Publications in Other Languages

PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 461 PUBLICATIONS IN OTHER LANGUAGES The year 1974 was the fortieth anniversary of Mikhaylo Hrushevsky's death. He, being the greatest historian of Ukraine, was commemorated by all Ukrainians outside the Soviet Union, especially in Toronto where a series of works concerning his public activity and historical researches was prepared under the title 'Hrushevskiana.' The first issue was written by Lubomyr Vyner, who dealt with the historian's 'autobiography,' in which are indicated the sources of Hrushevsky's creativity. The Ukrainian Historical Society in Toronto intends to publish further studies regarding his scholarly investigations. A move is also under way to render into English his entire ten-volume History of Ukraine Rus'. The first three volumes are already being translated and should be published by the summer of 1976. It is a gigantic venture, but so great is Hrushevsky's stature as a scholar in his particular field of endeavour that no effort is spared to reveal him to the world at large through the medium of the English language. The most notable Ukrainian novel that recently appeared in Canada is Ulas Samchuk's Na tverdiy zemli (On Solid Ground, Winnipeg, 390 pp). Samchuk is perhaps the foremost prose writer of his race on this side of the Iron Curtain, and his present work is so consummately accomplished that one cannot but wonder at his ability to produce a masterpiece that can easily compete with the most prominent novels written in this age of sheer modernism. Yet his modernistic style is not as obscure as that of his counterparts in other languages, whose phraseology is so intricate as to create a vagueness out of which no comprehensible thought can emerge. Mr Samchuk's novel is understandable through and through. Its theme, however, is artificial. The events he presents appear unrealistic and cannot but be considered as vagaries of human nature. But even from his affected characters and scenes, as well as from his garrulous verbiage, one can cull passages that are quite conventional and may fairly coincide with contemporary life. The plot of the work is simple enough: a middleaged man becomes involved with several women, married and single, as the case may be, who dominate him, at times to the point of extremity. The women the author brings out in his novel act as though they belonged to the Women's Liberation Movement; in fact, as may be gathered from their interminable dialogues with the would-be hero, their mental superiority over their male companions, if not entirely complete, is at least progressive. To be sure, there are pages here and there where only inanity is to be found, but there are more, many more pages where the novelist displays his high intellectuality. The dialogues are especially effective even if at times they offer no solidity. Among such is the one regarding God and the mystery that lies beyond, when one casts off his 462 lETrERS IN CANADA 'mortal coil.' The work, of course, has its ups and down, but on the whole it is full of verve that enlivens Samchuk's treatment of an ebullient subject . It is precisely the kind of treatment he gives it that evokes in the reader an inquisitivenes that is kept alive to the very end of this peculiar literary creation which is full of ferment, although without much useful adequacy. But it is that ferment that makes the work absorbing enough. A very gifted poet, Msgr Stefan Semczuk, after many years of silence, produced a book which he calls Miy molytvennyk (My Prayerbook, Winnipeg , 84 pp). It consists of intensely religious as well as temporal topics, both original and borrowed. Whatever is printed on one page is rendered on the opposite one into good English by the principal of a Winnipeg school, Mr J. Melnyk - an indication that assimilation has already taken such a strong hold on the new generation of Ukrainians that the author and compiler thought it necessary also to use the chief language of this country. Among his beautiful and, at times, grandiose prayers and meditations , Fr Semczuk inserts secular lyrics and prose items in which he ranges far and wide, from Canada down to...