Our literature as a mirror of Jewishness

"We have inherited a lot of complex plots in the relations between our peoples, Ukrainians and Jews. Now we have to not only 'finish' the unfinished but also untangle historical knots. It often resembles sewing clothes from multiple pieces of fabric: we have too many unnecessary seams that need to be undone," says Ostap Slyvynsky, the jury chairperson of Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize.

Ostap Slyvynsky is a poet, translator, literary critic, and essayist. He has published five poetry collections, numerous essays, columns, and reviews, and his works have been translated into 20 languages. He has translated academic literature and fiction from English, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Polish, including such authors as William Carlos Williams, Derek Walcott, Czesław Miłosz, Andrzej Stasiuk, Olga Tokarczuk, and Georgi Gospodinov.

Ostap Slyvynsky is a member of the editorial boards of Ukrainian and international academic and literary publications and the juries of prestigious literary awards. He has co-created and participated in art projects and performances, including music and literary collaborations.

He is now active as a translator and cultural manager, specializing in Southeast European literature and translating contemporary Bulgarian and Macedonian prose, including works by Goce Smilevski, Georgi Gospodinov, and Lidija Dimkovska. Ostap Slyvynsky is working on a collection of his own poetry, scheduled to be published in early 2026.

In addition to writing, you translate a lot. It's gratifying to see more and more high-quality Ukrainian literary translations of world-renowned authors. You work with fiction from the parts of the world that seem little known to Ukrainians. Is fiction gaining popularity on the book market today, or is it still a niche product?

Today, it's definitely still a niche thing. That said, Bulgarian literature has recently gained more popularity, since Georgi Gospodinov, the Bulgarian writer I'm currently translating, received the International Booker Prize. His works are now being actively translated in different countries. However, for now, he remains the "lone warrior" in this area of the world book market. After all, he cannot be claimed to have boosted the recognizability of literature from the South-Eastern and South-Western Balkans — Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania. We still know very little about this layer. At one time, I left it because there was a strong demand for Polish-Ukrainian translations. Publishers were interested, and we needed to establish interethnic relations. However, I still have a kind of "unpaid internal debt" to Balkan literature. So, I am now back in business.

The Ukrainian translation market seems to have a problem in that some  texts are machine-translated, while others show signs of the translator being "too involved." For example, in his Ukrainian translation of John Fowles' The Magus, Oleh Korol used nepozbuvna benteha [a combination of two rarely used Ukrainian words; lit.' persistent discomfiture', while the phrase in the original is "present and concrete feeling of excitement." — Transl.], which became a popular meme in 2017. What does the translation market look like in Ukraine today? Do you see a need for certain reforms or new approaches?

For me, this phrase is not something unambiguously negative. It is a metaphor of a language that is perhaps too refined for the occasion. However, speaking to students and broader audiences and at highly specialized professional discussions, I often emphasize that translations should expand the linguistic field. They often enter areas where the target culture's language has not yet evolved or matured enough. This was the case when I translated the Polish poets of the early 1990s, in particular Andrzej Sosnowski. They wrote in a language that simply did not exist in Ukrainian literature at the time — postmodernist, complex, intellectually rich, and full of playfulness and covert references. In order to recreate it, I sometimes had to literally invent a new Ukrainian language.

How well do you combine creative work and translation activities?

Honestly, I'm thinking of staying away from translation for a while. I want to write something myself. Translation is more of a lifeline when I experience a creative crisis. This is when I start translating intensively. I faced a situation like that in 2022, with the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, and I don't seem to have fully overcome it yet. However, translation gives me the space to do something useful, remaining in the cultural field and working with texts, which I love most.

In what way have the key functions of literature changed in the modern context?

Literature is a way to make sense of experience. Moreover, literature gives us an experience of what happened to us. I often think about literature helping us better understand what we are experiencing. In one of Olga Tokarczuk's essays in her book The Tender Narrator, I came across the idea that literature generally performs an evolutionary function, as it helps us adapt to the world, describing various situations that may never happen to us in reality. By reading, we acquire a certain readiness for such situations or learn that they need to be averted.

Individuals and humanity generally evolve thanks to imagination, our ability to fantasize. Besides, literature, of course, provides compensation, consolation, and balance thanks to communication between the author and the reader and between the readers themselves. It is extremely important when literature continues in conversations.

Can we now talk about modern literature as a tool for shaping international dialogue?

I think Ukrainians have become convinced, especially after the start of the full-scale invasion, that culture and literature in particular are a critical element of a nation's identity, which is impossible without communication with the outside world. It is the same as with any other verbal art, such as cinema or theater. After all, it is easier to convey an idea verbally than, for example, through painting or music. Literature can speak directly, which is especially important now, when we have accumulated experience that needs to be communicated in an understandable way. That is why modern Ukrainian literature — from poetry to novels, not to mention essays — gravitates towards journalism.

