The book “Irpin – My Home” topped the list of literary scandals of 2024 according to the authoritative Ukrainian publication about literature and publishing, “Chytomo.” This was reported in the article “Discredited Awards and Failed State Procurement Programs: Literary Scandals of 2024.”
The publication of the book, initiated by the controversial black PR specialist and PR consultant for the mayor of Irpin, Taisia Yusupova, was confidently labeled by Chytomo experts as “Discrediting the Rylsky Award.”
“2024 began with a scandal surrounding the Maksym Rylsky Translation Prize. One of its laureates was Dmytro Drozdovskyi, a translator and editor-in-chief of the magazine ‘Vsesvit,’ who had previously been at the center of plagiarism scandals. Drozdovskyi received the award in the category ‘Translation of works by Ukrainian classics and contemporary authors into world languages’ for the English translation of the collection ‘Irpin – My Home.’ This collection of poems by children from Irpin who experienced occupation drew numerous criticisms from other translators, particularly from translator Yaroslava Strikha, a member of the Maksym Strikha committee, who accused it of low quality, clumsy text, and errors. The cultural community, led by the Translatorium team, issued an open letter to the organizers of the prize calling for the decision to be revoked. However, despite the wave of criticism, the decision was not reconsidered,” stated the article on Chytomo.
For the first time in the history of the Maksym Rylsky Literary Award, an international-level scandal erupted. The awarding committee decided to nominate British translator Andrew Sheppard for the Rylsky Award for 2023 in the category “For translation of works by Ukrainian classics and contemporary authors into world languages” for his English translation of the children’s collection “Irpin – My Home.” This book became the most scandalous in the history of the Rylsky Award due to its Russian trace.
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 collection was handled by Taisia Yusupova, Markushyn’s PR specialist. The book was submitted for the Maksym Rylsky Literary Award, which, according to the regulations, was to be presented on March 19, 2024.
However, for the first time in the history of this prestigious award, it was presented as late as November 12, following the biggest scandal in the award’s existence. This scandal had a Russian connection.
Taisia Yusupova and Oleksandr Markushyn involved Andrew Sheppard, who has close ties to Russia, in translating the book “Irpin – My Home.” Sheppard is a member of the editorial board of the “East-West Review,” a journal of the Great Britain-Russia Society.
The pro-Russian connection also extends to project coordinator Taisia Yusupova. According to a publication by “Novyi Format,” Taisia Valeriivna Yusupova is a black PR specialist and formerly the chief editor of the TV program “Orel i Reshka.”
“Taisia Yusupova, originally from Zaporizhzhia, moved to the city of Irpin in 2023. According to media reports, she is the partner of the current mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn. Publicly available data from the YouControl system shows that Taisia Valeriivna Yusupova was registered as a private entrepreneur on July 8, 2022, with two types of activities (73.11 Advertising Agencies and 63.99 Other Information Services). OpenData system records indicate that Yusupova is divorced from her previous husband Ihor Olehovych Kobtsev, who is the founder of the ‘Revival of Donbas’ Credit Union operating in Alchevsk, Luhansk region, which has been occupied since 2014. Ukrainian security agencies should investigate the founders of the ‘Revival of Donbas’ Credit Union for potential involvement in establishing separatist governance structures of the terrorist organization ‘LPR’ in Alchevsk, Luhansk region. Since the enterprise is still registered in occupied territory, questions arise about whom it pays taxes to and whether it is thus funding Russian terrorism in Ukraine,” the publication states.
The pro-Russian connection also extends to Oleksandr Markushyn, the mayor of Irpin. Recently, the media reported a large-scale scheme involving the embezzlement of local budget funds allocated for rebuilding the affected community by Markushyn’s entourage. This included his main contractor Serhiy Rosstalny. According to YouControl, Serhiy Valeriyovych Rosstalny was an aide to Nestor Shufrych, a People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions. On September 3, former regionalist Nestor Shufrych was charged with financing the Russian National Guard in Crimea. The investigation claims Shufrych paid Russians for paramilitary security of his elite property on the peninsula. In just three months of 2016, his company paid over 500,000 Russian rubles to the occupiers. In the summer of 2024, “Nezlamni.City” published an article titled “525 million from the budget for the mayor’s friends and how to earn 170,000 UAH with a salary of 6,000 UAH: Life hacks from the IMR,” and “Rezonsans” published an article titled “The mayor of Irpin’s entourage received 525 million from the budget for post-war reconstruction.”
Returning to the Maksym Rylsky Award itself, on February 26, 2024, the award committee sent materials regarding the award to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy (MCIP) for submission to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
On June 7, 2024, the Cabinet considered the draft order for awarding the Maksym Rylsky Prize for 2023 and returned it to the MCIP for further processing on June 10.
On July 24, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting and the MCIP held a joint meeting to finalize the selection of candidates for the award. Based on the meeting results, the State Committee submitted the draft order to the MCIP on August 2.
Prominent Ukrainian scholar and translator Maksym Strikha, a member of the award committee, criticized the proposed candidates and resigned from the committee. In his opinion, the work of the translators awarded did not meet the criteria for such recognition in terms of complexity, artistic quality, or public resonance.
