The second-largest country in Europe, Ukraine is a place of breath-taking landscapes, lush meadows, cherry orchards, and extremely fertile agricultural land. In the Soviet days it was commonly referred to as ‘the granary of the country’. Perhaps that explains why, over the centuries, Ukraine frequently looked like a lucrative gain for a horde of invaders: from the Ottoman to the Russian Empires, from Austro Hungary to the Soviet state. They ravished the land and suppressed the people.
Yet the spirit of the nation has never been suppressed. The Ukrainian heart beats as strong as ever, and the Ukrainians keep their culture going, lovingly passing it down through generations.
The present collection is the first publication of the English translation of Christmas songs (koliadkas) and chants, masterfully arranged and orchestrated. Complete with informative introductions and sheet music, this collection will appeal to anyone who is interested in history, ethnography, music, and singing and who would like to support the Ukrainian course.
About the Translator
Svetlana Payne was born in Ternopil on the western rim of the Soviet Union, in 1961 and graduated with honours in philology, teaching of foreign languages and translation from the University of Lviv.
The illustrated compilation of the poetry by Daniel Kharms in Sveta’s translation, The Charms of Harms, appeared in 2011 and is still selling today. As a reverse in the cultural tide, in 1997 Sveta produced a Russian translation T. S. Elliot’s The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats which has now achieved a ‘Gold’ version for numerous reprints. In 2012 appeared her translation of The World’s Wife, by Carol Ann Duffy, and the libretto of Jesus Christ Super Star to enable a performance of this very popular musical in Russian.
Sveta has translated a biography of Boris Yeltsin (Boris Yeltsin: The Decade that Shook the World, (Glagoslav), a novel by Arseny Revazov (Loneliness-12, A&NN) and co-worked on two novels by the prize-winning Russian author Victor Pelevin (S.N.U.F.F. and Empire V, Gollancz).
Her most recent work is a translation of Sivtsev Vrazhek by Mikhail Osorgin (The Riven Heart of Moscow in translation) – a book written in the aftermath of the Revolution and the First World War has now been published by Glagoslav.
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