The first acquaintance with this book by the Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan translated by Andrej Chadanovič risks turning into the veneration of the award-winning greatness of its author. Zhadan is the well-known cultural figure, whose work has been attracting interest in Ukraine and abroad for several decades (seven books were published in Belarus alone). His civil stance has deserved admiration, too. And yet, the new collection impresses in other ways. Here there is the poignant tone, the undisguised pain, the rupture that emerges from the first pages. It is only intensified by Tanya Pukhnavtseva’s illustration – severed hands with slits through which light reaches the reader.

The artistic world of the texts created between 2015 and 2023 contains darkness, gloom and fragile rays of hope for personal life, and through it – for social life. There is also the creative reflection, a sense of poet’s special role in society and even in history – the fate of “the condemned to death who keep letters in their pockets like yesterday’s bread crumbs.” Therefore, the poet gives his own voice not to the modern reader, but to those who will manage to survive, creating a foundation for the songs of the future.

Serhiy Zhadan is a famous Ukrainian poet, novelist, essayist, musician, activist and volunteer. He is one of the opinion leaders in Ukraine. Born in 1974 in Starobelsk. Lives in Kharkiv.

Zhadan is the author of numerous poetry collections, including “Цитатник” (“Quotations”, 1995), “Балади про війну і відбудову” (“Ballads about War and Reconstruction”, 2000), “Історія культури початку століття” (“The History of Culture at the Beginning of This Century”, 2003), “Марадона” (“Maradona”, 2007), “Вогнепальні й ножові” (“Gunshot and Knife Wounds”, 2012), “Життя Марії” (“Life of Maria”, 2015), “Список кораблів”, (“List of Ships”, 2020) and others. His prose books are “Біґ Мак” (“Big Mac”, 2003), “Депеш Мод” (“Depeche Mode”, 2004), “Anarchy in the UKR” (2005), “Гімн демократичної молоді” (“Anthem of Democratic Youth”, 2006), “Ворошиловград” (“Voroshilovgrad”, 2010), “Месопотамія” (“Mesopotamia”, 2014) and “Інтернат” (“The Orphanage”, 2017).

Takes part in the musical projects “Zhadan i Sobaky”, “Mannerheim Line” and “роздІловІ”. Translates poetry from English, German, Polish, Belarusian. His poetry has been translated into dozens of languages. Five prose books and two collections of poetry were published in Belarusian.

Zhadan is the winner of numerous awards, including the BBC Book of the Year (thrice), the Joseph Conrad Award, the Angelus Award, Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, and the Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought. In September 2022, the Polish Academy of Sciences nominated Serhiy Zhadan for the Nobel Prize.

Der Beitrag Serhiy Zhadan – Іншае імя любові (Another name for love) erschien zuerst auf hochroth minsk.

Incredible and unexpected, ironic and provocative, the “maitre” of contemporary Belarusian poetry. At the same time, Andrej Chadanovič is extremely sincere with the reader, desiring to talk about what is socially dangerous and intimate even during the translation of someone else’s text or the demonstration of the “mask” of a clown… Also, Chadanovič is a well-known lecturer, blogger and online correspondent. He is among the first figures of Belarusian culture to start the project of preserving it abroad and consolidating independent national art. 

The quintessence of this experience is the book “On the shore of Freedom”, which includes poems from 2020-2023. It has the visual introduction by Śviatłana Sofja Dziemidovič, whose illustration, terrible and symbolic, conveys the birth of the movement, the painful liberation. Such a book should reach the reader bound by the unsettled life in emigration or by the borders of a captured land, where “one cannot read” because there is no freedom. The poems become greeting letters, telling about the absence and necessity of freedom, waiting for changes, longing to stay close even at a distance. They are colored not only by despair, but also by hope: “bars are only preparation for a life where there are no bars”.

Andrej Chadanovič is a poet, translator, essayist and lecturer. Born in 1973 in Minsk. Author of ten collections of “adult” poetry, as well as one book of poems for children. The poems have been translated into fifteen languages and published as separate books in Ukraine, Poland and Sweden. Chadanovič translates poetry into Belarusian from French, English, Polish and Ukrainian. Laureate of the “Book of the Year” award for the children’s book “Нататкі таткі” (“Daddy’s Notes”, 2015). Laureate of the Karłas Šerman award for the translation of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry (2017). Laureate of the Natalla Arsieńnieva award for the book “Школа травы” (“Grass School”, 2020). Laureate of The Crystal Vilenica award (2008), Polish PEN Club award (2015), the Jerzy Giedroyc Prize of the Rzeczpospolita newspaper (2021). Chadanovič taught literature at the Philological Faculty of the Belarusian State University, at the Belarusian Collegium and at the Jakub Kołas Humanities Lyceum. Conducted the “Translation Workshop” at the Belarusian PEN Center and at the School of Young Writers at the Union of Belarusian Writers. Teaches literature in the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania), gives lectures online: www.youtube.com/@chadanovic.

Der Beitrag Andrej Chadanovič – На беразе волі (On the shore of freedom) erschien zuerst auf hochroth minsk.