Terem: Problems of Ukrainian Culture. Part 8: Zenon Tarnavsky.Warren, December 1982

“...perhaps my true destiny was to become a worker in the field of culture and art, rather than a performer and creator in one area or another.” — Zenon Tarnavsky

Terem: Problems of Ukrainian Culture: An Irregular Illustrated Journal. Issue 8, December 1982: Theater and Literature Abroad: Zenon Tarnavsky, 1912–1962 / Editor-in-Chief Yurii Tys-Krokhmaliuk; Editorial Board Members Mykola Klymyshyn, Mykola Kavka, Martyn Novakovsky, Antyn Kobylyansky; Cover by Mykhailo Dmytrenko.

Warren (Michigan): Association of Ukrainian Cultural Workers, 1982. — 71 pp.: illus., portrait. — Administration: Ukrainian Bookstore, Warren. — Issue sponsor: Ukrainian Cultural Center in Detroit.

Published in a cream-colored paper cover: the title “Terem” appears on the front in black, along with a large green illustration by Mykhailo Dmytrenko depicting a theater curtain with three masks and a quill, bearing the monogram “M. D.”; the back cover is plain. The cover is clean, with slightly rubbed corners; the back cover shows faint gray stains and minor loss of the paper’s surface layer in the lower corner near the spine. The text block is firm; the paper is white and clean, without inscriptions, stamps, or underlining. Condition: very good.

This publication has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

Issue 8 of “Terem” is entirely devoted to Zenon Tarnavsky on the twentieth anniversary of his death. In the essay “A Man of the Theater,” Hryhor Luzhnytsky publishes Tarnavsky’s final letter to him for the first time; this is followed by articles by Roman Kukhary and Bohdan Boichuk on “The Road to the High Castle,” Oleh Lysiak and Iryna Lavrivska on “Merry Lviv” in the Division, and Yurii Tys-Krokhmaliuk on the Detroit premiere of the medieval morality play “The Play of the Man” (Everyman), translated and staged by Tarnavsky on March 4, 1961. Half of the issue consists of texts by Tarnavsky himself: “Sweet Wine and a Finna,” “Edward Kozak,” “Meeting in Perpignan,” “Max Reinhardt’s Early Career,” “Lviv Speaks,” and “Heresies in Defense of Everyday Life.” The illustrations include a caricature of Edward Kozak, in which Tarnavsky-Don Quixote charges on a rocking-horse steed against a windmill.

Zenon Tarnavsky (1912–1962) was born in Sambir; in the 1930s, he worked as a journalist for Lviv’s “Ukrainski Viesti” and “Batkivshchyna,” and translated and adapted plays for the Zahrava and Tobylevych Theaters. In 1942–1944, he founded and directed the Merry Lviv Theater and headed the Literary and Artistic Club. In exile, he was a co-editor of “Arka” and the first editor of “Ukrainska Trybuna”; from 1949, he lived in Detroit, where he also translated Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral” and Wilder’s “Our Town.”

“Terem” was founded and edited by the writer Yurii Tys-Krokhmaliuk (1904–1994); each issue was devoted to a single person or theme. This issue was published by the Association of Ukrainian Cultural Workers in Warren, and the cover with theater masks was drawn by Mykhailo Dmytrenko.