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A UKRAINIAN DICTIONARY OF WAR

A UKRAINIAN DICTIONARY OF WAR

$24.00Price

ISBN: 979-8-9890965-9-6

Pub Date: Oct. 2024

Pages: 238


By Ostap Slyvynsky

Grace Mahoney and Taras Malkovych, translators


What happens to language during war? Does it become superfluous to actions? Is it twisted? Broken? Lost? In A Ukrainian Dictionary of War, poet Ostap Slyvynsky undertakes the role of wartime lexicographer to carefully collect and compile a dictionary of witness to Russia’s invasion and war against Ukraine. In wartime, even the meaning of simple words canchange, expand, contract, acquire new resonances and sounds. A Ukrainian Dictionary of War began with the fragments of experiences spoken in the new language of wartime and became a way to document a nation’s shared losses, pain, and belief in victory. Among the voices represented in A Ukrainian Dictionary of War are those who were forced to leave their homes and venture into the unknown, aid volunteers, medics, soldiers, social activists, and artists. Presented in a dual-language format, this volume showcases the Ukrainian language, its alphabet, and a myriad of voices connected by the experience of war. Part of the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine is an attack on its language. Despite efforts to the contrary, Ukrainian has grown in recognition and use, which this dictionary further extends to interested readers.


    Documenting war is a difficult task. Not only do the people gathering such stories work under great duress, the stress of the environment in which they operate can result in feelings of futility and existential helplessness. Every entry captured is a testimony, a record and a reminder of its grave impact on the lives of its victims. Slyvynsky took a series of fragments, which might have remained as jottings left in a backpack or notebook and stewarded them to publication. As vice president of PEN Ukraine, Slyvynsky is well accustomed to shepherding the work of marginalized voices and documenting the experiences of those affected by the war. As a translator with multiple language proficiencies, including (in addition to Ukrainian) Polish, English, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian, and Russian, he is also keenly aware of the power and mutability of words and their meanings.

    —Gabriella Reznowski, Washington State University Libraries


    Ostap Slyvynsky is a Ukrainian poet, translator, essayist, and scholar. He is the author of five books of poetry and the editor of three anthologies. Presenting a selection from over a decade of work, Slyvynsky’s Winter King (translated by Vitaly Chernetsky and Iryna Shuvalova, Lost Horse Press 2023) received the Translation Prize from the American Association for Ukrainian Studies, and is shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the National Translation Award in Poetry. His books have been published in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Macedonia, and Japan. He is also known for translating the works of Derek Walcott, William Carlos Williams, Charles Simic, Czesław Miłosz, Olga Tokarczuk, and Georgi Gospodinov, among others.


    Slyvynsky initiated and participated in several human rights actions and campaigns in Ukraine, including public actions in support of Oleg Sentsov (2018 – 2019) and Solidarity Words, a campaign in support of Crimean Tatar journalists illegally imprisoned in occupied Crimea and the Russian Federation (since 2021). He was elected Vice President of PEN Ukraine in 2022.



    Grace Mahoney is a translator, scholar, and the series editor of the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series. She has translated A Field of Foundlings by Iryna Starovoyt (Lost Horse Press 2017) and works by Liudmyla Khersonska, Svitlana Povaliaieva, Elena Shvarts, and Yuri Izdryk, which have appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Her translation of Victoria Amelina’s novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom received a Translation-in-Progress Grant from the Peterson Literary Fund (2023) and has excerpts published in Absinthe and Brick. She holds her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Michigan.



    Taras Malkovych is a Ukrainian poet, translator, and the founder of Tapas Localization, an audiovisual translation agency. His literary translations include the Anthology of Young Poetry of the U.S. in Ukrainian, completed as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York. He also co-translated The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and The Wingspan, an anthology of modern Irish poetry in Ukrainian. He holds a PhD in Translation Studies from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Taras is the author of The One Who Loves Long Words, a collection of poetry. Some of his poems have been translated and published in Bulgarian, French, German, Greek, English, and Polish.


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