Kyiv: A Journal of Literature, Science, Art, Criticism, and Social Life. Parts 1–6.Philadelphia, 1955

“Blessed and sorrowful, / Blessed are those tears…” — Nataliia Lyvytska-Kholodna, “New Dawns”

Kyiv = Kyiw: a journal of literature, science, art, criticism, and public life / publisher and editor Bohdan Romanchenko. Issues 1–6 (January–December 1955).

Philadelphia: Kyiv Publishing House, 1955. — Vol. VI, issues 1–6, continuous annual pagination. — America Printing House, Philadelphia.

Complete annual volume: six bimonthly issues in soft covers of light blue paper, stapled. The framed cover with a medallion featuring a rider is printed in a different color for each issue: blue, black, brown, red, green, and cherry red. The covers are rubbed, and the edges and spines are darkened. On issue 1, there is a reddish stain near the spine, foxing, and a crease in the lower right corner of the front cover; on issue 2, the number “13” is written in pencil at the top; on issue 3, there are small spots near the spine; on issue 4, there are water stains on the front cover and its reverse, a strip of paper is missing from the outer edge of the front cover, and there are rust stains from the staples; on issue 6, there are stains at the bottom of the front cover, and the number “1039” is written in ink on the back cover. Several issues show rust stains from the staples on the first few pages. The text is complete. Condition: good.

The complete annual volume of one of the leading literary journals of the post-war emigration has historical, cultural, and collectible value.

INFORMATION

“Kyiv” was a bimonthly journal of literature, science, art, criticism, and public life published in Philadelphia from 1950 to 1964, and served as an important platform for contemporary Ukrainian prose, poetry, translations of world literature, criticism, and memoirs. The 1955 annual volume opens with new poems by Nataliia Lyvytska-Kholodna and Oksana Liaturynska; it also contains Yevhen Malaniuk’s “Stiletto and Stylus” and “Antistrophes,” a selection of little-known poetry by Oleh Olzhych, Yurii Darahan, and Malaniuk, and translations from Verlaine, Banville, Schiller, Stevenson, and Machado. From issue to issue are published Bohdan Nyzhankovskyi’s “I Have Returned to My City,” H. Nychka’s memoirs of the Ukrainian Independent Theatre, H. Lashchenko’s “From the Memories of Eminent Writers,” articles by Sviatoslav Hordynskyi, Volodymyr Doroshenko, Petro Hrytsak, and M. Prokop on Ukrainian policy in the Third Reich, and reviews and critiques of new emigré books.

Bohdan Romanchenko (1906–1989) was a literary scholar and critic originally from the Kolomyia region. In 1944, he emigrated to Austria, where he was a co-founder and co-editor of the journal Litavry, and later moved to the United States. Around “Kyiv” gathered Hordynskyi, Doroshenko, Luzhnytskyi, Ostroverkha, Tarnavskyi, and Klymkevych. Later, Romanchenko compiled the unfinished encyclopedia Azbukovnyk and a bibliography of emigré literature from 1945 to 1970.

The issues preserve the lively everyday life of the emigré editorial office: lists of donors to the press fund, announcements of a literary competition with prizes of up to $500 for a novella, advertisements for publications by “Kyiv,” Borys Antonenko-Davydovych’s “Ukrainian Land,” and the collection “Lviv” with caricatures by Edvard Kozak, and on the back cover of issue 6—the “Black List” of delinquent subscribers with surnames and cities. A subscription cost $3.50 per year, and a single issue cost 60 cents.