Barkas Vasyl.The White World: Poems.Munich, 1947

Vasyl Barka. White World: Poems / [cover and artistic design by Mykhailo Dmytrenko; afterword by Hryhoriy Shevchuk].

Munich: Ukrainian Tribune Publishing House, 1947. — illus. Printed by R. Oldenbourg, Graphische Betriebe GmbH, Munich.

In a published illustrated cover: on the front side, a woodcut composition by Mykhailo Dmytrenko in red and blue-black print — a girl in traditional clothing among floral ornament; the author's name in red, the title in outlined letters; the back cover is undecorated. On the title page, an oval vignette with the same figure and a red title; sections open with separate pages featuring woodcut compositions with the monogram "M. D." The cover has darkened evenly, with yellow-brown spots and stains, and worn edges; there is a small loss of paper in the lower corner of the spine, and a brown stain on the spine. The opening sheets have wavy stains from moisture along the top edge. The paper is coarse, with wood pulp inclusions, and evenly yellowed. On the back cover, "2200" is written in pencil at the top left and "300–400" at the bottom right. On the title page, there is a stamp "Zynowij Marciuk, Ehrengutstr. 15, 80469 München, Deutschland", with the impression visible on the reverse. Condition: good.

Lifetime edition. The volume belongs to the book printing of the Munich DP community of the late 1940s, and Mykhailo Dmytrenko's artistic design is of independent interest.

INFORMATION

"White World" is Vasyl Barka's second collection of poems published in exile, following "Apostles" (Augsburg, 1946). The book consists of the sections "Dawn", "Kindred Spirits", "Truth and Injustice", "Reflections of a Traveler", "Clarity", and concludes with Hryhoriy Shevchuk's afterword "The Poetry of Vasyl Barka". The collection includes "The Paserbytsia", "The Fatherland", "Paradise", "Reflections on a Good Kuban Man", "The Poem of the Flowering Wheat", "The Danube", "The Harper", "Apostles", "The Prophet in the Desert", and other works; the poems are dated 1946, some marked with the place of composition — Berlin.

Vasyl Barka (1908–2003; real surname — Ocheret) — poet, prose writer, essayist, and literary critic. Debuted with the collections "Paths" (1930) and "Guilds" (1932); in 1943, the Germans deported him to Berlin as a forced laborer; after the war, he lived in displaced persons camps in Augsburg, and from 1950 — in the USA. The novel "The Yellow Prince" (1963) — one of the most famous works about the Holodomor of 1932–1933.

The cover and design were created by Mykhailo Dmytrenko (1898–1997) — painter, muralist, and graphic artist, graduate of the Kyiv Art Institute; from 1944, he lived in exile in Munich, and later in Canada and the USA, where he painted Ukrainian churches. The Munich "Ukrainian Tribune" also had a publishing imprint; the monthly "Arka" (1947–1948) was published as a supplement to it. The book was published with the permission of the Civil Affairs Division of the Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe (July 1947); Wasyl Pasicznyak is listed as the responsible editor and printer.