Yuri Andrukhovich: biography, creativity

Yuri Andrukhovich is a famous Ukrainian writer, poet, translator of art texts, essayist. He was born in 1960 in Ivano-Frankivsk, the former name of which was Stanislav. The native city of the writer became the starting point for the work of several outstanding authors and artists, for whom the most striking features of Ukrainian postmodernism were characteristic. This phenomenon was later called the "Stanislav phenomenon".

Education and Career

Yuri Andrukhovich, whose biography as an author began in Ivano-Frankivsk, as part of the poetic group "Bu-Ba-Bu" (Burlesque-Balagan-Buffonada), chooses the city of Lviv for higher education. He enters the Institute of Polygraphy, the Department of Literary Editing and Journalism, which ends in 1982.

In 1991, Yuri Andrukhovich graduated from the Higher Literary Courses at the Literary Institute . Gorky in Moscow. In 1994 he defended his thesis on the subject of creativity Bogdan-Igor Antonich, banned in the USSR Ukrainian poet of the twentieth century. The theme of the doctoral dissertation was the work of American poets-beatnikov.

The initiator of the establishment of the Association of Ukrainian Writers. Repeatedly published in popular literary magazines of Ukraine. Yuri Andrukhovich, whose works have been translated and published in many European countries, himself actively translates literature from English, German, Polish and Russian into his native Ukrainian.

Social activity

Born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Andrukhovich could hardly have belonged culturally to any tradition other than Ukrainian. In the late 80's. He became an active figure in the democratic organization "Rukh" ("Movement"), which promoted the independence of the Ukrainian SSR. The novel "Moskoviad" expresses rejection of everything connected with the disintegrated USSR and the right-of-successor country.

Yuri Andrukhovich, whose photo shows over the years that he is similar to a typical Ukrainian Cossack, is a sincere patriot of his homeland and an active follower of her cultural tradition. But in his personal views there are nevertheless purely individual notes that do not allow him to hang unthinkingly on labels. Andrukhovich's convictions can be characterized in general as cosmopolitan. If his works contain anti-Russian manifestations, they are aimed more at the state with its products than on culture, language and people.

Creative way

The first collection of Andrukhovich "Heaven and Square" was published in 1985. It was poetry that led the reader into the world of student freedom, hooliganism and carnival moods. There were two main motives in the collection, which were successfully reflected in the title. "Heaven" symbolized natural philosophy, nature with its eternal cycle, and "area" - urbanism. Verses of young Andrukhovich could leave moods in some pathetic, but were deprived of the beaten metaphors and the cliched images.

In 1989 the collections of "Seredmisty" ("City Center") and the story "Left, Where the Heart" were published. In the 1990s, the writer gave preference to the genre of the novel: in 1992, the sensational "Moskoviada" was published, in 1996 - "Perversia." One of the last works of Andrukhovich - "Lexicon of Intimate Cities" - tells of the innermost moments of his life in various senses of this word.

The Russian capital in the writer's work

Years of residence in the capital of Russia were the period of life when the "Moskoviad" was being written. Yuri Andrukhovich publishes a novel, called by some critics as "The Little Apocalypse", in 1993. The work describes one endless day in the life of a certain Otto von F. This young man, a student, leads a rambunctious life, constantly consumes alcohol and Enters into a disorderly relationship with women. The purpose of his life from the work is not clear. Most likely, it is absent. The institution that Otto visits is described as the vestibule of the underworld, and Beelzebub is on guard at the entrance to it. Moscow is represented in the novel as hell, where the main character has fallen for his numerous sins.

Having passed all sorts of circles and wanderings in this "hell", Otto got into a gloomy labyrinth, to get out of which he could only by killing himself. Suicide, committed in a parallel world, returns it back to reality. The labyrinth as an image of a rotten Soviet empire conveys in the narrative the painful and depressing mood of the 90s. The hero escapes from Moscow by fleeing, leaving for his native Ukraine.

Genre specificity

Andrukhovich's works are a vivid example of Ukrainian postmodernism. He is called the classic of modern Ukrainian literature. To be awarded such a title while still alive is a great achievement. What causes such love and respect for the reading public?

Beginning as a poet and publishing several poetic collections, he preferred prose and the genre of the novel. Much in his work echoes with the classics of world literature, for example, the wanderings of the hero in "Perversions" reminded of the "Iliad" of Homer, "Moskviad" plot and meaning are consonant with the novel "Moscow-Petushki" by Venedikt Erofeev. In Andrukhovich's works, reality is closely intertwined with fiction, fantasy and illusion. Mythological responses and biblical parallels are in immediate proximity to vital and social realities.

Andrukhovich imitates and identically cites various literary styles - baroque, burlesque, magical realism, Mannerism, in certain moments his novels acquire the shades of confession, thriller and satire. The writer is inclined to play with his reader and his imagination, introducing him into the very center of phantasmagoric transformations. Reading his works leaves a persistent, characteristic for postmodernism, a sense of the absurdity of the modern world, flavored with the subtle and acrid irony of the writer.

Work with theater

Rich creative material and topical issues do not leave indifferent filmmakers. Andrukhovich's works are actively put on many Ukrainian and foreign scenes. Since 2007, the writer has collaborated with the Young Theater (Kiev), where he played one of the main roles in the play for his own work - "Perversions." Subsequently, his "Moskoviad" was also staged there.

The writer's talent is recognized by foreign artists. Düsseldorf Drama Theater ordered Andrukhovich original texts for productions. Based on the novel "Twelve Hoops", the Polish Dance Theater staged in 2011 a play Carpe Diem, which was a great success.