Book Review:  One of the Most Hotly Debated Novels in Ukraine

Wozzeck, by Yuri Izdryk, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) Press; 133 pages; $24.95 (paperback), $44.95­ (hardback).

 Reviewed by Mark Andryczyk

With the recent publication of Yuri Izdryk’s novel Wozzeck, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press offers their latest installment in a series of English-language translations of the major achievements in post-Soviet Ukrainian literature.  Like Yuri Andrukhovych’s Recreations, which CIUS Press published in 1997, Wozzeck is one of the most hotly discussed literary works in Ukraine today and serves as an emissary of contemporary Ukrainian culture outside the country’s borders.

Wozzeck offers a postmodern exercise in the construction and deconstruction of a text. The author traces the boundaries of a self through an onslaught of  references and word games.  The novel itself represents an innovative search for a new form with which to express the existential concerns of contemporary man.  Questioning and challenging many established truths governing society, Izdryk upends the world, sends it crashing down and then attempts to assemble its pieces into a form with which he can find peace and understanding.  Man, embodied by the character Wozzeck, is examined through his relations with others and by witnessing how he is affected (or not affected) by his surroundings.  It is by continuously treading the borders of what constitutes a self that Izdryk provides insight into both the rigidity and the uncertainty of such boundaries.

Yuri Izdryk, born in the western Ukrainian industrial city of Kalush in 1962, is a key figure in post-Soviet Ukrainian culture.  As a writer, visual artist and musician, Izdryk, both alone and in collaboration with other intellectuals, has been responsible for many of the lasting artistic achievements in this period.  He is the author of four volumes of prose: Votstsek (1997), Ostriv Krk ta inshi istroii (The Island of Krk and Other Stories, 1998), Podviinyi Leon (Double Leon, 2000) and AM^TM (2005).  Since 1990, he has been the editor of the literary and visual arts journal Chetver (Thursday), having, in the late 1990s, recast it from being a voice for his own generation of writers to acting as a much-needed forum for Ukraine’s youngest literary talents.

Izdryk’s novel Wozzeck was originally published in its entirety in 1997 by Lileia-NV, a relatively small but prestigious publisher of contemporary Ukrainian belles lettres, which focuses on, but is not restricted to, the writers of the local, so-called Stanislav Phenomenon.  Including, among others, Yuri Andrukhovych, Taras Prokhas’ko, and Yaroslav Dovhan, the Stanislav Phenomenon is a loose grouping of creative individuals organized in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanislav was the name for the city from 1939 to 1962) who were among the most active promulgators of new Ukrainian culture in the 1990s.  Fragments of Wozzeck had appeared previously in several literary journals (including Chetver) and almanacs throughout the 1990s. 

As the novel’s translator Marko Pavlyshyn points out in an introductory essay, there were three ‘Wozzecks’ that preceded Izdryk’s literary creation.  Johann Christian Woyzeck was an actual, historical figure who murdered his wife in 1821 in a fit of jealous rage brought on by his suspicions of her infidelity.  Secondly, Woyzeck was the name of a play written by Georg Bchner in the 1830s.  Thirdly, Wozzeck, an opera, was written by Alban Berg and staged in Berlin in the 1920s.

Izdryk’s Wozzeck is divided into two major sectionsNight and Daywhich are almost equal in length.  Mirroring reality, the Day section features more physical action than Night, but both parts consist mostly of contemplation and dreams.  A multitude of flashbacks extend the novel’s time-span past one 24-hour period and, although there occasionally is a somewhat linear passage of time within each chapter, a general temporal continuity between theses chapters seldom occurs.  As a result, Wozzeck maintains a dream-like ambience throughout.

 Despite the lack of a linear plot, Wozzeck’s narrative unfolds in a remarkably smooth fashion.  The novel’s looping juxtapositions are occasionally grounded by Izdryk’s wit and pointed observations of the contemporary world.  The novel features a multitude of references to 20th-century European cultural figures, including nods to Izdryk’s contemporaries in Ukraine.   What results is a fresh approach to time-honoured Western philosophical queries informed by a post-Soviet Ukrainian point of view.

With its word games and inter-textuality, the novel undoubtedly presents a challenge for its translator.  Fortunately for the English-language reader, Marko Pavlyshyn [head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia] is very well acquainted with Izdryk’s creative output and has a produced an excellent translation. 

The novel’s various allusions were well-researched and clearly annotated by the translator. For further illumination, Pavlyshyn occasionally refers to publications that have supplied commentary on the novel.  Izdryk’s particularly sharp irony, also a potential source of difficulty for a translator, is well rendered into English.  As added value, the publication includes an essay by Pavlyshyn, which introduces the reader to Wozzeck’s author and offers a brief, yet comprehensive, survey of the cultural milieu in post-Soviet Ukraine, as well as a bibliography of other analyses of this scene that have been published in the English language.  Such supplements make the volume a very valuable contribution to the field of Ukrainian studies.  As a final bonus, Wozzeck’s cover was designed by Izdryk himself.  This practice is consistent with his publications in Ukraine and offers the reader of Wozzeck an additional view of Izdryk’s creative talents.

This publication by CIUS Press provides the English-language reader access to the cutting edge of contemporary Ukrainian literature.  Izdryk is a writer who infuriates some readers and generates devotion in others, and Wozzeck is among those books that are most often debated in art cafes in Lviv, Kharkiv and Kyiv.  Though Izdryk’s Wozzeck is a challenging novel that demands much attention, a reader who invests the effort and joins Izdryk’s quest will be rewarded with a fascinating perspective on one man’s wry yearning for intimacy and tranquility in today’s age of information.

Mark Andryczyk holds a PhD in Ukrainian Literature from the University of Toronto.

Copies of Wozzeck can be purchased online from CIUS Press at www.utoronto.ca/cius or by contacting CIUS Press at 450 Athabasca Hall, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E8 or (780) 492-2973.

 PHOTO

Book cover designed by Izdryk