Vasyl Stus. Selected Works.

For readers aged 16+

Vasyl Stus was not only a poet of rare talent, a publicist, translator, and literary critic – he was a man who embodied "the voice of conscience in a world of shaky and blurred notions of honor, truth, and decency." Vasyl Stus spent almost half of his life in Soviet pre-trial detention centers, punishment cells, solitary confinement cells, Mordovian camps, in Kolyma, and performing hard labor in mines. He was deprived of meetings with relatives, his poems, letters, and manuscripts were confiscated, he was physically abused, and attempts were made to destroy him morally.
The poems included in this collection are the best examples of Vasyl Stus's lyricism. In these lines, civic motifs and the artist's pain for the fate of Ukraine intertwine with the delicate lace of love lyrics and philosophical reflections on life and human purpose. The poems are filled with hope and willpower, stronger than steel.