More than a thousand days have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The almost born publishing house La Tortuga Búlgara has just put the title in bookstores Current Ukrainian poetry. 11 contemporary poets with translation by Alina Vrabiy, Khrystyna Rachiy and Antonio Sánchez Carnicero. An opportunity to approach, differently, a reality steeped in war rhetoric.
Can literature be a tool to foster empathy with the Ukrainian people? Alina Vrabiy, one of the people responsible for translating the poems into Spanish, says the idea of the anthology is “to hear the Ukrainian voice in a raw and direct way.” In this way, it offers “a vision of the Ukrainian spirit and the land as a source of energy beyond tragedies, opinions, statistics and policies,” he says.
“In these poems we can not only sympathize with the Ukrainian people, but also see that they do not give up despite everything and that even verses about terrible things leave room for love and hope,” explains Khrystyna Rachiy, another translator. She gives as an example If they burn my face by Ihor Mitrov – which contains lines such as “If I lose a leg/ I will get around with a fancy cane/ Of course I won’t walk as much as before/ Nor as much as today/ But I won’t wear a heavy bags/much fewer bazookas” – because “the context of the tragedy shows the author’s optimism,” he explains.
Connect with the second generation migrant
In the book, each poem appears in its original language – written with its alphabet – and in Spanish. An option that may seem surprising if we wonder how many Spanish readers may have knowledge of Ukrainian. However, the reasons are varied and logical. “We want to be faithful to the author and his original tone. We also believe that the reader of poetry is generally curious and values all the details that make a book unique,” explains Marco Vidal González, founder of La Toruga Búlgara with María Vera Avellaneda.
In addition, the publisher emphasizes that there are large communities of migrants from Eastern Europe (Bulgarians, Romanians or Ukrainians, among others) in Spain. “Some of them, especially the new generations, generally have less connection with their other culture, and in fact many don’t even speak the language, so these bilingual editions can help them connect with their land and maintain the another living language. Then there is the case of those who emigrate as adults and who do not yet master Spanish. Likewise, the publisher took into account the new Slavic generations for whom bilingual publications: “can be a fun way to practice the language they are studying,” explains Vidal.
Choosing the poets who would participate in the anthology was a challenge for him, who specialized more in Bulgarian authors, because at that time he barely knew Ukrainian literature and therefore had to rely on outside advice. “I made contacts, collected names and contacted the authors, from whom we asked for a sample of ten poems. Then, with the translators, we made the final selection of poems for the anthology. The chosen ones were Lesyk Panasiuk, Iya Kiva, Oleh Kotsarev, Julia Stakhivska, Anna Malihon, Ihor Mitrov, Halyna Kruk, Yuliya Musakovska, Iryna Shuvalova, Andrii Golosko and Olena Stepanenko.
Antonio Sánchez Carnicero, one of the book’s translators, considers that the most interesting thing about current Ukrainian poetry is the contribution it makes to the imagination of readers. “Metaphors which transcend the known and which refer to a state of alert, despair, resignation, but also hope,” he explains. For her part, Khrystyna Rachiy explains that the anthology includes modern work, which “can be understood by readers of all ages. Ukraine has once again shown itself to be European and, by popularizing literature, we are helping the two peoples to know each other better and become closer.”
The animal of calm resistance
The Bulgarian tortoise is an animal that actually exists. Or that, for the moment, it manages to resist attempts to make it into a medicine, a food or a decorative object in the various Eastern European territories in which it lives. This species is twinned with another similar species that lives in the Mediterranean area. From this illusion of common survival in the midst of the whirlwind of modernity is born the name of this publishing house which began this year with the intention of publishing literature little distributed in Spain.
“So-called ‘minority languages’ hide surprises. Eastern Europe is increasingly attracting the Spanish reader and, as experts in these latitudes, we have found that there is a void and great literary potential to bet on,” explains Vidal González, graduated in Slavic languages from the University of Granada. Also at the head of the publishing house is his colleague María Vera Avellaneda, who studied Fine Arts and specialized in design, photography and publishing. “Our idea is to convey to the Spanish reader the voices, new and established, from all over Eastern Europe, although with a particular affinity for the Slavic languages and, in particular, for the Bulgarian language and literature” , explains the editor.
The fact that Bulgaria was the starting point of their business adventure responds to the previous experiences of its founders. Vidal González lived in Sofia for three years, where he came into direct contact with the linguistic and literary context of the country. Before moving there, he had studied Bulgarian at university, a subject he enrolled in “just to try it” but which captivated him almost immediately because of “the phonetics, the verbal system developed, the sound”. Within the Slavic languages, it is the most different and the furthest from the others,” he explains.
Uprooting, powerlessness and repression
In addition, in the first year of her studies she attended a master class from the famous writer Zhivka Baltadzhieva. From this contact, he read Bulgarian classics translated into Spanish, and when he settled in the country, he immersed himself in contemporary poetry. “Today, in Spain, not only have the attachment and connection with the Bulgarian literary scene not faded, but I am in permanent contact with the country’s writers,” he explains.
The Bulgarian Tortoise catalog already has 15 references, a significant figure for a publisher with such a short history. For the moment, the title that has received the most comments is Processionby the Bulgarian writer Kíril Vasílev (1971). “He is one of the greats, his approach to the eternal theme of death is devastatingly profound. Explore themes such as uprootedness, powerlessness and political repression. His verses take your breath away,” says the editor. Likewise, he emphasizes that Absences by Kamelia Panayótova is another of the most successful. “Panayótova explores the impact of trauma and family wounds in childhood and shows us that childhood is not always a refuge, but a space where the deepest helplessness can be born,” concludes Vidal González.
This is undoubtedly a bold project due to the uniqueness of the literature they publish and the prominence of poetry in their titles. “Publishing poetry involves a lot of risks: print runs are much shorter, sales depend a lot on presentations and the author’s circle of friends, and bookstores generally relegate it to the last corner shelf,” explains the manager. . However, the publisher considers that this genre has a much longer history than the story because its reader is not looking for – or not only – novelty but a work that moves them. However, in December they will begin the story with the publication of two books. “blue notebooka sort of diary of Aleksandar Vutimski (1919 – 1943), a pioneering writer in Bulgaria in the treatment of homoerotic feeling in literature and Letters from Omar to his future wifeby the Bulgarian writer René Karabash (1989),” anticipates Vidal. Literary proposals to find calm in the middle of the maelstrom, like the Bulgarian turtle.
