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[KEY GALICIAN MODERNIST REFLECTS ON TH WORLD WAR] Al Fresco. Virshovana proza [i.e. In the Chill. Versed Prose]

Karmanskyi, P[etro]

Item #2306

Lviv-Kiev: Vydavnytstvo "Ukrainska knyzhka", [1917]. 53, [3] p. 21 x 13 cm. Original publisher’s wrappers. In Ukrainian. Very good condition. Minor rubbing to the spine. Inscription on the cover: Lviv 8.2.45. Ink and pencil notations on covers and the title. Partially unbound with loose folded sheets. Ink marks on pp. 30, 46.

Important collection of poetry, it reflects the travels by the author through Europe and his work in labor camps in WWI.

From 1899 to 1957 Petro Karmanskyi (1878-1956) published 8 poetic collections, some memoirs and a couple of longer poems. Al Fresco was his 5th book (Prosalova, V. Ukrainska diaspora: literaturni postati, tvory, biobibliohrafichni vidomosti. Donetsk: Skhidnyi vydavnychyi dim, 2012. p. 190). During 1920’s Karmansky left Ukraine for Brazil but returned and managed the Ivan Franko museum till he was accused of nationalistic views and expelled from the writer’s union in 1947. As a former Vatican student keen in Italian, he also translated the 1st part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy in Ukrainian. From the early 1900’s Karmansky edited Svit: a periodical that formed the Lviv Moloda muza literary circle. The circle existed fluidly, published no manifestos but drifted consciously towards modernism and concurrent European poetry. Such figures like Bohdan Lepkyi and Mykhailo Rudnytskyi proclaimed a need to find new artistic means to revive, refresh not only the Ukrainian language but the poetic way of expression itself.

Structurally, the collection features an introduction, 3 subdivisions of verses and a short poem. The author provides an epigraph drawing upon a line from Izmarahd, a collection of verses on Christian morality popular among laymen of the Russian Empire. Karmanskyi also quotes Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), Goethe and some Christian scriptures a number of times: Grillparzer definitely influenced the author.

However, as a man of erudition, a philosopher and theologian by education, Karmansky joins numerous allusions, quotations and wordplay. With German, Russian, Ukrainian, Latin, French, Italian languages used, the collection leaves an impression of a textured and multilingual work. Some verses rhyme with one another such as odes to his cape and his shows (pp. 16, 17). Some versies show polyphonic experiments with one voice ironically commenting on the main theme of the poetry piece. Karmansky also uses artistic means to pinpoint a visible division between the wants of the elite and needs of the suffering Ukrainian ordinary people.

Nevertheless, we can easily highlight the general tone of all the verses. As Karmansky travelled through Europe and had to work in war prisoner camps during WWI, he brought to the Western Ukraine that decadent, fin-de-siècle ennui that was an uncommon attitude in Ukrainian texts of the era. But he’s more than that. This collection is not all elegies and words of sadness. The sole title Al Fresco [Out in the fresh air] hints at the chance of freedom that was palpable in the air.

That feeling of history unfolding led him to add reflections on patriotism with a note of irony and even darker satire, a tool that he mastered years before, while observing and criticising Ukrainian immigrants in Canada. Such verses like Ukraina Militans (p. 31) and Voienna promova patriota [Military speech of a patriot] (pp. 36-37) are an aimed attack on cynicism of pseudopatriots and leave the reader to reminiscence sceptical on the consequences of the great European war and conflicts between Ukrainians.

Ukrainska knyha v Halychyni, na Bukovyni, Zakarpatti, Volyni ta v emihratsii, 1914–1939. Bibliohrafichnyi pokazhchyk. Vol. I 1914-1919 (Lviv, 2010). Item #1440. Natsionalna Bibliogafia Ukraini, vol. III (1917-1923), #1810.

Rare. Not in WorldCat. Not in KVK. According to Natsionalna Bibliogafia, the edition is present in 2 Ukrainian libraries and in 3 other libraries worldwide.

Price: $950.00