Igor Kaczurowskyj


Igor Kaczurowskyj was a Ukrainian poet, translator, novelist and short story writer, literary scholar, university lecturer, journalist.

Life

Igor Kaczurowskyj was born on 1 September 1918 in Nizhyn in a family of graduated of the Kyiv University. His father practised law, afterwards specialized in economy as well, for some time the held the rank of a state secretary assistant in the Central Council of Ukraine.
Until the age of 12, Kaczurowskyj lived in Kruty, a small village. In 1932 the family, in order to avoid repressions, set off for Kursk. Kaczurowskyj studied, till 1941, in the Kursk "pedagogical institute", where Boris Jarkho, Petro Odarchenko were professors; in 1942 he returned to Ukraine, in 1943 he moved westward; from 1945 on he lived in Austria.
Kaczurowskyj started to publish his writings in 1946, winning the next year a literary prize for his short story “The Passport”; at the same time he began to co-operate with the staff of the magazine “Litavry”. He was one of the founding members of the Union of Ukrainian Scholars, Writers and Artists in Salzburg. In 1948 he emigrated to Argentina and settled near Buenos Aires. Working as a port labourer, he at the same time edited the magazine “Porohy” , wrote for the periodicals “Ovyd”, “Mitla”, “Novi Dni”. In 1958–62 he assisted the Instituto Grafotécnico ; 1963–64 he lectured on Ancient Ukrainian literature at the Catholic University, in 1968 on Russian literature at the University of El Salvador, both in Buenos Aires. In 1969 he moved to Munich, remaining nevertheless a citizen of Argentina. In the 1970–80s he wrote and broadcast over two-thousand scripts, as a literary commentator at the “Ukrainian Desk” of the broadcasting service Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. At the Ukrainian Free University, he obtained his PhD degree for his thesis “Old Slavic beliefs and their connections with Indo-Iranian religions”; from 1973 on he lectured at the UFU, from 1982 as an ordinary professor; at the Faculty of Philosophy he held lectures on Metre versification, stylistics, theory of literary genres, history of the Ukrainian literature of the 1920–30s, History of Medieval European literature. He was a member of the Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile “Slovo”, the Union of Argentine Writers SADE, National Union of Writers of Ukraine.
In accordance with his own wish, uttered repeatedly in conversations and letters to acquaintances, his ashes were buried in his home village Kruty, the solemn event having taken place 22 November 2013.

Poetry

Igor Kaczurowskyj is the author of the following books of verse: “Nad Svitlym Dzherelom”, Salzburg 1948; “V Dalekiy Havani”, Buenos Aires 1956; “Pisnya Pro Bilyi Parus”, Munich 1971; “Svichada Vichnosty”, Munich 1990; “Osinni Piznyotsvity”. The last was published in one volume, along with the poem “Selo”. The final collection of selected poems named “Liryka” was published in Lviv.
As a poet Kaczurowskyj was a follower of the Kyiv neoclassicists, a literary disciple of Mykhailo Orest. Similar to Mykola Zerov and the poets of his literary school, Kaczurowskyj was a master in “poetry of the second degree” such a “poetry of culture” which is considered by Dmytro Nalyvayko as one of the major attributes of classicism as a type of artistic thought. At the same time Kaczurowskyj composed refined love poems, and poetry of nature. In general, Kaczurowskyj's poetry is marked by a painful disharmony between spiritualized beauty embodied in primeval nature, the masterworks of art of the past ages and the spiritual decay of modern civilization, between high human feelings and contrasts of social reality. His long poem “Selo” was the first great epic in Ukrainian literature depicting the tragedy of Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932–3.
The main characteristics of his poetical style, are a neoclassical clarity, achieved by open metaphors, a refined lexis, a select poetical language, free of every coarsness or vulgarism, the strict adherence to the accentual-syllabic verse meter, and the perfect dominion of canons ruling the poems' stanzas.
Kaczurowskyj's poetical parodies, epigrams, jests, and other humorous writings, used to be published, abroad and in Ukraine, under the pseudonym Khvedosiy Chichka.
As a writer for children, Kaczurowskyj is the author of the long poem "Pan Kotskyi", and the book "U svynyachomu tsarstvi".

