Latvian Literature in Ukraine: a Brief Overview of its Perception and Interpretation During the Last Hundred Years
Latvian Literature in Ukraine: a Brief Overview of its Perception and Interpretation During the Last Hundred Years

Summary/Abstract: Latvian and Ukrainian literary relations are primarily characterized by a history of translations and encyclopedic information about writers and their work. The first renderings of Latvian literature into Ukrainian were published in the early 1920s. Most Ukrainian versions of Latvian prose and poetry were created in the Soviet period, starting from the 1950s; much less of them appeared in independent Ukraine. Ukrainian readers have the opportunity to get acquainted with the works of Vizma Belševica, Aleksandrs Čaks, Regīna Ezera, Nora Ikstena, Vilis Lācis, Linards Laicens, Rainis, Zigmunds Skujiņš, Andrejs Upīts, Ojārs Vācietis, Imants Ziedonis and others. Among the translators are Hryhorii Kochur, Konstiantyn Overchenko, Yurii Zavhorodnii, Yurii Sadlovskyi and others. These translators can be divided into three groups. The first group includes those who were fluent in the Latvian language and translated from the original. The second group includes those who had an idea of the grammatical and lexical features of the Latvian language and mainly used the original Latvian text for translation. The third group translated from the available Russian translations of the Latvian texts. In Ukraine the information about Latvian writers can be found in various encyclopedias, mainly in the Ukrainska literaturna entsyklopediia (Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Literature) (1988, 1990, 1995) and the Shevchenkivska entsyklopediia (Shevchenko Encyclopedia) (2012–2015), as well as in internet resources in Ukrainian. The objects of the research are only texts published in the Ukrainian language.

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