At the same time, literature has a special mission in intercultural dialogue. Compared to journalism or cultural essays, it works with emotions to a greater extent, bridging purely emotional and cognitive empathy. Emotional empathy is when you sympathize with another person and want to hug them. Meanwhile, cognitive empathy is when you ask yourself: What can I do in this situation? How can I help? The answer to this question requires understanding what causes the suffering. Literature is an emotional introduction to fruitful rational relationships, when people are not just close but really understand each other's needs and expectations. This can be the basis for dialogue between nations.

Regarding dialogue between Ukrainians and Jews, there is obviously a large unspoken layer of past issues between us, which we should at least start to clarify. Can literature help us understand and establish relations with the Jewish nation?

We have inherited a lot of complex plots in the relations between our peoples, Ukrainians and Jews. Now we have to not only 'finish' the unfinished but also untangle historical knots. It often resembles sewing clothes from multiple pieces of fabric: we have too many unnecessary seams that need to be undone. The Soviet propaganda machine played a significant role in creating this situation, but it was not the only factor.

An interesting example of the modern perception of Ukrainian-Jewish relations is found in Olga Tokarczuk's novel The Books of Jacob, which I translated. This novel is set mainly in Ukraine — Podolia and Galicia. However, it is not about Ukrainians, who appear only episodically in the text. The main characters are Sabbatian Jews, Jewish schismatics, messianists, and particularly the self-proclaimed messiah Jacob Frank. He exploits the atmosphere of deep frustration among Eastern European Jews that arose after the events of Khmelnytsky's reign (1648–1657), which many considered a catastrophe: massacres, fear, and loss of homes and loved ones.

Crucially, there is a serious conflict here between the Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish visions of this period. For Ukrainians, Khmelnytsky's reign is clearly a national liberation struggle, the first major national uprising. For Poles, it is a rebellion of the "mob," while it is a national catastrophe for Jews. To build a full-fledged and mutually valuable dialogue with Jews, we must look at these events more broadly, including the Koliivshchyna and other episodes, not ignoring Ukrainians' involvement in anti-Jewish actions during World War II.

The history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations is often presented through the prism of pogroms and tragedies. Is there anything important for understanding these relations that still remains undiscussed, undocumented?

When we look at the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations, we see mostly massacres, pogroms, and other tragic events. However, the situation was actually different at the level of individual connections. I think the problem with historiography, especially in Ukraine, is that most people who lived in the 17th–19th centuries were illiterate and did not leave written testimonies. If, for example, Ukrainian peasants who had daily contact with Jews in villages and towns kept diaries or correspondence, we would see how many warm and trusting relationships existed between Ukrainians and Jews.

In the Covid-dominated year of 2020, I helped a Polish-French film crew in Lviv to film a documentary about the Polish-Jewish poet Zuzanna Ginczanka. She lived in Lviv starting from 1939 and then went into hiding as the Germans occupied the city in 1941. We went to the house where she once lived to talk to the current residents. In one of the apartments, we met Yaroslava Matichyn, an intelligent woman who moved to Lviv from the Boiko region in the 1950s and could not have known Ginczanka. But she witnessed the Holocaust in her native village. The film director asked her: What can you tell us about relationships with Jews before and during the war? She told us about her best friend in childhood and adolescence, who was a Jewish girl living nearby. That girl learned to sew and made some of Yaroslava's best dresses. Later, during the war, she was taken in a truck to the forest and shot there along with other Jews. Curiously, as the old lady shared these memories with us, it was the first time her daughter, sitting next to her, heard the story. She asked, "Mom, why didn't you ever tell me about your friend? Why didn't you ever say you saw them being taken to the forest?"

This case shows how much good remains unspoken between Ukrainians and Jews. This is where literature comes into play, as it often articulates what is missing in official history.

You chair the jury of Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize in 2025. In your opinion, how does this prize affect interethnic dialogue?

I joined the award recently, and it is a great honor for me to chair the jury. I have known about the Encounter initiative for many years. It came not from the Jewish circles but from the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada, which is valuable. It is an "encounter halfway across the bridge" — a term popularized by Krzysztof Czyżewski, a cultural expert and a good friend of mine. I think that dialogue is indeed possible where both sides come out to meet each other halfway across the bridge. Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter is precisely this kind of joint initiative, where the Ukrainian voice is audible and readiness for understanding is tangible.

For me, chairing the jury is a complex but interesting job. It is about moderating. The moderator's primary role is not to impose their opinion but to help harmonize the views of others. Frankly, we had debates and indeed had to come to an agreed position. I think this is right. When we discussed the shortlisted books, I managed to fulfill my function, and we finally reached a common position, although it was not easy.

Was there a revelation for you among the books nominated for the prize? Given the incredible diversity of the submissions, how did you select the favorites?

