanyj intehral ( Зоряний інтеграл - The Star Integral , unpublished)
  • Knjascha hora ( Княжа гора - , 1972, unpublished)
  • Nad berehamy vichnoji riki ( Над берегами вічної ріки - On the banks of the eternal river , 1977)
  • Marusja Tschuraj ( Маруся Чурай , verse novel, 1979)
  • Nepowtornist ( Неповторність - unrepeatability , 1980)
  • Sad netanutschych sculpture ( Сад нетанучих скульптур - Garden of Immortal [non-melting] sculptures , 1986/1987)
  • Wybrane ( Вибране - Selected Poems )
  • Busynowyj tsar ( Бузиновий цар - The Elder Tzar , poems for children, 1987)
  • Berestetschko ( Берестечко - Little Birch , 1999)

script

  • Perewirte swoji hodynnyky ( Перевірте свої годинники - Check your watches , 1964)

German-language editions

  • Notches of the time: Ukrainian poetry of the present (Ukrainian / German, from the Ukrainian by Anna-Halja Horbatsch, 2003) ISBN 3931180158
  • Landmarks of Life. Poems (Ukrainian / German, from Ukrainian by Anna-Halja Horbatsch, 1998) ISBN 3931180077

Web links

Commons : Lina Kostenko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files