"Memoirs" by Taras Fedyuk: How a Soviet Literary Career Was Structured

With this publication, Intent continues its series of reviews dedicated to contemporary Ukrainian publications. The reviews for Intent as part of this project are written by Maria Galina—a Ukrainian writer, poet, and literary critic, and winner of literary awards. This time, we’ll be discussing Taras Fedyuk’s *Memoirs* (Ternopil, “Navchalna Knyha – Bohdan,” 2024)—the memoirs of a Shevchenko Prize laureate about the literary scene in Odesa in the 1970s and how the Soviet literary process worked.

Let’s start with the main point. Taras Fedyuk is a good poet. Taras Fedyuk is a Shevchenko Prize laureate. Taras Fedyuk recently celebrated a milestone birthday. Taras Fedyuk has published a book of memoirs.

Memoirs are generally a delicate matter. You can read them with enthusiasm if: a) they’re scandalous; b) they touch on experiences you haven’t had—usually extreme ones; c) they concern people who are well-known to everyone; d) they, on the contrary, relate to your own experiences, names, and situations you’re familiar with.

But here, too, it’s a delicate balance. Because in the latter case, it’s the details, the little things, and the ability to capture the spirit of the era that matter. Moreover, as uncomfortable as it may be, the author must be ruthless toward themselves and others. That’s when everyone reads those memoirs. They criticize, they spit, they take offense—but they read. For example, I got less than I expected from Natalky Didenko’s memoir *Trolleybus No. 15* (Vydavnytstvo Staroho Leva, 2025). I remember that Kyiv myself—and roughly those very same locations; I lived there as a child, and I feel nostalgic, so I opened the book with certain expectations... Well, who wouldn’t want to revisit a place they can’t physically return to? But the author, I’d say, was too cautious and tactful when it came to the subjects of her memories, and that doesn’t do the memoir genre any favors. Although the structure of the book—which is built around the trolleybus route of her childhood and youth—is, in itself, very beautiful.

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Introduction to “Memoirs.” PHOTO: Maria Galina

It’s not that the reader wants a “scandal,” though it’s not entirely absent. But the reader demands conflict—all fiction demands conflict—and memoirs are, after all, a form of fiction. Now, let’s return to Taras Fedyuk’s “Memoirs” (Ternopil, “Navchalna Knyha – Bohdan,” 2024). I’ve been curious about them for a long time, because there were rumors that they were candid and ruthless toward fellow writers. And among them were some of my acquaintances. Well, finally, everything fell into place.

What interests me most here is everything about the Stagnation itself—the 1970s. Then—everything that came after...

I don’t like the phrase “Odessa poet,” because it often means “a poet of local significance.” Let’s put it this way. Taras Fedyuk is a poet who lived in Odesa for a long time and often visited Kyiv (by the way, does anyone know where that “Eney” is? I know it was—or still is—a nice little bar near the Writers’ Union on Bankova Street; when I was there, they made an unbeatable “Bloody Mary” with a raw egg yolk). And in Odesa—"Zosya," the old "Gambrinus," which wandered from location to location in Odesa like a sort of Flying Dutchman. The Artists’ House on what used to be Belinsky Street, with studios on the first floor. The Odessa branch of the Writers’ Union, which was located across the street. Kuryazh… Do you know what that is? I do, because I lived nearby.

Lucien Dulfan, Yuriy Mykhailyk, Ihor Neverov, Boris Necherda—to whom this book is, in fact, dedicated—Yevhen Golubovskyi, Viktor Marynyuk, and Lyudmyla Yastreb—these are just the ones I knew personally or had heard of. Odessa (which, in my opinion, Boris Chichibabin unfairly disparaged in the poem the author quotes here) wasn’t really provincial, especially when it came to the arts. Or at least no more so than other cities. But the cultural scene was tight-knit: artists knew poets, members of the Writers’ Union mingled with the nonconformists, Ukrainian-speaking writers with Russian-speaking ones, and, judging by the memoirs, all they did was drink in bars and at home. Sometimes they’d have a bite to eat as well. There were probably also passionate romances and complex erotic stories, but readers will be disappointed here, as the author doesn’t really delve into the private lives of his colleagues.

Taras Fedyuk himself writes in the preface that every life inevitably ends in ruin, and this statement can be seen as a kind of challenge. For it is precisely his poetic journey that can be considered a success. I would say he is the quintessential postwar Soviet poet—from the village (or small town) to the capital, from his first publications in a local newspaper all the way to the Shevchenko Prize. His books were published, he was accepted into the Writers’ Union, he traveled abroad on literary missions, he was friends with good people, and he knew those who are now considered classics. But now, a little about what was considered literary success during the Soviet era. That is, what exactly did young, ambitious writers strive for?

