Tag Archives: Ukrainian

WORDS LIVE ON // Hennadii Havryliv

Down through the ages, Russia has tried to kill the Ukrainian identity. They have done everything to present Ukraine as the rural outskirts of the ‘great, educated and advanced’ Russian empire. But the ones who proclaimed themselves enlighteners were merely butchers, murderers. They did everything they could to erase Ukrainian culture, traditions, and even the Ukrainian language itself.

And they are still doing this, even now, literally. During the last eleven years of war, Russia has killed hundreds of people of literature. Writers, poets, translators, editors, publishers and librarians. Ukrainian men and women. As you read these words, others are left to disappear in an unread draft forever.

There is a project called ‘Nedopysani‘ (‘Unfinished‘ in English). It’s a memorial site for people of literature who will never be able to put that final dot in their notebook, who will never be able to take into their hands their first published book. And so, this is our hard and painful mission. This is what we must do for them. It is inevitable.

Today, we present the first instalment of our new translation series, ‘Words Live On’. We have done our best, and we hope that it will speak to our Dear Readers in a way that cold, clinical war statistics cannot.

Glory to Ukraine! To our heroes — glory!

we all will die
so it seems, that life has no meaning.

all meaning is in us, in a human head.
we set the vector of meaning on our own.

that’s why we invented a god.

based in
our image and after our likeness.
by ourselves
in ourselves

but i assure you
living – mandatory

ми всі помрем
і схоже, що у житті нема сенсу.

усі сенси у нас, в людській голові.
ми самі задаєм вектор смислу.

тому і придумали бога.

на основі
образу і подобі.
самі по собі
з себе

але запевняю
жити – треба

Original poem by HENNADII HAVRYLIV
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Kateryna Dashevets

Dear Readers, today we present to you the last instalment of our Young Ukrainian Poets feature. We like to believe that over time you have fallen in love with this and have therefore waited for each new post with crippling anticipation. After all, your likes and comments speak for themselves. (Our warmest wishes to Dolly whose comments especially inspired us to keep going!)

It was a fresh new breeze, our feature on young Ukrainian poets, don’t you think? Well, young, but never naïve. The war has changed the lives of all Ukrainians with one terrible, galvanising flick. The ones who yesterday enjoyed life, their first love, their first taste of booze and their first joint, are soldiers today. Our young Ukrainians took up arms and went to war to protect their Motherland from the imperialist fantasies of their crazy neighbouring lunatics. Why? To prove their right to be Ukrainians. To prove their right to simply be.

So, it is the end. But it is also the beginning. We will meet more of them soon, our young Ukrainian poets, in a new feature on unbolt.me. Stay tuned for that, won’t you?

Grecian free verse

After the divorce Hera escaped for a retreat at Argos
Swim in youthful springs, restore thoughts their chastity
Lay on an old sunbed to other women’s splashing
Who were waiting for therapeutic muds
Hiding behind sunglasses
From their housemaids
Hera thought gosh how long ago
My lands weren’t watered with bounteous and heavy rainfall
How long weren’t they fed with heat lightnings, fresh and steady winds didn’t rush
This jackass could only
Turn into a cuckoo
And grope my ass by surprise
He skimped on thunder and lightning for me
Like I skimp on mud for those hens
Quietness is broken with the clank of utensils
The clamour and laugh of soaked guests, eaten by siesta
The sacred bath is being readied for Friday’s party
Somewhere in the west of nature, away from the all-inclusive fuss
Sipping the late sun, like tequila sunrise, under the apple tree
Reclining, Zeus chills
Zeus eats ripe apples
Because this, maybe, is the only thing Hera hasn’t yet found, that he has snaffled
From the list of jointly acquired stuff
In their thousand-year marriage
And Zeus thought of course that he’s a fool and goof
How he skimped on lightning for his woman, how he scrimped on rainfall and spared the thunder
So she fed him with silence
For breakfast lunch but not for dinner
Because before their sleep they feasted with the heaviest concrete tedium
That wasn’t eaten up by erosion
Of the thousand-year Olympic marriage
Well everything’s alright Zeus snorted in his moustache
The real Hera is as she shall be
Loves violently
The Sun is down, and Zeus targets it with an apple core, like the needle of a dart
Getting 50 points, he wins and turns into a cuckoo
And flies to Argos

