Irena Makaryk

Often regarded as a playwright "beyond nationality," Shakespeare has played a central role in Ukraine's cultural history over the past two centuries. His works have served as both a lens for exploring Ukraine’s historical and cultural identity and as a shared medium through which Ukrainian poets, dramatists, and theatre artists have communicated with the world. Shakespeare in Ukraine: Mirror, Prism, Megaphone, by award-winning Shakespearean and theatre historian Irena R. Makaryk, analyzes key moments of Ukraine’s engagement with Shakespeare. The text traces the evolution of Shakespeare in Ukraine, from his early influence on figures like Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka to the groundbreaking theatrical work of Les Kurbas, the first to stage Shakespeare in 1920, a bold assertion of cultural identity and independence. The volume also explores the defiant production of Hamlet under Nazi occupation in 1943, adaptations of Shakespeare’s works under Soviet rule, Shakespeare commemorations in the Cold War era, and the efflorescence of Shakespeare productions in the post-independence period. Rich with astute scholarly observations and fascinating historical details, Shakespeare in Ukraine investigates the multifaceted roles of Shakespeare during periods of great cultural and political upheaval. From the early Soviet period to the ongoing war with Russia, Makaryk offers insights into the enduring power of Shakespeare and the way he amplifies Ukraine’s creative and cultural imagination.

Attracting over fifteen million visitors, the 1925 Paris Expo had an ambitious goal to create a new modernist style which would reflect the great scientific, industrial, and technological advances that produced a new spirit known as "modern." In April in Paris, author Irena R. Makaryk explores the theatre arts’ vital cultural and political impact at this celebrated international exhibition. Drawing extensively from unexplored archival documents from France, Austria, and North America, April in Paris is the first major study to focus on theatre arts at the 1925 Paris Expo and the audacious Soviet contributions to this fair. Turning a spotlight on the uses and representations of theatricalized spaces, Makaryk analyses their political challenge at a time when relations between the West and the USSR were rife with tension. Copiously illustrated with beautiful colour and black and white illustrations, this book elucidates the complex role of the international fair as a catalyst for spirited cultural debate and for aesthetic change.

The study of modernism has been largely focused on Western cultural centres such as Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. Extravagantly illustrated with over 300 photos and reproductions, Modernism in Kyiv demonstrates that the Ukrainian capital was a major centre of performing and visual arts as well as literary and cultural activity. While arguing that Kyiv's modernist impulse is most prominently displayed in the experimental work of Les Kurbas, one of the masters of the early Soviet stage, the contributors also examine the history of the city and the artistic production of diverse groups including Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, and Poles. Until now a silent presence in Western accounts of the cultural topography of modernism, multicultural Kyiv is here restored to its historical, intellectual, and artistic complexity. Excerpts taken from the works of artists, writers, and critics as well as the numerous illustrations help give life to the exciting creativity of this period. The first book-length examination of this subject, Modernism in Kyiv is a breakthrough accomplishment that will become a standard volume in the field.

Les Kurbas - director, actor, playwright, filmmaker, and translator - was the first artist to introduce Shakespeare to the Ukrainian stage. Creating the foundations of Soviet Ukrainian theatre and cinema, he was also responsible for its avant-garde direction. Shakespeare in the Undiscovered Bourn is the first book-length study in English of Kurbas's modernist productions of Shakespeare and the first book on Soviet Shakespeare productions in Ukraine in any language. Situating Shakespeare within the ideological and cultural debates and conflicts of the early Soviet period, Irena Makaryk traces the trajectory of Shakespeare's and Kurbas's fortunes while also investigating the challenges that modernism posed to early Soviet ideology. Ukraine's cultural history - still an undiscovered bourn - has frequently been submerged within a homogenized Soviet experience. The fall of the Soviet Union and the consequent opening up of many hitherto inaccessible archives has allowed a new probing of the master narratives created during that regime. Invoking contemporary debates about the cultural uses of Shakespeare (especially issues of canon, classic, and authority), Shakespeare in the Undiscovered Bourn examines the complexities of the Soviet encounter with Shakespeare. It thus makes an important contribution to the studies of theatre, cross-culturalism, modernism, and postcolonialism.