Arcadia of Ukraine. Poetry Path to a Beautiful Land

Poetic is always political. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Translating Ukrainian poetry into Estonian has a particular significance now – it is an act of resistance to the national disease of injustice, violence, imperialism and colonialism. Many Estonian linguists, translators and poets have made it their mission over the past two years to translate Ukrainian literature into Estonian, and the Looming magazine has joined in by publishing Estonian translations of many Ukrainian authors. On Sunday 28 May at 12.00, the courtyard of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre will host notable Estonian poets and translators Kätlin Kaldmaa, Veronika Kivisilla, Igor Kotjuh and Anna Verschik, with originals read by Ukrainian translator Katja Novak, who recently won the Concord Award of the Open Estonia Foundation. Although most of Ukraine’s territory is as far from Arcadia as can be imagined, instead groaning under bombs, mines and nightmares brought by the aggressor, it is the Ukrainian language and culture where the dream of Arcadia remains the most persistent; and every time someone reads or hears to words of Lyubov Yakimchuk, Kateryna Babkina, Oleh Kotsarev, Serhiy Zhadan, Julia Musakovska, Ostap Slyvynsky, Iya Kiva, Alex Averbuhi or others, we can imagine a undestroyed – or indestructible – home.