Давньогрецький верлібр

Після розлучення Гера втекла на ретрит до Аргоса
Скупатися у струмках молодості, повернути думкам незайманість
Лежати на старому топчані під хлюпотіння інших жінок
Які очікували лікувальних грязей
Ховатись за темними окулярами
Від своїх покоївок
Гера думала господи як же давно
Мої землі не зрошувалися щедрою й сильною зливою
Як довго не частувались вони блискавицями, як не гуляли свіжі й стійкі вітри
Він тільки й умів цей телепень
Що перекидуватись зозулею
Й хапати за дупу мене зненацька
Він для мене жалів гріму й блискавки
Як я жалію для тьоток багнюки
Тишу порушує брязкіт начиння
Гомін і сміх змоклих гостей, з’їдених сієстою
Священна купальня готується до п’ятничної вечірки
Десь на природі на заході, далеко від метушні олл-інклюзивів
Ковтаючи пізнє сонце, наче текілу санрайз, під яблунею
Напівлежачи, чілить Зевс
Зевс їсть наливні яблука
Бо це, напевно, єдине, до чого Гера не ще знає, що він дібрався
Зі списку нажитого спільно
У цьому тисячолітньому шлюбі
І Зевс звісно ж думав який він дурак і лох
Як він шкодував блискавиць для своєї жінки, як жалів розливних дощів і скупився на грім
От вона й годувала його мовчанням
На сніданок обід тільки не на вечерю
Бо перед сном вони споживали важкезну бетонну втому
Яку не роз’їла ерозія
Тисячолітнього олімпійського шлюбу
Ну все правильно засміявся собі в вуса Зевс
Гера вона така
Любить жостко
Сонце заходить, і Зевс цілить у нього огризком, як дротиком в дартсі
Вибиваючи 50 очків, він виграє й перекидується зозулею
І летить на Аргос

Original poem by KATERYNA DASHEVETS
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Mykola Humeniuk

Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.

You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.

This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

heart-throat

remember
my rabid hand
fiddled in your dog’s jaws
ragged fingers fondled ticklishly
wickered with dry sinews
the worn nail’s gums

no matter which hand
then filling with saliva
no matter which foam
a pet cytherea crawling out
if now one is left
with four fingers

varenyky or pierogi
the stomach can’t see
a pinky or a thumb
the dog’s stomach won’t remember
maybe should give the other hand
or take away a stubborn heart

let’s count on fingers
won’t give this, and won’t give this
won’t give this, and won’t give that
and this the dog
nom

on your street
kids shaped a song
there lived a four-fingered boy
the fifth one was cut from the leg
the toe was screwed on to the hand
what a weirdo ahahaha

i don’t care
i have a heart in my stomach
and two pinkies
on each hand

серце-гїд

пам’ятаєш
моя скажена рука
борсалась у пащі собаки твоєї
кудлаті пальці лоскітливо гладили
обплітали сухо жилами
стерті ясна нігтів

байдуже яка рука
тоді наливалася слиною
байдуже з якої піни
видибала ручна кіприда
коли тепер зоставсь
чотирипалий

вареники чи pierogi
шлунок не бачить
мізинець чи великий
собачий шлунок не запам’ятає
чи може дати другу руку
аби забрати вперте серце

давай лічить на пальцях
цього не дам й цього не дам
цього не дам і цей не дам
а цей собако
гам

у твоєму дворі
діти пісню склали
був хлопчак чотирипалий
п’ятий зрізали з ноги
прикрутили п’ятий палець
ну й дивак ги-ги ги-ги

мені байдуже
маю в шлунку серце
і по два мізинці
на кожній руці

Original poem by MYKOLA HUMENIUK
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Oleksii Dolhulov

Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.

You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.

This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

MUST NOT SLEEP

must not sleep
not yet for every loner
was created a pair
that could fit them in name
and length of stride

must not sleep
what’s up
not yet for every child
was created a future
so dry and grotesque
that at that moment every star
will think thrice before
lighting up

НЕ МОЖНА СПАТИ

не можна спати
ще не кожному самотньому
була вигадана пара
яка пасувала б йому за іменем
та довжиною кроку

не можна спати
ти чого
ще не кожній дитині
вигадане майбутнє
таке сухе та гротескне
що в той час кожна зірка
спочатку тричі подумає
поки засвітиться

Original poem by OLEKSII DOLHULOV
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2024

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Viktor Kropyvnyi

Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.

You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.

This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.

Everything hid in the wee knots
that we were weaving
from the thin grapevines
and bines of green hop.
When still with small steps
we measured the world’s moving metrics.
When still we carried
about the wounds and pains
of plucked herbs
and angry bees.
Everything hid
[from our present sharp eye
from our present alert ear
from our present wrathful shout]
in the ossified
but still alive
those wee knots:
the sun’s zigzags in the head
(after a fizgig dance)
hedgehogs’ trails
(still not forgotten)
and the first bee sting
that introduces pain
(and death).

Усе заховалось у вузлики
що ми їх в’язали
з тонкої лози винограду
та вусів зелених хмелю.
Коли ще малими кроками
міряли метрику рухів світу.
Коли ще тривожились
ранам і болям
зірваних трав
і розгніваних бджіл.
Усе заховалось
[від нашого гострого нині ока
від нашого пильного нині вуха
від нашого злісного нині крику]
у скостенілих
та досі живих
вузликах тих:
зиґзаґи сонця у голові
(після танцю дзиґою)
стежки їжаків
(досі не забуті)
і перше жало бджоли
що знайомить із болем
(і смертю).

Original poems by VIKTOR KROPYVNYI
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2025