Kyiv: A Journal of Literature and Art. Parts 1–3.Philadelphia, 1950

Kyiv = Kyiw: literary and art journal of the Literary and Art Society in Philadelphia / published and edited by B. Romanchenko with the active cooperation of P. Andrusiev, S. Hordynskyi, B. Kravtsev, P. Mehyk, Ya. Slavutych. Year I. Issues 1–3 (July–December 1950).

Philadelphia: Literary and Art Society, 1950. — Year I, issues 1–3, continuous pagination throughout the year. — Covers illustrated by Sviatoslav Hordynskyi. — Printed by America Press, Philadelphia.

Complete first year: three bimonthly issues in softcover bindings, each in a different color (cream, light blue, green), saddle-stitched. Covers show wear, with darkened edges and spines, and minor tears along the edges; issue 1 has an old number inked on the back cover; issue 3 bears the stamp “Gift: from the collection of V. Verhun.” Text complete. Condition: good.

The first year’s run of one of the leading literary journals of the post-war emigration has historical, cultural, and collectible value.

INFORMATION

“Kyiv” was a literary and art bimonthly published in Philadelphia from 1950 to 1964, becoming one of the major venues for post-war émigré literature. It published new prose and poetry, translations of world classics, criticism, memoirs of the theater, and bibliographies of émigré publications. The journal was published and edited by Bohdan Romanchenko (1906–1989), a literary scholar and critic from the Kolomyia region, co-founder of “Lytavri” in Austria, and later compiler of “Azbukovnyk” and a bibliography of émigré literature. The cover featuring a medallion of a horseman was illustrated by Sviatoslav Hordynskyi.

The first issue appeared in July 1950. The first year’s run includes poetry by Yevhen Malaniuk, Sviatoslav Hordynskyi, Mykhailo Orest, Yuriy Kosach, Bohdan Kravtsev, Yar Slavutych, Oleh Zuyevskyi, Bohdan-Ihor Antonych’s “From the Great Harmony,” and unpublished poems by Mykola Zherov, accompanied by memoirs about him; prose by Ihor Kostetskyi, Dokia Humienna (“Velykyi Tsabe”), and Ostap Tarnavskyi; Volodymyr Blavatskyi’s memoirs “Three Years at the Lviv Opera House,” Yuriy Sherykh’s “Two Styles of Literary Criticism,” Vasyl Derzhavyn’s essays on Paul Valéry, and translations from Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, Verlaine, T. S. Eliot, and Aldous Huxley.