Of course, to be noticed by the literary giants. And what else?

Publications. Who didn’t want them back then? Things are a little different now—more on that later—but back then, almost the only way to establish oneself as a writer was to be published in a local newspaper, and then in a magazine. But publications, as Fedyuk himself writes, required so-called “locomotives”—that is, poems that were meant to demonstrate the author’s loyalty. On top of that, cautious editors were very wary of formal experiments. The worst part is that these “locomotives” were demanded specifically from debut authors, and here it was entirely their choice: to agree or not.

Books. You could only be considered a “real” writer or poet once you’d published your first book. In an era when printed cultural works were practically the only tangible result of your work (I’m not talking about samizdat, though I may come back to that), this was entirely natural. A book was what almost all young authors aspired to. A calling card, a ticket into the literary world, proof that you weren’t just some oddball but a real poet, the envy of less fortunate colleagues, the pinnacle of happiness… And then, if all went well, you had to publish a second one.

Why? Because admission to the Writers’ Union was based on books. If you’d published two—okay, you could apply. It wasn’t a guarantee you’d be accepted, but you had the right to apply.

The Union was yet another pinnacle that ambitious writers strove to reach. In the context of Soviet shortages, the Union offered the chance to occasionally give lectures and go on business trips—sometimes with honoraria—and, if you were lucky, trips abroad, occasionally a stay at the House of Creativity (a sort of creative residency), and—rarely, but possible—apartments, slightly better healthcare than “ordinary citizens,” and so on.

And one more thing. This is, in fact, what Taras Fedyuk writes about. The honorarium for my first book was about a thousand karbovanets. Just so you understand: working as a lab assistant at the Odessa Research Institute, I earned 65 karbovanets a month. They didn’t even take taxes out of my pay.

For young people, this is an incredible temptation. And if you were a member of the Writers’ Union, you had the right to publish a book once every two years (correct me if I’m wrong). And then there were those lectures and business trips that came with speaking fees, trips abroad (the stories about them are hilarious here, especially the ones about Cuba), and so on... So it’s no wonder that budding writers drank cognac at the “Chervonyi” hotel restaurant at the expense of the Union’s generous members. And they didn’t just scrounge for free drinks.

Fedyuk himself writes a bit about the approach to publications and income from them:

“I only knew Yuriy Usichenko a little, but one of his sayings became a catchphrase in our circles: ‘Every line a writer writes should bring in seven times its cost.’ First—on the radio, then on television, then—in a newspaper, then—in a Ukrainian magazine, then—in a book published in Ukraine, then—in a book published in Moscow.” Joke or no joke, back then they paid royalties for everything. The only requirement was that it follow exactly that sequence.”

In other words, in order to navigate this system, the author was required to have a certain degree of cynicism or simply an understanding of the rules of the game. Well, why not… The state, as it is, exists so that people can get something out of it. And one more thing. The book’sactual success didn’t matter here; on the contrary, if readers were really asking for and seeking out a book, it somehow alarmed the authorities. They must have overlooked something. And the print run for poetry collections, at least in Odesa, was somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 copies. That was already set when it went to press. Whether it sold or not… Well, we’ll see.

We didn’t earn royalties; we were paid royalties.

And here’s a bit about Yurii Usichenko, since I looked him up.

Do you know him? I, for one, don’t. And what is this “Gone with the Wind”?

Exactly.

This is a very subtle point. An artist can paint commissioned portraits of revolutionary leaders, decorate bus stops with Soviet symbols, and so on, and then go to his studio and paint something that no art committee would ever approve. Artists have always lived this way; for them, portraits of revolutionary leaders are just splashes of color. But with poets, it’s different. Words are an entirely different matter. And if the poet Domrin, while tipsy, drove into a billboard (as they’d say today) displaying propaganda, knocked it down or damaged it, and then worried that because of this he wouldn’t be allowed to travel abroad— since he had been tempted to desecrate the sacred, what kind of poems could he possibly write after that? It’s not even about censorship. It’s about self-censorship. How many brilliant or simply good texts have we missed because of a throat constricted by fear? Because of the thought that “it won’t fly.” Because they—the real texts—are of no use to anyone. What’s needed are the safe ones. What’s needed are the “workhorses.”

