The Bottom Line on the Book Market in Ukraine

By Roman Tashleetsky

Not that long ago, during Soviet times, Western books were forbidden in Ukraine. Furthermore, it was taboo to translate these books into Ukrainian. Anything that could advance Ukraine as a distinct nation–including the development of its literature and publishing industry – was banned. 

Translating new contemporary fiction into Ukrainian was out of favour as the Soviet regime feared that it would demonstrate that the Ukrainian language could be used to express modern notions, and could thereby lead to the growth of popularity of this language among the educated people. It was thought that this could foil the regime’s determination to portray Ukrainian as a language for commoners and to invalidate its use in “higher” spheres.

What did Ukrainians have to read during those times? In the middle of the 20th century there was a tendency to translate Russian fiction into Ukrainian–largely not great works by world-known Russian writers, but social realism with doubtful artistic value. In addition, there was a practice of translating foreign fiction, not from the original, but from the Russian translation. Even the works of Marx and Engels were translated not from German, but from an edited Russian edition that properly reflected the Soviet Communist ideology.

Currently, in Ukraine, there is freedom to read everything. University students study the formerly banned Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell’s Animal Farm as well as works by other great writers like James Joyce and William Faulkner.

But, the past legacy remains and the decades of oppression have had their effect. For starters, there is still a lack of good translations. While translation departments have appeared at many universities, they mostly specialize in training translators and interpreters for business rather than fiction. And, there is a lack of new translations. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century there was a new translation of Romeo and Juliet roughly every 10 year; the last was done in the 50s; since then–nothing. The Ukrainian writer Yuriy Andrukhovych translated Hamlet in a new manner for a Kyiv theatre group, but this was an exception.    

Another problem is the lack of bookstores stocking Ukrainian books. In larger towns there are usually several small old bookstores left over from Soviet times. Often when one hears of a new book published in Ukraine, it is very difficult to find it in these stores.  In Kyiv the situation is better, mainly owing to the large book market Petrivka. Students from all over Ukraine go there looking for rare and popular books. But even there, where hundreds of thousands of books are sold, there are few sellers of Ukrainian books. 

But, there have been some successes in the publishing industry. For example, the Ukrainian publishing house A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha, which specializes in children’s literature, managed to be the first European publisher to get a translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix onto the market- before a Russian version came out.  This is important because readers will not wait for a Russian version and will buy a Ukrainian one if it is available.

One publishing house producing Ukrainian translations is Osnovy. It publishes fiction and books on social sciences and philosophy. Its editions of Friedrich Nietzsche’s works are rarely found in bookstores; they are usually sold-out. The Kharkiv-based publishing house Folio does a good job re-publishing Ukrainian translations of the classics. These books are always in demand because they are in the school curriculum.

Another positive tendency is the appearance and growth of two Western-style bookstore chains, namely Bukva and Orphey. Though 90 per cent of their books are in Russian, they have Ukrainian and foreign-languages sections. They assert they have more Russian books because there are fewer Ukrainian ones published. Publishing houses, in turn, reproach existing legislation that makes publishing books in Ukraine unprofitable.

There is no shortage of writers though.  As Harvard professor George Grabowicz has said, Ukrainian literature is one of the most promising in the world.  New names in fiction appear constantly. A few years ago we heard only about Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko and Oleksander Irvanets. Now everyone knows Lyubko Deresh and Irena Karpa, not to mention Andrij Kurkov, Maryna and Serhij Diachenko and the Kapranovy brothers, Vitalij and Dmytro. They are all popular with younger readers.

The Lviv Book Fair attracts more people every year; there’s no room to swing a cat in the big Palace of Arts where this important forum has taken place over the past 13 years.

It should also be mentioned that increasingly young people prefer to read books in the original, owing to the new opportunities for studying foreign languages and exchange programs.

The Ukrainian book market has endured various difficulties peculiar to post-colonial countries–whether it is the lack of Ukrainian books written and published in Ukrainian or the domination of the Russian language. However, current positive trends give hope that soon our book-publishing industry will not differ from those of developed countries, that it will promote and foster its national literature and take into account the wide range of tastes and interests of Ukrainian readers.

Roman Tashleetsky is a Ukrainian graduate student at the Taras Shevechenko National University, Kyiv.