For the first time in the history of the Maksym Rylsky Literary Prize, it has been embroiled in an international-level scandal. The awarding committee decided to nominate British translator Andrew Sheppard for the 2023 Rylsky Prize in the category “For the translation of works by Ukrainian classics and contemporary authors into the languages of the peoples of the world.” Sheppard was recognized for his translation of the children’s anthology “Irpin — My Home” from Ukrainian into English. This book has become the most controversial in the history of the Rylsky Prize due to its connections with Russia.
The publication of the book “Irpin — My Home” was initiated by the mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn. The direct coordination of the publication and promotion of the anthology was carried out by Taisia Yusupova, Markushyn’s PR specialist. The book was submitted for the Maksym Rylsky Literary Prize, which, according to regulations, was to be awarded on March 19, 2024.
However, for the first time in the history of this prestigious award, it was only presented on November 12, following the largest scandal in the award’s history. This scandal had Russian ties.
Taisia Yusupova and Oleksandr Markushyn involved Andrew Sheppard, who has close connections with Russia, in translating the book “Irpin — My Home”. Sheppard is a member of the editorial board of the East-West Review journal, published by the Great Britain-Russia Society.
The project’s coordinator, Taisia Yusupova, also has pro-Russian links. Specifically, in a publication by Novyi Format, it was noted that Taisia Yusupova is a black PR specialist who previously worked as the chief editor of the TV program “Oryol i Reshka.”
“Taisia Yusupova, originally from Zaporizhzhia, moved to the city of Irpin in 2023. According to media reports, she is the cohabitant of the current mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn. According to publicly available data from the YouControl system, Taisia Yusupova was registered on July 8, 2022, as a sole proprietor with two types of activities (73.11 Advertising Agencies and 63.99 Other Information Services). According to open data from the OpenData system, Taisia Yusupova is divorced from her previous husband, Ihor Koptsev, who is the founder of the Credit Union ‘Revival of Donbas,’ operating in the city of Alchevsk, Luhansk region, occupied since 2014. At present, Ukraine’s security agencies should examine the founders of the Credit Union ‘Revival of Donbas’ for potential involvement in creating separatist governance bodies of the terrorist organization ‘LNR’ in the city of Alchevsk, Luhansk region. After all, if the enterprise is still registered in the occupied territory of Ukraine, to whom does it pay taxes, and does it thus finance Russian terror in Ukraine?” the publication notes.
The pro-Russian ties extend to the mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn. Recently, media reports revealed a large-scale scheme involving the misappropriation of local budget funds allocated for the reconstruction of the affected community by Markushyn’s inner circle. Specifically, the allegations included his primary contractor, Serhiy Rosstalny. According to data from the YouControl system, Serhiy Valeriyovych Rosstalny was an aide to Nestor Shufrych, a Member of Parliament from the Party of Regions. On September 3, ex-Party of Regions member Nestor Shufrych received new charges while in a detention center: he is accused of financing the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) in Crimea. Investigators claim that Shufrych paid money to Russians for militarized security services for his elite property on the peninsula. In just three months of 2016, his company paid the occupiers over 500,000 Russian rubles.
In the summer of 2024, the publication Unbreakable.City released an article titled “525 Million from the Budget for the Mayor’s Friends and How to Earn 170,000 UAH on a 6,000 UAH Salary: Life Hacks from the IMR,” while the publication Resonance published an article titled “The Mayor of Irpin’s Inner Circle Received 525 Million from the Budget for Post-War Reconstruction.”
Now, returning to the Maksym Rylsky Literary Prize. On February 26, 2024, the Committee for awarding the prize submitted materials regarding the prize to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy (MCIP) for submission to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
On June 7, 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers considered the draft resolution on awarding the Maksym Rylsky Prize for 2023 and returned the draft to the MCIP on June 10 for further revision.
On July 24, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, together with the MCIP, held a joint meeting to determine the candidates for the prize. Following the meeting, on August 2, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting submitted the draft resolution to the MCIP.
Criticism of the proposed candidates for the prize was expressed by a member of the Prize Committee, prominent Ukrainian scholar and translator Maksym Strikha, who resigned from the Committee. In his view, the award recognized “the work of translators that does not, in the slightest way (in terms of complexity, artistic level, or public resonance), warrant such recognition.”
Soon after, the literary and translation festival Translatorium and members of the Translators in Action initiative initiated a letter on behalf of Ukrainian translators to the Cabinet of Ministers and the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, requesting the annulment of the prize results and the dismissal of the current composition of the Prize Committee. Questions were specifically raised about the laureate, British translator Andrew Sheppard, who is the editor of the journal of the Great Britain-Russia Society, East-West Review.
Among translators, discussions also arose about alleged manipulations by Markushyn and Yusupova surrounding this book. Specifically, according to the prize’s regulations, a book must be published no later than six months prior to its nomination for the award. During the review of Irpin — My Home, members of the Prize Committee were informed that the book was signed for print on March 3, 2023. However, this information is false.
