The Ukrainian sociopolitical and literary monthly magazine Suchasnist was a little late presenting its first issue this year. The January 2002 issue is almost entirely dedicated to Ukraine’s closest Western neighbor, Poland, its literature, criticism, art, and public life, including interviews and “Paradigms of the Epoch.” The issue had been long expected and the only holdback was the Editors’ limited capacities. Well, it is finally off the presses. Suchasnist was founded in emigration in 1961 by a team of unaffiliated liberal intellectuals. In 1991, it began being published in Ukraine and is currently run by the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council and the Republic Association of Ukrainian Studies. This year’s first issue became a reality thanks to Mr. Bohuslav Bakula, who took care of the compilation, and the Polish Institute of Kyiv, which also supported its appearance financially. Traditionally, Suchasnist presented the Polish issue at The Last Barricade art club. Apart from the editor-in-chief and soon to be Shevchenko Prize laureate Ihor Rymaruk and other members of the board, the ceremony was attended by Polish colleagues.
Chairman of the Editorial Council Ivan Dziuba stated with regret that “there are more publications on Ukrainian-Polish relations in Poland than in Ukraine.”
Vadym Skurativsky, editor for scholarship and culture, was also quite eloquent: “Polish culture is one of the greatest in the world and it remains our cultural chance. It’s all here” (in the issue – Author).
The recent interview with Lviv repatriate Stanislaw Lem is especially interesting. The celebrated science fiction writer is over ninety, yet he is marvelously youthful, with a paradoxical world outlook, and still capable of being surprised. The closeness of the two countries and the remarkable affinity of their political destinies have caused an obvious parallel nature in their development: “...what we have in Poland is not democracy but a democratoid. Our democracy is underdone, with tempered corruption and firmly established contacts deep inside.” The writer explains why he abandoned literature for a large readership: “Now that the language of Aesopian allusions has lost its meaning, I no longer fight the powers that be with pen in hand. What’s probably left is testing like affixing signatures to declarations no one will read anyway.” And later, “What irritates me is evil and stupidity. Evil is born of stupidity and stupidity thrives on evil. Television is packed with violence; it gets one used to evil. Technology makes crime increasingly anonymous. The Internet helps one do to another something one would never wish done to himself.” Incidentally, Stanislaw Lem agreed to another screen version of his Solaris by 20th Century Fox (the first one belongs to the brilliant Andrei Tarkovsky), even though he has “substantial reservations concerning these plans.”