Shortly thereafter, the literary translation festival community Translatorium and members of the “Translators in Action” initiative launched a letter from Ukrainian translators to the Cabinet of Ministers and the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, requesting the cancellation of the award results and the dismissal of the current committee. Specifically, concerns were raised about the laureate, British translator Andrew Sheppard, who is an editor of the “East-West Review,” a journal of the Great Britain-Russia Society.
Among translators, discussions also began about manipulations by Markushyn and Yusupova regarding this book. It is claimed that, according to the award regulations, the book must be published no later than six months before its nomination for the award. During the review of the collection “Irpin – My Home,” committee members were informed that the book was approved for publication on March 3, 2023. However, this is not true.
The collection was published by “Samit-Knyha.” A post on the “Samit-Knyha” publisher’s page from April 3, 2023, mentions the signing of a Memorandum with the mayor of Irpin for the joint publication of the children’s collection “Irpin – My Home.” This same post invited children to become authors of the collection.
On the website of the Irpin City Council, a digital copy of the book indicates the publication approval date as May 22, 2023.
The publication was presented on June 1, while the nominees for the award were announced by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting on November 6.
On January 26, 2024, Maksym Strikha published an article titled “How the Rylsky Award Was Killed?” which clearly explained the manipulations surrounding the award. Here is the text of the article:
“The Maksym Rylsky Literary Award for achievements in artistic 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 ‘silent’ Soviet times, when the Shevchenko Award was mostly given for now-uninteresting ‘masterpieces of socialist realism,’ the laureates of the translation award were primarily individuals who made significant contributions to Ukrainian literature, contributions that have not yet aged. Among them were Mykola Tereshchenko (the first laureate for a two-volume anthology of French poetry), Dmytro Bilous, Vasyl Mysyk, Yevhen Drobiazko, Borys Ten, Dmytro Pavlychko, Andriy Sodomora, Raul Chilachava, and others. During the ‘perestroika’ wave, the awarding of this prize marked the triumphant return to literature of the ‘proscribed’ tragic geniuses of our translation from the 1970s, Mykola Lukash and Hryhoriy Kochur.
During the independence period, this award honored many worthy individuals whose works truly form the foundation of the Ukrainian-language corpus of world classics and contemporary foreign literature. In 2019, another nomination 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 has emerged: those who today form the new ‘elite’ of our translation community, with numerous significant translations published by leading publishers, have almost lost interest in the award. The second nomination mostly featured Ukrainian translators (often with texts also published in Ukraine), who by definition could not have widespread international resonance.”
“But the award nevertheless existed and enjoyed respect until January 24 of this year when an event occurred that seems likely to change all this fundamentally. I will try to explain why this decision essentially means the ‘killing’ of a once-respected award. Let’s see how the book ‘Irpin – My Home’ meets these criteria.”
“Regarding the professional quality of the translation, there’s virtually nothing to say, given the small volume and simplicity of the texts. As can be seen from the excerpt posted online, the translation is content-wise adequate, but nothing more. Emphasizing: the material is so ‘technically’ simple that any diligent graduate of any university’s translation specialization could have translated it at approximately the same level in a few days. I myself received the Maksym Rylsky Award in 2015 for translating Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ a project that took me nearly two decades to complete (last year, this work was also honored with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic). I’m not claiming that the Maksym Rylsky Award should be awarded exclusively for works of such complexity. But certainly not for something so primitively simple. The shadow of these accusations will inevitably fall on the Maksym Rylsky Award from now on,” notes Maksym Strikha.
“Andrew Sheppard, a British citizen, is a translator from Russian (having translated several Russian-speaking authors from Ukraine) and… editor of the British-Russian Society’s journal ‘East-West Review.’ How appropriate is it to honor a person from this circle with a Ukrainian state award right now? The reputation of the previously professional Maksym Rylsky Award has been severely damaged: from now on, it can be awarded for anything and to anyone, as long as it is ‘packaged’ in the right ‘wrapper.’ It is unlikely that any respected Western translators or publishers of Ukrainian literature will want to engage with the Ukrainian award now… Personally, I will now be ashamed to sign as ‘laureate of the Maksym Rylsky Award.’ This will no longer signify either a real high status in translation or a significant societal contribution in translation. With regret, I state that after such a decision by the Committee, the Maksym Rylsky Award no longer has a future as a tool for supporting translations into and from Ukrainian. At the end of the meeting, I announced my resignation from the Committee. Because undoubtedly, in the following years, the members of this Committee will gather and make some decisions. But this will have very little connection to contemporary Ukrainian translation,” adds Maksym Strikha.
Summarizing all the facts, it can be assumed that the story orchestrated by Taisia Yusupova with the book ‘Irpin – My Home’ could have been a carefully planned operation by pro-Russian forces or Russian special services to discredit Ukrainian culture, the respected Maksym Rylsky Literary Award, and the high reputation of our publishing industry. There are too many pro-Russian traces in this story. This includes Taisia Yusupova herself with connections to the occupied territories, Markushyn with his contracts for the reconstruction of Irpin for the aide of terrorist accomplice Nestor Shufrych, the pro-Russian Briton Andrew Sheppard, and the deliberate discreditation of Ukrainian identity.”