So…

To be honest, in both cases the titles speak for themselves, don’t they? The titles of Soviet books are an interesting thing in general—they insidiously reveal the content, the loyalty, and the level of talent.

Was there another path? Of course there was. It was Stus’s path.

The path of a rebel.

Or that of an eccentric who simply cannot or will not conform. In Odesa, this was precisely the path of the eccentric poet Igor Pavlov, whose work began to be published in earnest after 1991.

But under those conditions, simply refusing to commit acts of baseness, refusing to snitch, and behaving with dignity—even while holding a more or less administrative position—was, in itself, a human thing to do. Because the temptations, of course, were there. The devil is a soul-snatcher; we know that. And we know many talented people—already considered classics from a modern perspective—who proved themselves even under those conditions. Well, to speak in metaphors, in an oxygen-deprived environment and under pressure. At rock bottom, that is. And whom we remember and honor.

But it’s not surprising, after all, that they drank so much. From time to time, when you read their works, it seems as though there was nothing but drinking binges—or perhaps the author simply has such a narrow perspective that he happened to observe mainly the episodes of his literary brothers’ turbulent lives.

Significantly, the contemporary, post-Soviet generation of poets hardly drinks at all.

But what’s also telling is that the author perceives the ’90s more as a drama, as the end of a certain era, as the collapse of brotherhood, as a decline. Books are hardly being published at all (no wonder—the Big Sponsor is gone), everyone has scattered to pursue their own interests—some have plunged into politics, some into alcoholism, some into business...

And here we are gradually approaching the conclusion of this review. This is a very useful book because it was written by a good, intelligent, and talented person—a witness to an era—about us, about where we all came from, and it vividly illustrates the mechanics of the literary process during the Soviet era. And that process was very specific. I was a little surprised when the author suddenly turns into a sort of grumpy old man (and I know he’s not really like that, but…), and writes something along the lines of: “Our generation helped one another and ‘systematically supported the youth’; the ’80s generation’ adhered, so to speak, to the strategy of ‘I support the youth if the youth supports me,’ the “’90s generation” was mainly preoccupied with fighting off competitors, and then came the writers, who don’t engage in any kind of relationship with one another at all, don’t selflessly help young people, and even organize paid courses.

I want to argue with that. The fact is that the “mentorship” system, as it was called, is a purely Soviet system, because it is rigidly tied to hierarchy. It was precisely in the 1970s that a literary career, like any other, developed very slowly, and a poet, as a rule, did not become well-known or achieve status until, to put it mildly, a respectable age. Naturally, young people turned to him, counting on his support, so a system of patronage and vertical connections developed on its own. Moreover, the very situation of pressure from the state apparatus required people to stick together for the sake of effective resistance and cooperation. But the state apparatus also distributed benefits that belonged exclusively to it, and thus, support (unless it was support for a dissident) cost almost nothing—neither to the one who asked, nor to the one who gave, nor even to the one who received it—I’m referring to the episode involving Sinitsa, his dance partner, and the apartment for Necherda. By the way, when Kozyr replaced Synytsia in office, there was a joke circulating among Odessans: “Better Kozyr in your hands than Synytsia in the sky.” That’s a purely literary pun.

And now there are no vertical connections—only horizontal ones. A rhizome. And by the way. Remember the royalties for poetry books? Nowadays, you’re a successful author if your work is published under someone else’s name. Remember print runs of 5,000–10,000 copies? Now it’s 100–200 copies. But there’s no government control, no pressure. You’re as free as the wind. You owe nothing to anyone. You don’t need the patronage of literary giants. You don’t have to travel to the capital to make a name for yourself. You don’t have to wear out the thresholds of literary magazines. Publication? There are social media platforms. But. Literature is no longer a state-funded gravy train. Bestselling authors, of course, make their money one way or another—royalties, film adaptations… A poet has to earn a living doing something related to poetry, but not poetry itself, unless he’s a songwriter. Hence all these master classes, literary courses, and whatever else—I don’t know. And one more thing: poetry is a young person’s business. It always has been. The Soviet system was distorted and unnatural, though, of course, it seemed normal to those who grew up and were shaped by it, because people are very malleable. Now one system has replaced another—that’s all. As for friendship and warm relationships—well, poetryis a solitary pursuit, but people are always drawn to other people. By the way, war clearly reveals who’s who. Extreme situations bring out all qualities—both the best and the worst.

There are heroes among our poets. That’s about it.

The reviewer and the editorial staff would like to thank the iconic “Bookstore-Café” on Evropeiska Street for providing a copy. Those interested can purchase the book there.

Марія Галіна