For this occasion, it is worth mentioning the passages “Journal of travel to Russia” a celebrated American writer John Steinbeck, which he held in 1948 and immediately released in fresh York. These passages concern Ukraine and show it as a country separate from Russia, besides the Ukrainian nation is clearly seen by the author.
That's noteworthy, due to the fact that Steinbeck, however, left, and he could have jumped Stalin, the sweetheart of the empire. However, in his descriptions, he stood on the sidelines, neutral, and already on the plane he noted: “We woke up above the fields of Ukraine, as flat as those in our Midwest and almost as fertile. The immense breadfruit of Europe, the land wanted for centuries..." (p. 63/64 – according to the Polish edition – Warsaw, Prószyński Media 2016).And then: "Kijów had to be a beautiful city once, and it is much older than Moscow ... and much more than Moscow suffered during the war, but the people here do not emanate with mortal fatigue like the inhabitants of Moscow. They walk not rumpled, but laughing, and with their heads up. Of course, it could be a question of origin. Ukrainians do not belong to the same group of Slavs as Russians.. . I looked at women walking by, moving like dancers. Ukrainians have a beautiful presence and a light walk. Many of them are highly beautiful... Ukraine has for centuries been a delightful bite of invaders, mainly due to very fertile, fertile soils, hence its stormy past and misfortunes which met its inhabitants... Kiev is simply a temple, 1 of the oldest in the world, built by Jarosław the Wise in 1034. She's been preserved. . The Germans left her alone. (...) In a tiny side chapel, in a tiny sarcophagus, the body of Jarosław the Wise rests and everyone is happy...”(p.75/6). They had a memory - worthy ruler, not any Ivan the Terrible, a tyrant, and a sprayer! In this very short, we can already see the difference between Russians and Ukrainians. Steinbeck failed, but who can read between the lines will figure it out... Today, erstwhile Ukraine destroys the chief of modern sparse, debris is increasing on this fertile land and we do not know erstwhile the barbarian war will end, but it is in these days that Olaf Scholz again called upon the Kremlin to retreat the army of invaders and to enter into peace.
And Steinbeck’s book is worth reading for many reasons, even though it is more enthusiastic about Ukraine, as well as Georgia, than Russia!
Marek Baterovich
 | Marek Baterowicz (born 1944) made his debut as a poet in the pages of "The Weekly of the Common" and "The Student" (1971). Book debut - "Verses to Dawn" (W-wa, 1976); the title was an allusion to the night of PRL. In 1981, he published outside censorship a collection of poems entitled "Having broken branches of silence". Since 1985 on emigration, since 1987 in Australia. Author of respective prose titles(M.in "The Seed Rises in the Hurt"-1992 and 2017) and many poesy collections, specified as "The Heart and Fist" (Sydney, 1987), "From that side of the tree" (Melbourne, 1992 – poems collected), "Place in the atlas" (Sydney, 1996), "Chair and Shadow" (Sydney,2003), "On the Sun leash" (Sydney, 2008). In 2010 in Italy there was a selection of poems – "Canti del pianoa", followed by "Status quo" (Toronto, 2014), a collection of short stories – "Jeu de masques" (Nantes, 2014), "Over large Water" (Sydney, 2015) and an e-book of his naval novel, settled in the 16th century "Aux vents conjurés". |
