Yevhen Sverstiuk – Valeria Andrievska: Correspondence (2 vols., 3 books)

The book contains the correspondence between Yevhen Sverstiuk and his wife Valeria Andrievska. Yevhen Sverstiuk (1928–2014) was a Ukrainian literary critic, essayist, and one of the leading figures of the dissident movement in Soviet Ukraine in the 1960s. Valeria Andrievska (born 1938) is a psycholinguist and fellow at the Institute of Psychology of Ukraine’s National Academy of Educational Sciences. For twelve years, their letters circulated between him in Soviet political prison camps and forced exile and her in Kyiv. Together they create a detailed picture of the addressees’ daily and aesthetic experiences, and also convey the social spirit of the time.

The definitive features of the correspondence are its authors’ unique ability to go beyond life circumstances and their maintaining of true, non-momentary values. Full of light and psychologically balanced, the letters served as inner support, a protective shield, and a way of creative realization and life-giving communication between the mentally related people. (more…)