Description

“Anarchy in the UKR” is a book about an era that is hard to imagine for those who did not live through it. It was a time without the internet or mobile phones, a moment of a great fracture when yesterday’s red flags and CPSU slogans instantly lost their meaning. They were replaced by street hangouts, informal movements, “chernukha,” esotericism, and the first desperate entrepreneurs trying to make money from this chaos.

Serhiy Zhadan’s notes are sharp and unpolished. They ruthlessly destroy the “retouched” memories that even eyewitnesses of those events tend to create over time. Their main value lies in this raw immediacy.

Serhiy Zhadan — poet, prose writer, essayist, and translator. A cult figure of Ukrainian culture. Author of numerous poetry collections and iconic novels. Alieh Žlutka — translator, musician, performer, and human rights activist. Born in Ukraine in 1980. Member of the Ukrainian Literature Society at the Union of Belarusian Writers, participant in the art groups “Niakhay,” “Svamova,” and Illia Sin’s “Theater of Mental Instability.” Currently lives in Warsaw.

The history of this translation began in the fall of 2007: “Anarchy” made such a strong impression on Alieh Žlutka that he immediately decided to start translating it. The first edition in our language was published in Minsk in 2012. In 2014, the already established master Serhiy Zhadan re-released “Anarchy” in a new edition: he streamlined the punctuation and removed unnecessary outbursts and comments, making the work even more distinct and transparent. In 2022, Alieh Žlutka decided to give his translation a major “remastering” to bring it closer to the current Ukrainian version. This updated edition is published by the Belarusian publishing house “Skaryna.”