Ukrainian Translation Anthologies as a Panorama of Polish Literature: (Re)Constructing Axiological and Aesthetic Orientations

Abstract

The article examines anthologies of Polish literature translated into Ukrainian and published over the thirty years of Ukraine’s independence. The study covers both collections of poetry and the relatively few anthologies of prose and drama, treating them as significant testimonies of the reception of Polish culture within the Ukrainian literary and intellectual landscape. The author highlights methodological aspects of anthologization, emphasizing the role of translators-editors who, through their individual aesthetic and axiological choices, substantially shape the image of Polish literature. Rather than serving as neutral compendia, these anthologies become spaces of subjective interpretation, constructing a literary canon according to personal hierarchies of values. The analysis identifies major tendencies: the predominance of authorial poetry anthologies, the limited number of comprehensive collections of prose and essays, and the emergence of the first anthologies of drama. It is noted that these anthologies perform not only informative and popularizing functions but also a cultural role: they acquaint Ukrainian readers with the diversity of Polish literary tradition while simultaneously enabling reflection on their own identity and place within European culture. The study also explores how editorial choices, biographical notes and thematic organization contribute to contextualizing Polish authors within broader historical and literary frameworks. An important finding is the weak critical reception of such publications, which hinders their integration into broader scholarly discourse.

The article argues that contemporary translation anthologies can be read as narratives about both the “other” and the “self”. From an axiological and aesthetic perspective, they represent a shift from the traditional framing of Polish literature within the sphere of polonia slavica toward its presentation as polonia incognita, a phenomenon rediscovered in the space of Polish-Ukrainian dialogue.