IVAN HNATIUK’S POETIC TRILOGY IN THE EARLY 1990S: WHY DIDN’T UKRAINE HEAR THE PROPHET OF THE ‘NEW CHRONOLOGY’?

Abstract

The poetry books by I. Hnatiuk, edited in independent Ukraine, are especially valuable due to the first publication of his poems written in prison. He appeared in front of the reader in his true poetic self, without distortion of censorship, only in the 1990s — in a kind of poetical trilogy beginning with the collection “New calculus of time” (Kyiv, 1990). Three poetry books from the early 1990s — “New calculus of time”, “Via Dolorosa” and “True Revenge” — contain the restored early lyrics and poems of the author prisoner. I. Hnatiuk introduced into Ukrainian poetry the topics and issues related to the crimes of Stalin’s tyranny, the national resistance movement, and the threats of imperial aggression from Moscow in the time of Ukrainian independence. Hnatiuk never announced any prophecies of the expected ‘happy future’ in the new Ukraine, although the collections had a distinct prophetic orientation. The poems of the 1980s and 1990s were also presented, including the cycles brought to life by the Chornobyl disaster. The poet perceived the man-made environmental catastrophe as the last ‘wrath of God’, ‘the deadly tornado’ of the atomic Apocalypse. The evident journalistic component of the three-volume collection requires deeper reading and study in the context of the post-Soviet literature. Based on the classical poetic means and great verse epic forms, the poet created a new expressive type of the lyrical character — the persistent and uncompromising martyr of the Soviet concentration camp. According to the author of the paper, the unsubstantiated evaluations of Hnatiuk’s works as graphomania can be easily refuted by examples of his unique mastery and free command of the word.