 Ukraine's Literary Warehouse By Mykola POLISCHUK |
"The existence of our scientific institution started with the creation of this archive, in which the manuscripts of all famous Ukrainian writers are kept," says Henadiy Mykolayo-vych Noha, secretary of the Institute of Literature at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The manuscript archive is not well known in Kyiv, though it is situated in the very center of the city on Grushevskogo Street. The custodians of the nation's literary history are protective of their charges: Viktor Dudko, the archive's deputy director, asked that flash photography not be used, as the bright light could further degrade aged documents. Larisa Ivanovna Chernyshenko, a research officer in the Institute of Literature's manuscript department, was concerned with protecting the writers' memory: Don't write about their private lives, she asked, adding that false information about Ukrainian writers has appeared far too often.
Shevchenko for the Chosen
"Honestly speaking," said Chernyshenko, "we are not interested in publicizing our work."
"Many of the documents kept here are incredibly worn. If one puts such a document into a photocopier, the temperature can cause the paper to crumble. There are many documents like this. Please understand that we cannot give the manuscripts of the national Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko to any person who simply wishes to look at it out of curiosity, as this can lead to physical wear and the consequent loss of the priceless document," she aid. "Academic researchers have access to the documents, but even they have to submit a letter from their institution."
Restoring and preserving the documents is a big job, yet Chernyshenko said that the archive lacks its own restoration facilities.
"We either cooperate with the workshop of the Book Museum at the Kyiv-Pechersk reserve, or use other restoration facilities in the city. We keep some documents in special folders which do not even let the ultraviolet rays to pass through."
Researchers are presently studying the manuscripts of Ukrainian poet and public figure Olexandr Oles. The manuscripts were brought from Slovakia last year through the efforts of former ambassador Dmytro Pavlychko. Oles had served as a diplomat for the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic. After the UPR ceased its official existence, the poet stayed in Slovakia, where he wrote poems, plays and humorous sketches about the politicians of the time. Today, sheets and copybooks full of notes in cramped handwriting are stored in folders and are being studied by literature researchers who are preparing a new collection of Oles's works for publication.
Kotlyarevsky's Green Pages
The poet's handwriting is visible on yellowed sheets that bear little resemblance to paper used today.
"Two and three hundred years ago, paper was produced from old rags, which made it durable, much stronger than modern paper," Chernyshenko said. "The compositions of the philosopher Grygory Skovoroda were written on such paper. The works of the famous 18th century poet Ivan Kotlyarevsky were written on paper with a blue-green tint."
The archive contains works written on a variety of papers. Most are handwritten, but some of the notebooks and copybooks are typed. Typewritten documents are considered manuscripts as well, as long as they bear the author's signature or handwritten margin notes that make it possible to trace the progress of the work on a particular literary piece.
Some manuscripts are decidedly non-traditional, like the work of poet and Soviet dissident leader Vasyl Stus, whose writing from prison was in very small letters on cigarette papers. Stus' son presented many of the original manuscripts to the archive.
But not all of the documents in the archive are in bad shape, Dudko said. Some manuscripts, like those of Ivan Franko, came to the archive in good condition. Franko was careful with his archives, and had neatly filed his works and correspondence."
Not all Ukrainian writers stood in good stead with the governments of their times. Some were repressed or persecuted, and their work has been held in the archives of various security services. Ukraine's security service, the successor to the KGB, is slowly turning the "manuscripts of Ukraine's repressed classics" that it has held over to the archive, Dudko said.
"The heritage of authors repressed in the 1920s and 1930s is very valuable to us," he said. "We have just received the complete archive of the writer and political leader Volodymyr Vynnychenko."
Academics compare original manuscripts with officially published works to learn the extent to which they were censored by Soviet and tsarist authorities. Some authors resisted publication at all, rather than undergo politically inspired editing.
"Lesya Ukrainka, for example, did not publish many of her works until she could publish them in their original form, despite knowing that because of her severe tuberculosis the works would most probably be published posthumously," Dudko said. "Now, we have a chance to compare the original manuscript with the variant sent to the censorship committee, and the text published with the corrections made by the censors. Almost every big literary piece was cut, re-written and greatly spoiled. Moreover, the pieces rejected by the censors for some reason were never returned to the authors."
Calligraphic Handwriting
The handwritten documents are studied carefully. Many authors had illegible handwriting, but many are written in an almost calligraphic hand, perhaps because calligraphy was a compulsory subject in the schools of their time.
"Can you imagine the document written at the minute of inspiration, when the quill is literally flying over the paper, jumping over the words, and where one sentence is crossed out and a new one is inserted above?" Dudko said. "Once, I saw a sheet of cigarette paper, which was covered with ink on both sides! Do you know how challenging it is to decipher such a document, especially taking into consideration the specific way of handwriting typical of different periods?"
He explained that the archivists have developed a system of deciphering handwriting. They have created a bank of handwriting samples, and use it to compare against specific writers' manuscripts.
Literary scholars are not the archive's only visitors, Dudko said. People of different professions express an interest in the manuscripts, all for different reasons. Some time ago, he said, an artist who was sculpting a monument to the exiled Ukrainian leader Ulas Samchuk made an inquiry. He was particularly interested in Samchuk's signature, which was to become part of the monument's design.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
A heat wave in Ukraine
"The Spirit of Hollybush" Comes to Donetsk
The new wave of Labor Migration
Home Discoveries
Asserting dignity
New Public Health for the New Ukraine
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