favorably disposed toward Russia. That was the way I was pressed by passionate Russian patriots like Oles’ Buzyna. And on the other hand, I was pressed by my fellow writers. Some used to say straight from the rostrum or from the scene and right to my face that the time would come when Kurkov began to write in Ukrainian. I don’t want to name the persons, but they all sincerely believed that all that is not in Ukrainian is alien. As far as I remember, it happened just once that the hetman Skoropadsky’s granddaughter, Olena Ott-Skoropadska, who was present at a meeting where the topic of my “non-ukrainity” was brought up again, rose and defended me publicly, saying that Russian-language literature had always been and would always be present in Ukraine. I. S.: Is the publication of your novels in Ukrainian translation a compromise? A. K.: The first attempt was made in 2001 when a foundation that had to do with President Kuchma suggested publishing my novel Penguin lost in Ukrainian. The then deputies [of the Parliament] were all given a copy of the book as a gift. The next attempts were made later. Practice has shown that my books in Ukrainian sell equally well. This means that translation into Ukrainian can have both political and exclusively commercial advantages. I. S.: When speaking of Russian-language literature in Ukraine, one of the arguments against it is the assertion that Russian-speaking Ukrainian authors cannot compete with Russian authors. A. K.: And why to compete? Why do they have to compete? If we look at the real history of Ukrainian literature, which came into actual existence as a phenomenon only in the late 1990s, we’ll see that it was just Russian literature that filled up a ten-year-long lacuna after 1991. The Ukrainian market was occupied by the Russian book since there was vacuum in that market. Russian-speaking Ukrainian writers are not to blame. I. S.: And why is it just the late 1990s that you date the beginnings of modern Ukrainian literature back to? Didn’t we have the Stanislav Phenomenon as
ukrainian culture can be successful
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