Svetlana Ischenko | |
---|---|
Native name | Світлана Вікторівна Іщенко |
Born | Mykolaiv, Ukraine | July 30, 1969
Occupation | poet, translator, stage actress, teacher, artist |
Language | Ukrainian, English |
Nationality | Ukrainian |
Genre | poetry, drama |
Notable awards | New names of Ukraine and The Golden Harp (in Ukraine), Burnaby Writers’ Society Poetry Contest (in Canada), International Literary Prize of Ivan Koshelivets (Israel) |
Svetlana Viktorivna Ischenko (Ukrainian: Світлана Вікторівна Іщенко, born July 30, 1969, Mykolaiv, Ukraine) — poet,[1] translator,[2] stage actress,[3] teacher,[4] artist.[5] She is a member of The Ukrainian Writers’ Association (1997) and The National Writers' Union of Ukraine (1998).[6]
Svetlana Ischenko was born on July 30, 1969, in Mykolaiv,[7] in the steppe region of the south of Ukraine.
She graduated from Mykolaiv public school number 38. Svetlana pursued her childhood love of music at the Mykolaiv Rimsky-Korsakov Music School, and graduated in piano in 1986. She received a College Diploma in Acting, Stage Directing and Visual Art from the Mykolaiv State College of Culture in 1988. She later attended the Mykolaiv Branch of the Kyiv State University of Culture and Arts and received a BA in Recreation Management and Pedagogy in 1998.[8]
For several years (1988–2001), Ischenko was a stage actress at the Mykolaiv Ukrainian Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy.[9] She played a number of significant characters from classic Ukrainian and European plays,[10] among them Marusia (Marusia Churai by Lina Kostenko), Catherine (Catherine by Taras Shevchenko), Motrya (Kaydash's Family by Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky), Yaryna (Where There are people, There is Sin by І. Tobilevych), Ryna (Myna Mazaylo by Mykola Kulish), Prince (Dregs by Janusz Glovatsky), Julie (The Family Weekend by Jean Poiret), and Countess Rosine (Marriage of Figaro by P. Beaumarchais).[11] Svetlana also created many poetic texts and songs for thematic programs, plays and musical shows for the Mykolaiv Ukrainian Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy.
A number of Ukrainian composers and singers have created songs using Ischenko's poetry for lyrics—Viktor Ures, Viktor Piatygorsky, Oleksandr Nezhyhai, Olena Nikishenko, Oleksandr Honcharenko, Anna Oliynykova, and others.[12]
In 2001, Ischenko immigrated to Canada. She lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia.[13] Svetlana continues to keep in close contact with Ukraine. She writes in Ukrainian and English. Her literary achievement includes translations.[14] Svetlana Ischenko is a co-translator of English versions of poetry by Dmytro Kremin, winner of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian National Literary Prize.[15]
Ischenko's field of work in Canada is creating and teaching children's programs in visual arts, ballet, creative dance, Jazz, hip-hop, and musical theatre at Recreational Centres in North Vancouver.[16] She has given poetry readings at the Vancouver Public Library in the “World Poetry Reading Series” and radio interviews on Vancouver's Co-op Radio as well as Voice of America (“Musical Rainbow” by Alexandr Kaganovsky) in the U.S.[17]
Ischenko's poems were first published in the Mykolaiv regional newspaper The Soviet Prybuzhia on December 14, 1991.[18] Svetlana's literary work has appeared widely in a variety of publications in Ukraine, including magazines such as Dzvin (Lviv), Kyiv (Kyiv), Gorozhanin (Mykolaiv), Dyvoslovo (Kyiv), Art-Line (Kyiv), Vitchyzna (Kyiv), Kurier Kryvbasu (Kryviy Rih), and Vezha (Kropyvnytskyi), almanacs such as Borviy (Mykolaiv), Buzsky Gard (Mykolaiv), and Osvityanski vitryla (Mykolaiv), and in poetry anthologies such as Pochatki (Kyiv, Smoloskyp Press, 1998) and The Mykolaiv Oberih (Mykolaiv, Mozhlyvosti Kimmerii Press, 2004).[19] Svetlana's poems have also been published in Canadian literary magazines such as The Antigonish Review (Antigonish, Nova Scotia),[20] Lichen (Whitby, Ontario),[21] Event (Vancouver, British Columbia),[22] and in poetic anthologies such as From This New World (Vancouver, Canada, 2003)[23] and Che Wach Choe—Let the Delirium Begin (Lantzville, British Columbia, 2003).[24]
Ischenko's co-translations of the poetry of Dmytro Kremin, winner of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian National Literary Prize, have appeared in well-known literary magazines such as London Magazine (London, England, 2007), Prism International (Vancouver, Canada, 2007), and Hayden’s Ferry Review (Arizona, US, 2009), in the trilingual collection Two Shores (Mykolaiv, Iryna Hudym Publisher, 2007)[25] and in the book Poems From The Scythian Wild Field (Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, B.C., Canada, 2016) -- a selection of the poetry of Dmytro Kremin translated into English by Svetlana Ischenko and Russell Thornton[26]
…Where a country lies under a willow tree,
Where the steppe spreads wide,
There is your motherland, lad,
The sun and the crepe of the sky.
Where the hellish history of the nation lies deep,
Where the snowball tree and hawthorn grow --
There is your spring water,
The Ukrainian world.— Svetlana Ischenko, from the poem "Source"