Yuri Rytkheu
Encyclopedia
Yuri Sergeyevich Rytkheu ' onMouseout='HidePop("60753")' href="/topics/Uelen">Uelen
– May 14, 2008, Saint Petersburg
) was a Chukchi writer, who wrote in both his native Chukchi
and in Russian
. He is considered to be the father of Chukchi literature.
, was then in the Chukotka District, Far Eastern Territory, RSFSR, USSR; it is now part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
. His grandfather was a shaman.
At birth, he was given the name ”Rytkheu”, which means ”unknown” in the Chukchi language
. Since Soviet institutions did not recognize Chukchi names and the Chukchi do not commonly use surnames, in order to obtain his passport he used his first name as his surname and assumed the first name and patronymic
of a Russian geologist he knew.
Rytkheu graduated from the Soviet 7-year school in Uelen. He wanted to continue his education at the Institute of the Peoples of the North
, but was not selected to study there, because of his young age. Consequently, he decided to go to Leningrad
on his own, to continue his study. This travel was delayed for several years. In order to earn money for this journey, the future writer took odd jobs; for instance, he worked on the seas and on geological expeditions and trapped animals, stevedore
d at a hydrography
base. Rytkheu moved to Anadyr
and enrolled in a vocational school
. In 1947 he started writing articles for the Anadyr district-based magazine Soviet Chukotka (Советская Чукотка), which published his first stories and poems. In Anadyr, Rytkheu met the Leningrad-based scholar Pyotr Skorik, who was leading a linguistic expedition in the area and who was responsible for helping the young writer move to Leningrad.
From 1949 until 1954 Rytkheu studied literature at Leningrad State University. He was only slightly older than 20 when his works started appearing in Young Leningrad (Молодой Ленинград), and then later on in other periodicals such as Ogonyok
, Young World
(Молодой мир), The Far East (Дальний Восток) and Youth (Смена). In 1953, the publishing company Young Guard published his first collection of stories The People of Our Coast (Люди нашего берега), in Russian. This book was later translated into Chukchi by A. Smolyana (А. Смоляна). While still a student, Rytkheu also translated the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy
, Gorki
and Tikhon Syomushkin into Chukchi. In 1954, Rytkheu was accepted into the USSR Union of Writers
.
Upon graduating from Leningrad University, Rytkheu spent a few years living in Magadan
, working as a correspondent for the newspaper Magadanskaya Pravda. After two years in Magadan, a collection short stories Chukotkan Saga (Чукотская сага) was published, and brought the writer recognition from both Soviet and foreign readers.
After Magadan, he moved to Leningrad, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1967, Rytkheu joined the Communist Party
. Rytkheu travelled extensively around the world on creative trip
s and with cultural and goodwill visits. As Rytkheu spoke fluent English, he was invited to give lectures at American universities. He also worked with UNESCO
for a time.
Rytkheu died in Saint Petersburg
May 14, 2008, after a long battle with myeloma. He is buried in Komorovskoe Cemetery near the grave of his wife.
. However, through Chinghiz Aitmatov
, he met with Swiss publisher Lucien Leitess who signed a contract to publish Rytkheu’s works in German, and who would go on to become his literary agent. Rytkheu’s works were introduced to readers in France
, Finland
, the Netherlands
, Italy
, Germany
, Spain
, Japan
, and other countries. Тhe German editions of his books have sold more than 250,000 copies and Swiss publisher Unionsverlag has published them in other European languages, as well. The situation in Russia, however, was quite the opposite since the time his book Путешествие в молодости was published in 1991. Since the turn of the millennium, the Governor of Chukotka Roman Abramovich
has sponsored the distribution of a small run of Rytkeu’s works in Russia, approximately one a year, all of which are issued only in Chukotka. The first of these books was a new work called In the Mirror of Forgetfulness (В зеркале забвения).
Rytkheu’s works have been translated into numerous languages, including several national languages of the former USSR. In addition, the composer Eduard Artemyev
set Rytkheu’s poems to music in the 1985 vocal-instrumental suite The Warmth of the Earth (Тепло Земли).
Only a few of his works have been translated into English, including his A Dream in Polar Fog , originally published in 1970, which was published by Archipelago Books in 2005.
Colin Thubron
summarized his career as follows:
In German, the author's name is transliterated
as Juri Rytchëu.
Uelen
Uelen is a rural locality in the Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. Population: 776 in 2003, with 595 Chukchi and 72 Yupik. Located near Cape Dezhnev where the Bering Sea meets the Chukchi Sea, it is the easternmost settlement...
