cover image Letters from Kiev

Letters from Kiev

Solomea Pavlychko, S. D. Pavlychko. St. Martin's Press, $49.95 (177pp) ISBN 978-0-312-07588-0

Halfway through this tome, Pavlychko, along with the reader, wearies of her tediously detailed reports of debates in the Ukrainian Rada over the momentous issue of whether to ratify union with the U.S.S.R. Only when she turns her attention to the apathetic Kievans amidst the chaos of political polarization does this collection of her correspondence with Krawchenko, whom she met while in Canada as a visiting professor, gain interest for general readers and Pavlychko's character emerge. The period covered extends between May 12, 1990, and March 25, 1991, when future governance was still undecided. (Ukraine declared independence in November 1991.) About Pavlychko, who is a research associate at the Ukrainian Academy of Science, we learn that she has recently resigned from the Communist Party, that she no longer receives the ``generous'' honoraria for literary translations that provided her with income to shop in the private sector, that her father is an opposition member of Rada, that she is a budding feminist and has a toddler daughter--of her husband there is no mention, just that his mother is a harpy. Photos. (Jan)