Igor Kaczurowskyj

Igor Kaczurowskyj (; 1 September 1918 – 18 July 2013) was a Ukrainian poet, translator, writer, academic and radio journalist. Kaczurowskyj's mother, Yevgeniya Oleksandrivna Kachurovskaya (; ), was a member of the Ukrainian nobility and graduate of the Women's Higher Courses. During the Ukrainian People's Republic Kaczurowskyj's father was a member of the Central Rada, serving as assistant state secretary and later as the financial officer of Nizhyn district.

Kaczurowskyj first lived in the village of Kruty however, in order to avoid Soviet repression the Kaczurowskyj family initially moved to Nizhyn in November 1930 before settling in Mala Vyska in spring 1931.

In 1937 Kaczurowskyj completed his secondary education and began attending the Kursk State Pedagogical Institute, studying under and Petro Odarchenko. Kaczurowskyj graduated in 1941. The family later relocated to Allied-occupied Austria (present-day Austria) and from 1945 onwards lived in Camp 373, a Displaced Persons Camp in Spittal an der Drau.

Argentina Towards the end of 1948 Kaczurowskyj and his family emigrated to Argentina and settled near Buenos Aires. Kaczurowskyj first worked as a labourer on a port railway repair crew and later as a port janitor, whilst studying Spanish in his spare time. 1963–64 he lectured on Ancient Ukrainian literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, remaining nevertheless a citizen of Argentina. In the 1970–80s he wrote and broadcast over two-thousand scripts, as a literary commentator (program specialist) at the "Ukrainian Desk" of the broadcasting service Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. At the Ukrainian Free University (Munich), he obtained his PhD degree for his thesis "Old Slavic beliefs and their connections with Indo-Iranian religions"; from 1973 on he lectured at the UFU, from 1982 as an ordinary professor; at the Faculty of Philosophy he held lectures on Metre (poetry)versification, stylistics, theory of literary genres, history of the Ukrainian literature of the 1920–30s, History of Medieval European literature. He was a member of the Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile "Slovo" ("The Word"), the Union of Argentine Writers SADE (Sociedad Argentina de Escritores), National Writers' Union of Ukraine (since 1992).

Poetry

Igor Kaczurowskyj is the author of the following books of verse: "Nad Svitlym Dzherelom" ("At The Luminous Fountain), Salzburg 1948; "V Dalekiy Havani" ("In The Far Harbor"), Buenos Aires 1956; "Pisnya Pro Bilyi Parus" ("White Sail Song"), Munich 1971; "Svichada Vichnosty" ("Mirrors of Eternity"), Munich 1990; "Osinni Piznyotsvity" ("Autumn Crocuses"), Kyiv 2000, 2001). The last was published in one volume, along with the poem "Selo" ("The Village"; 1st edition: Neu-Ulm 1960; 4th edition with the title "Selo v Bezodni" ("The Village in an Abyss"; Kyiv 2006). The final collection of selected poems named "Liryka" was published in Lviv (2013).

As a poet Kaczurowskyj was a follower of the Kyiv neoclassicists, a literary disciple of Mykhailo Orest (along with Orest, he is supposed to be one of the representatives of the post-neoclassical movement, or younger neoclassicists). Similar to Mykola Zerov and the poets of his literary school, Kaczurowskyj was a master in "poetry of the second degree" (in his own terminology "transpositive poetry") such a "poetry of culture" which is considered by Dmytro Nalyvayko as one of the major attributes of classicism as a type of artistic thought (section "Stara Evropa" ("Ancient Europe") in the book "Svichada vichnosty"). At the same time Kaczurowskyj composed refined love poems (section "Pisnya pro bilyi parus" in the book of verse of the same title), and poetry of nature (section "Hrybna mistyka" ("Mushroom mysticism") in "Svichada vichnosty"). In general, Kaczurowskyj's poetry is marked by a painful disharmony between spiritualized beauty embodied in primeval nature, the masterworks of art of the past ages and the spiritual decay of modern civilization, between high human feelings and contrasts of social reality. His long poem "Selo" was the first great epic in Ukrainian literature depicting the tragedy of Ukrainian Holodomor (Famine-Genocide) of 1932–3.

The main characteristics of his poetical style, are a neoclassical clarity, achieved by open metaphors, a refined lexis, a select poetical language, free of every coarseness or vulgarism, the strict adherence to the accentual-syllabic (classic) verse meter, and the perfect dominion of canons ruling the poems' stanzas (mostly of Roman origin).

Kaczurowskyj's poetical parodies, epigrams, jests, and other humorous writings, used to be published, abroad and in Ukraine, under the pseudonym Khvedosiy Chichka.

