Description
At the time of its publication in 1960, volume 1 of Вибраний Езра Павнд [Selected Works of Ezra Pound], published in Munich by the leading Ukrainian modernist writer, translator, and publisher Ihor Kostetsky, constituted the most extensive collection of translations of Pound’s poetry and prose into any language. As such, this Ukrainian émigré publication, prepared in consultation with Pound himself, represented at that time perhaps the highest achievement of the study and promotion of the sophisticated oeuvre of this master Anglo-American modernist poet and intellectual. Kostetsky planned to make this publication even more pioneering and fundamental by adding a second volume with extensive commentaries to Pound’s complex literary works, but, for various reasons, he was unable to complete that task.
The endeavor of reconstructing this historic achievement of Ukrainian literary culture was undertaken by Marko Robert Stech of the Canadian institute of Ukrainian Studies, who compiled volume 2 of this publication based on the materials and fragmentary notes left in Kostetsky’s archive. This current new two-volume edition of Вибраний Езра Павнд was published in Kyiv in March 2022 in the CIUS-sponsored series Україна і світ: Перехрестя культур [Ukraine and the World: The Crossroads of Cultures]. The objective of this series is to present exceptionally important (even though often not adequately known) accomplishments of Ukrainian writers, cultural figures, and intellectuals in an international context. Apart from materials from Kostetsky’s archive, volume 2 also contains complete correspondence between Kostetsky and Ezra Pound and partial correspondence between Kostetsky and Eva Hesse (the leading specialist on Pound in post-war West Germany) (both prepared and translated by Mykola Polyuha) as well as a selection of newer Ukrainian translations of Pound’s works and several studies dedicated to this remarkable poet.
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