“Hope” (Nadiya), by Lessia Ukraïnka, translated from Ukrainian by Henri Abril, bilingual edition, Circé, “Deucalion”, 144 p., 12 €.
He is one of the greatest figures in Ukrainian literature. However, it is almost completely unknown in France. From the poet, playwright, essayist and translator Lessia Ukraïnka (1871-1913), we can only read a brief poetic anthology, finally published this fall, Hope (enlarged reissue of a translation published for the first time in 1978), and, by searching carefully in antiquarian booksellers, two of his plays, Cassandra (1903-1907) et The Stone Amphitryon (1912), translated in the same years (Amibel, 1973 and 1974) and out of print for a long time.
However, while Russian aggression against Ukraine is accompanied by a systematic attempt to deny Ukrainian culture its specificity, the work of the writer, who fought all her life for the independence of her country – then subject to the Russian Empire – and for the emancipation of women, is increasingly sought after by Ukrainians as a symbol of intellectual resistance, after a long eclipse. Perhaps Western Europe, by discovering it in turn, could better understand this resistance and its issues.
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