Deciding on an absolute favorite was extremely challenging because each category has its strengths. I find it especially important that the Ukrainian-Jewish topic appears in teenage literature, notably in Children of the Burning Time by Mia Marchenko and Kateryna Pekur. It is a nice adventure novel for teenagers, showing a multicultural Kyiv and pulling it out of the Russian imperial matrix. The city appears as a mosaic of various cultural segments, with a prominent Ukrainian-Jewish theme. There are parallels with the present, such as when one of the protagonists, a Jew, rescues Ukrainian children during the Russian invasion in 2022.

Among adult literature, Sonya Kapinus' novel White Rabbits is interesting. It does not directly address Ukrainian-Jewish relations, but the Jewish theme is present. This is a novel in letters about Odesa in the 1920s. At the center is a small Russian-speaking Jewish family, immersed in this turbulent period marked by wars, chaos, and one power replacing another. The book reveals the complexity of city life, local culture, and interactions between different communities. It was originally written in Russian, and while translations are formally allowed for the prize, the fact that it was written in Russian raises questions during our ongoing war against Russia. Moreover, I find that the author does not clearly distance herself from the Russian-imperial cultural climate of Odesa at that time, and a view from "here and now" is somehow lacking.

Another important work is Centuries of Presence, an anthology of Ukrainian writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on Ukrainian-Jewish relations. The editor did not simply collect well-known texts, such as Ivan Franko's stories, but also found little-known and niche works penned, for example, by Tymofii Borduliak and Klym Polishchuk. This anthology is valuable for both the Ukrainian audience (as it offers an unusual perspective on Ukrainian literature) and the world audience because it shows our literature as an interesting mirror of Jewishness without hostility and stereotypes.

Finally, I am thrilled that many translations from Hebrew and Yiddish are appearing in Ukraine directly, without intermediaries. We finally have translations of such classical Yiddish authors as Yitskhok Leybush Peretz and Eli Schechtman.

To sum up, I will only say that jury members often face the dilemma of favoring either original works or translations. Personally, I prefer the originals. Of course, translations are also strategically important because they expand the audience. Still, it is more important to celebrate Ukrainian writers dealing with Jewish topics and crafting their own original texts. This is what is truly worth celebrating today.

On 3 October 2025, we will find out which of the shortlisted books will win Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize.

A three-member jury will select the best work of 2024–2025 in this field. Zbruc's editorial board offers conversations with the jury members to its esteemed readership.

The 2025 shortlist includes the following books:

Sonya Kapinus, White Rabbits (Kyiv: Publishing House ORLANDO, 2024)
Sonya Kapynus, Bili Krolyky (Kyiv: Vydavnychyy dim ORLANDO, 2024)

Mia Marchenko, Kateryna Pekur, Children of the Burning Time (Kharkiv Readberry, 2024)
Miya Marchenko, Kateryna Pekur, Dity vohnennoho chasu (Kharkiv: Readberry, 2024)

Isaac Leib Peretz, Hasidic, (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)
Yitskhok Leybesh Perets, Khasydsʹke (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)

Khrystyna Semeryn (Editor), Centuries of Presence. The Jewish World in Ukrainian Short Prose of the 1880s–1930s (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)
Khrystyna Semeryn (Uporyadnytsya), Stolittya prysutnosti. Yevreysʹkyy svit v ukrayinsʹkiy korotkiy prozi 1880-kh–1930-kh (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)

Eli Schechtman, Ringen oyf der Neshome (Rings on the Soul) (Lviv: Apriori Publishing House, 2023)
Eli Schechtman, Goyrl. Kilʹtsya na dushi (Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Apriori, 2023)

In December 2019, the Canadian charitable non-profit organization Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, in cooperation with Ukraine's NGO "Publishers Forum" (Lviv, Ukraine), announced a new initiative entitled Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize.

The prize aims to build on the common experiences of Ukrainians and Jews over the centuries, expressed in the written word. It is awarded annually to the most influential work that fosters Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping solidify Ukraine's place as a multi-ethnic society. The Encounter prize is awarded in two categories in alternate years: fiction (prose, poetry, and drama) and nonfiction (historical works, biographies, memoirs, journalism, essays).

The first Encounter prize was awarded in September 2020 in the fiction category to Vasyl Makhno for his novel Eternal Calendar (Lviv: The Old Lion Publishing House, 2019). The second year of the award in 2021 was dedicated to the nonfiction category, with the winner being Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern for the Ukrainian-language translation of his groundbreaking work, The Anti-Imperial Choice: The Making of the Ukrainian Jew (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2018). The third year of the award was held in 2023 in the fiction category, with Sofia Andrukhovych named the winner for her novel Amadoka (Lviv: The Old Lion Publishing House, 2020). The winner in the fourth year of the prize in 2024, in the category of nonfiction, was Yuriy Skira for his book, Solid. The Life-Saving Footwear Factory (Lviv: Choven Publishing House, 2023).

The 2022 Encounter prize was not awarded in connection with Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine.

Interviewed by Ksenia Pavlyshyn.

Originally appeared in Ukrainian @Zbruc

Translated from the Ukrainian by Vasyl Starko.