As a writer for children, Kaczurowskyj is the author of the long poem "Pan Kotskyi" ("Mister Kotskyi"; the first edition, Kyiv 1992; the second edition, Kyiv 2016, under the patronage of the German Embassy in Kyiv, with a German adaptation, in verse, by Wilhelm Steinbüchler), and the book "U svynyachomu tsarstvi" ("In The Wild Boars' Kingdom", Munich 1997).

Prose

His prose writings comprise the novel "Shlyakh nevidomoho" ("The Way of an Unknown"), Munich 1956, which later was translated into English by Yuriy Tkach ("Because Deserters Are Immortal", Doncaster, Australia 1979) and into German by Lidia Kriukow ("Der Weg eines Unbekannten: Geschichte eines ukrainischen Deserteurs", Frankfurt am Main 2018); the novel "Dim nad krucheyu" ("House on a Cliff"), Munich 1966; these books consist of episodes, relating the adventures of a young Ukrainian intellectual during the Second World War, between two demoniac forces, the Soviets, and Hitler's nationalists, some reviewers, such as Caroline Egerton of "The Age", Melbourne, and Petro Soroka, Ukraine, remarking their anti-existencialist motives; a shorter story "Zaliznyi kurkul'" ("The Iron Landowner"), Munich 1959, Poltava 2005; a series of short stories, among which: "Po toy bik bezodni" ("Beyond the Abyss"), published in English in: "Urania" (A Journal of Creative Writing and Literary Studies), Kanpur, India, vol. I, #I, 1987; "Krynytsya bez vahadla" ("A Pit Without A Pendulum"); "Ochi Atosa" ("The Eyes Of Athos [a dog]"); "Tsybulyane vesillya" ("The Onion-Wedding"), etc., all his prose writings being published, jointly, in one volume with the title "Shlyakh nevidomoho", Kyiv 2006 (442 pages). Kaczurowskyj's memoirs are published in his book "Kruty moho dytynstva" ("The Village Kruty of My Childhood"), Nizhyn 2007, and the complete posthumous collection of his memoirs "Spomyny i postati" ("Memoirs and Figures", Kyiv 2018).

Translations

Kaczurowskyj was fluent in Ukrainian and Russian. .

Due to the aesthetic concepts and canons featured in his textbooks and other writings, Kaczurowskyj may be considered an outstanding advocate of the theories of Ukrainian neoclassicism (along with Volodymyr Derzhavyn). He participates in the conviction that Beauty "is the greatest welfare, as a definite artistic synthesis of Goodness and Truth" (Derzhavyn), he advocates the autonomy of art, which, in his opinion, "is completely independent of social, political, climatic or any other circumstances", he defends the long duration of the traditions of artistic creativity, as a contrast and in opposition to the so-called post-modernism and its negation of past times artistic achievements.

Kaczurowskyj is the editor, together with Sviatoslav Hordynsky and Lidia Kriukow, as well as author of the "Forewords" ("Introductions") of the volumes: "Khrestomatiya ukrayins'koyi relihiynoyi literatury. Knyha persha – Poeziya" ("Chrestomathy of Ukrainian Religious Poetry"), Munich–London 1988, and the collection "Italiya v ukrayins'kiy poeziyi" ("Italy in Ukrainian Poetry"), Lviv 1999; he is also the editor of other editions, as well as the author of the introductions to the volumes: Mykhaylo Orest: "Pizni vruna" ("Late Blossoming"), Munich 1965; "Ukrayins'ka muza" ("Ukrainian Muse"), 2nd ed. by Oleksa Kovalenko, Buenos Aires 1973; and Yuriy Klen: "Tvory" ("Works"), part 1, New York 1992, etc.

Kaczurowskyj is the author of a popular essay on mycology: "Putivnyk dlya hrybariv" ("A Guidebook for Mushroom Hunters") conjointly with V. Ya. Baranov: "Vid Kyeva do Kachanivky cherez Nizhyn" ("From Kyiv to Kachanivka Through Nizhyn"), Kyiv 2011.

Personal life and death On 20 June 1968, Kaczurowskyj married Lydia Kryukova-Kachurovskaya (; 1935–2020), a translator and art critic, with whom he had one son. Kaczurowskyj's ashes were buried in Kruty on 22 November 2013.

Awards 1982 — Ivan Franko Fund (Chicago, United States) prize, awarded for the translation of Francesco Petrarca's book "Selected". 1994 — Maksym Ryls'kyi Prize, for his work as a translator. 2002 — award of the SUCHASNIST magazine and the League of Ukrainian Patrons of Art, for his essay "Gothic Literature And Its Genres"