Prose

His prose writings comprise the novel "Shlyakh nevidomoho", Munich 1956, which later was translated into English by Yuriy Tkach and into German by Lidia Kriukow ; the novel "Dim nad krucheyu", Munich 1966; these books consist of episodes, relating the adventures of a young Ukrainian intellectual during the Second World War, between two demoniac forces, the Soviets, and Hitler's nationalists, some reviewers, such as Caroline Egerton of "The Age", Melbourne, and Petro Soroka, Ukraine, remarking their anti-existencialist motives; a shorter story "Zaliznyi kurkul'", Munich 1959, Poltava 2005; a series of short stories, among which: "Po toy bik bezodni", published in English in: "Urania", Kanpur, India, vol. I, #I, 1987; "Krynytsya bez vahadla" ; "Ochi Atosa" ; "Tsybulyane vesillya", etc., all his prose writings being published, jointly, in one volume with the title "Shlyakh nevidomoho", Kyiv 2006. Kaczurowskyj's memoirs are published in his book "Kruty moho dytynstva", Nizhyn 2007, and the complete posthumous collection of his memoirs "Spomyny i postati".

Translations

Igor Kaczurowskyj's translations of poetry had primarily appeared as parts of his aforementioned books of verse. Also, separate books of translations were published, such as: Francesco Petrarca "Vybrane" ", Munich 1982; "Zolota haluzka", being a collection of Iberian and Ibero-American poetry, from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan languages, Buenos Aires–Munich 1991; "Okno v ukrainskuyu poeziyu", Ukrainian poems in Russian translations, Munich–Kharkiv–Nizhyn 1997; "Stezhka kriz' bezmir", 100 German poems, 750–1950, Paris–Lviv–Zwickau 2000; "Pisnya pro Rolanda", from Old French, maintaining the original syllabic metre, Lviv 2008; "Choven bez rybalky" by Alejandro Casona, a theatrical piece, translated from Spanish, Buenos Aires 2000; "Nobelivs'ka lektsiya z literatury" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Neu Ulm 1973. The compilatory volume of his translations, "Kruh ponadzemnyi", Kyiv 2007 comprises approximately 670 poems and fragments of over 350 authors, translated from 23 old and modern languages, first of all from Spanish, from Italian, from German, from English, from French, Polish, Russian, and also from Ukrainian into Russian. Igor Kaczurowskyj considered himself a follower of Mykola Zerov's translating school, that is the translation of each verse with a maximum approach to the original, not only as regards the contents, but the metrical, and stylistic particularities as well. Sometimes, he recurred to prose interlinear translations made by Lidia Kriukow, who is familiar with many European languages.

Scientific work

In literary theory, Kaczurowskyj's major aim was the development of the principles put forward by Boris Yarkho and Volodymyr Derzhavyn. He is the author of several textbooks of theory of literature, which was the main subject — along with History of Literature — of his lectures and scientific papers. They are:
A synthesis of Kaczurowskyj's research work as a historian of Ukrainian literature, may be found in his book "Promenysti syl'vety" – lectures, papers, articles, essays, treatises, the main purpose of this work being to recall to mind the wrongly forgotten gifted authors of Ukrainian literature, especially those of the Second World War generation, and to relieve the minds of readers and researchers from the stereotype concepts regarding famous representatives of Ukrainian literature.
Selected broadcasting scripts on arts and literature from "Radio Liberty" were compiled in a volume: "150 vikon u svit", Kyiv 2008.
Due to the aesthetic concepts and canons featured in his textbooks and other writings, Kaczurowskyj may be considered an outstanding advocate of the theories of Ukrainian neoclassicism. He participates in the conviction that Beauty "is the greatest welfare, as a definite artistic synthesis of Goodness and Truth", he advocates the autonomy of art, which, in his opinion, "is completely independent of social, political, climatic or any other circumstances", he defends the long duration of the traditions of artistic creativity, as a contrast and in opposition to the so-called post-modernism and its negation of past times artistic achievements.
Kaczurowskyj is the editor, together with Sviatoslav Hordynsky and Lidia Kriukow, as well as author of the "Forewords" of the volumes: "Khrestomatiya ukrayins'koyi relihiynoyi literatury. Knyha persha – Poeziya", Munich–London 1988, and the collection "Italiya v ukrayins'kiy poeziyi", Lviv 1999; he is also the editor of other editions, as well as the author of the introductions to the volumes: Mykhaylo Orest: "Pizni vruna", Munich 1965; "Ukrayins'ka muza", 2nd ed. by Oleksa Kovalenko, Buenos Aires 1973; and Yuriy Klen: "Tvory", part 1, New York 1992, etc.
Kaczurowskyj is the author of a popular essay on mycology: "Putivnyk dlya hrybariv" conjointly with V. Ya. Baranov: "Vid Kyeva do Kachanivky cherez Nizhyn", Kyiv 2011.

Awards