Petro Midianka  [ Ukraine ]

The Ukrainian poet Petro Midianka was born in 1959 in the village of Shirokiy Lug in the Transcarpathian oblast. He studied at the Department of Philology at Uzhgorod State University, graduated in 1982, and then worked as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at schools in his home region. His creative development began in the 1970s and his poems have been published in anthologies since 1974, but he has consistently refused to be ideologically categorized. Midianka writes mainly in Ukrainian, but also uses the local vocabulary of the Transcarpathian region for the linguistic interpretation of his poems, which gives them a special color. His poetry is strongly associative. »Midianka’s artistic method is based on the masterful combination of three stylistic components: Transcarpathian dialect-isms and archaisms, philosophical-inspired intonation of unceasing attention, and synonymous series, which are impressive for their unlimited and capricious variety.« In the meantime, Midianka has also published a large number of mostly illustrated poetry volumes. His poems combine a deeply rooted Carpathian-tinged peasant archaism with intellectual, cultural, and spiritual modernity. Midianka also published a large number of essays and prose sketches, which have less of a journalistic-pedagogic character and tend to resemble a dialogue with old friends and like-minded people through letters. In his work, Midianka reproduces his observations of the world and the past in a poetic and epic way, searching for constants up to the present at the interface of epochs, cultural traditions, and languages.

His most recent publication »Стовп у центрі Європи« (2019; tr: A Column in the Center of Europe) is a collection of essays on culture and history, articles, and sketches dedicated to Transcarpathia and its multicultural character, which the author does not approach through the lens of tourism, but from a genuine inside perspective.

Midianka was awarded the Taras Shevchenko National Prize (2012) for his collection of poems »Луйтра в небо« (2010; tr: Luitra to the Sky), as well as the Blagowist (1994) and the Bu Ba Bu Award (1995). He has written lyrics for songs by Ukrainian rock bands, including »Сервус, пане Воргол« (tr: Servus, Mr. Vorgol) by the group »Плач Єремії« (tr: Jeremiah’s Cry). His poems have been translated into Czech, Slovak, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, English, and Hungarian.

Midianka is an honorary citizen of the city of Khust.

 

Bibliography

 

Поріг

Молодь

Київ, 1987

 

Осередок

Світовид

Київ, 1994

 

Фараметлики

Ґражда

Ужгород, 1994

 

Зелений фирес

Ґражда

Ужгород, 1999

 

Трава Господня

Кальварія

Львів, 2001

 

Дижма

Критика

Київ, 2003

 

Срібний прімаш

Лілея-НВ

Івано-Франківськ, 2004

 

Луйтра в небо

Темпора

Київ, 2010

 

Ярмінок

Факт

Київ, 2010

 

Вірші з поду

ЛІРА

Ужгород, 2011

 

Марамороський розлом

Карпати

Ужгород, 2011

 

Ільмовий листочок

Карпати

Ужгород, 2012

 

40 сонетів і гербарій

Laurus

Київ, 2013

 

Стовп у центрі Європи

Laurus

Київ, 2019

 

Посланія від Петроса

Вид. Друкарський двір Олега Федорова

Київ, 2020

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