The collection was published by Samit-Knyha. A post on the Samit-Knyha publishing house’s Facebook page dated April 3, 2023, announced the signing of a memorandum with the mayor of Irpin for the joint publication of the children’s anthology Irpin — My Home. In the same post, children were invited to become contributors to the collection.
On the website of the Irpin City Council, a digitized copy of the book indicates the print approval date as May 22, 2023.
The book was presented on June 1. The State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting announced the nominees for the award on November 6.
On January 26, 2024, Maksym Strikha published an article titled “How the Rylsky Prize Was Killed,” clearly explaining the manipulations surrounding the award. Below is the text of the article.
“The Maksym Rylsky Literary Prize for achievements in literary translation was established back in 1972 by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. It must be acknowledged: even during the restrictive Soviet times, when the Shevchenko Prize was mostly awarded for works of ‘socialist realism’ now of little interest, the recipients of the translation prize were often individuals who made a significant contribution to the treasury of Ukrainian literature—a legacy that remains relevant to this day. Among them were Mykola Tereshchenko (the first laureate for a two-volume anthology of French poetry), Dmytro Bilous, Vasyl Mysyk, Yevhen Drobyazko, Borys Ten, Dmytro Pavlychko, Andrii Sodomora, Raul Chilachava, and others. During the perestroika era, the awarding of this prize marked the triumphant return of the ‘proscribed’ tragic geniuses of translation, Mykola Lukash and Hryhoriy Kochur, who had been ostracized in the 1970s.
In the years of independence, this prize honored many worthy individuals whose works genuinely form the foundation of the Ukrainian-language corpus of world classics and contemporary foreign literature. In 2019, a new category was added to the award: for translations of Ukrainian classics and contemporary authors into foreign languages.
However, in the past decade, a noticeable negative trend began to emerge: those who currently constitute the new ‘elite’ of our translation community, based on the number of significant translations published by leading publishers, have almost entirely lost interest in the prize. In the second category, the nominees were often Ukrainian translators (often with texts published in Ukraine), who, by definition, could not have significant global resonance.
Despite this, the prize retained its existence and respect. That is, until January 24 of this year, when an event occurred that seems poised to fundamentally change everything. I will attempt to explain why this decision essentially marks the ‘death’ of a once-respected award. Let us examine how the book Irpin — My Home measures up to these criteria.”
“Nothing can be said about the professional quality of the translation given the small volume and simplicity of the texts. From the excerpt available on the website, it is clear that the translation is content-accurate, but no more than that. Let me emphasize: the material is so ‘technically’ simple that any diligent graduate of a university translation program could have completed it to a similar standard in just a few days. For reference, I received the Maksym Rylsky Prize in 2015 for translating Dante’s Inferno, a project that spanned nearly two decades of my life (last year, this work was also honored with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic). I do not claim that only translations of such complexity should contend for the Rylsky Prize, but they certainly should not be as primitively simple. This shadow of criticism will inevitably now fall on the Maksym Rylsky Prize,” Maksym Strikha noted.
“British citizen Andrew Sheppard is a translator from Russian (including works by some Russian-speaking authors from Ukraine) and… the editor of the journal of the Great Britain-Russia Society, East-West Review. How appropriate is it to honor a person from this milieu with a Ukrainian state award, particularly at this time? The reputation of the once-professional Maksym Rylsky Prize has been dealt a severe blow: from now on, it can be awarded for anything and to anyone, provided it is packaged in the right ‘wrapping.’ It is doubtful that any respected Western translators or publishers of Ukrainian literature will now want to engage with this Ukrainian prize. Personally, I will now be ashamed to sign as a ‘laureate of the Maksym Rylsky Prize.’ This will no longer signify real high status in translation or a substantial socially significant translation contribution. With deep regret, I acknowledge that after this Committee decision, the Maksym Rylsky Prize no longer has a future as an instrument of support for translations into and from Ukrainian. I announced my resignation from the Committee at the end of the session. Undoubtedly, the Committee will continue to meet and make decisions in future years, but it will have very little relevance to contemporary Ukrainian translation,” Strikha added.
Summarizing all the facts, one could hypothesize that the story orchestrated by Taisia Yusupova with the book Irpin — My Home may have been a well-planned operation by pro-Russian forces or Russian intelligence aimed at discrediting Ukrainian culture, the prestigious Maksym Rylsky Literary Prize, and the high reputation of our publishing industry. After all, there are many pro-Russian traces in this story: Taisia Yusupova herself, with connections to occupied territories; Markushyn, who awarded reconstruction contracts in Irpin to an associate of terrorist accomplice Nestor Shufrych; the pro-Russian Briton Andrew Sheppard; and the deliberate discreditation of Ukrainian identity.