Tagore, Rabindranath and Yuriy Siroy (pseudonym of Yuriy Tyshchenko); Okhrim Sudomora, artist.

[UKRAINIAN-INDIAN LITERARY RELATIONS – ANTI-COLONIAL PUBLISHING] Sadovnyk: lirychni poezii [The gardener: lyric poetry]. Pereklad Iur. Sirogo.

Kyiv: Vydavnytsvo "Dzvin", 1918. Octavo (16 × 12.2 cm). Original pictorial wrappers with a drawing by Okhrim Sudomora; 99, [1] pp. Professional restoration to spine and wrapper edges; two private stamps to title; toned due to stock, else about very good. Item #54261

First edition. First Ukrainian translation of this work by the Bengali poet and 1913 Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) by the prominent Ukrainian publisher, bookseller, writer, and editor Yuriy Siroy (born Yuriy Tyshchenko). Originally published in English in 1913, the work was quickly translated into Ukrainian in 1914 by Tyshchenko, who at the time was living in exile in New York. It was finally published in Kyiv during the Ukrainian-Soviet War (1917–1921). During the Soviet period, Tagore’s anti-colonial politics were appreciated by the Soviet state, but his reception was carefully controlled. Because of his views on the interwar political order, his mystical approach to nature, and the meaning of freedom, his work was banned from publication in Soviet Ukraine from 1930–1955. In this period Tagore’s work circulated in samizdat, with volumes from the pre-Soviet period especially valuable (See Mridula Ghosh, “Relevance and evolution of Tagoreana in Ukraine: Major Trajectories”, Shidnii Svit, 2024).

The translator of the volume, Yuriy Tyshchenko (1880–1953), was born in the Zaporizhia region and graduated from a teacher’s seminary, working as a tutor before joining the Ukrainian Social Democratic Worker’s Party (USDRP), likely around 1906. An active organiser, writer, and publisher he wrote for the USDRP weekly “Land and Freedom”, headed the editorial office of “Literary and Scientific Herald”, and later “Selo”. He also founded the publishing house “Ukrainian House”, and was the director of the publishing company “Dzvin” (1911–1924) which published this translation. As a result of political activism, Tyshchenko had numerous clashes with the Russian Imperial government, was arrested and periodically lived in exile first in Austria and later in the United States. During his time in New York, in addition to translating this volume he also edited the Ukrainian-language Newspaper “Svoboda” and organised a bookstore of the Ukrainian People’s Union. Fleeing the Bolsheviks, in 1919 Tyshchenko moved the hedquarters of “Dzvin” to Vienna, where he continued to publish Ukrainian language textbooks until 1924.

The front wrapper reproduces a drawing by Okhrim Sudomora, an artist who worked as an illustrator in Lviv and Kharkiv until World War II, but about whom little else is known. He illustrated the book "Fun Work, a Folk Song" (Krakow and L'viv, 1944) and may have been involved with a series of powerful anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi propaganda produced by Ukrainian nationalists in post-war Germany. In 1949, he was arrested for anti-Soviet activities in 1949 and received a twenty-five-year sentence, later living in poverty and obscurity.

Publisher advertising to last page and rear wrapper.

As of May 2025 KVK, OCLC show copies at one institution worldwide, in North America.

Price: €600.00

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