– May 14, 2008, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) was a Chukchi writer, who wrote in both his native Chukchi
Chukchi language
The Chukchi language is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
and in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. He is considered to be the father of Chukchi literature.
Biography
Yuri Rytkheu was born March 8, 1930 to a family of trappers and hunters. His birthplace, the village of UelenUelen
Uelen is a rural locality in the Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. Population: 776 in 2003, with 595 Chukchi and 72 Yupik. Located near Cape Dezhnev where the Bering Sea meets the Chukchi Sea, it is the easternmost settlement...
, was then in the Chukotka District, Far Eastern Territory, RSFSR, USSR; it is now part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , or Chukotka , is a federal subject of Russia located in the Russian Far East.Chukotka has a population of 53,824 according to the 2002 Census, and a surface area of . The principal town and the administrative center is Anadyr...
. His grandfather was a shaman.
At birth, he was given the name ”Rytkheu”, which means ”unknown” in the Chukchi language
Chukchi language
The Chukchi language is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
. Since Soviet institutions did not recognize Chukchi names and the Chukchi do not commonly use surnames, in order to obtain his passport he used his first name as his surname and assumed the first name and patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
of a Russian geologist he knew.
Rytkheu graduated from the Soviet 7-year school in Uelen. He wanted to continue his education at the Institute of the Peoples of the North
Institute of the Peoples of the North
The Institute of the Peoples of the North was a research institute based in Leningrad. Its objective was to examine topics related to the northern minorities in the Soviet Union...
, but was not selected to study there, because of his young age. Consequently, he decided to go to Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
on his own, to continue his study. This travel was delayed for several years. In order to earn money for this journey, the future writer took odd jobs; for instance, he worked on the seas and on geological expeditions and trapped animals, stevedore
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
d at a hydrography
Hydrography
Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...
base. Rytkheu moved to Anadyr
Anadyr (town)
Anadyr is a port town and the administrative centre of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the extreme north-eastern region of Russia. It is at the mouth of the Anadyr River, on the tip of the southern promontory that sticks out into Anadyrskiy Liman...
and enrolled in a vocational school
Vocational school
A vocational school , providing vocational education, is a school in which students are taught the skills needed to perform a particular job...
. In 1947 he started writing articles for the Anadyr district-based magazine Soviet Chukotka (Советская Чукотка), which published his first stories and poems. In Anadyr, Rytkheu met the Leningrad-based scholar Pyotr Skorik, who was leading a linguistic expedition in the area and who was responsible for helping the young writer move to Leningrad.
From 1949 until 1954 Rytkheu studied literature at Leningrad State University. He was only slightly older than 20 when his works started appearing in Young Leningrad (Молодой Ленинград), and then later on in other periodicals such as Ogonyok
Ogonyok
Ogoniok is one of the oldest weekly illustrated magazines in Russia, issued since . It was re-established in the Soviet Union in 1923 by Mikhail Koltsov....
, Young World
Young World
Young World is a newspaper for children. It is an edition of the well-known Dawn. It has stories contributed by children with pictures too! It has reviews of books, movies, songs and websites. It also has News Update section in the end where news for children are present. There are small articles...
(Молодой мир), The Far East (Дальний Восток) and Youth (Смена). In 1953, the publishing company Young Guard published his first collection of stories The People of Our Coast (Люди нашего берега), in Russian. This book was later translated into Chukchi by A. Smolyana (А. Смоляна). While still a student, Rytkheu also translated the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
, Gorki
Gorki
Gorki may refer to:*Gorki, Russia, name of several inhabited localities in Russia*Gorki , originally named "Gorky", Belgian band of Luc De Vos-See also:*Gorki , a station of the Kazan Metro, Kazan, Russia*Gorky...
and Tikhon Syomushkin into Chukchi. In 1954, Rytkheu was accepted into the USSR Union of Writers
USSR Union of Writers
The USSR Union of Writers, or Union of Soviet Writers was a creative union of professional writers in the USSR. It was founded in 1932 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party after disbanding a number of other writers' organizations: RAPP, Proletkult, and VOAPP.The aim of...
.
Upon graduating from Leningrad University, Rytkheu spent a few years living in Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
, working as a correspondent for the newspaper Magadanskaya Pravda. After two years in Magadan, a collection short stories Chukotkan Saga (Чукотская сага) was published, and brought the writer recognition from both Soviet and foreign readers.
After Magadan, he moved to Leningrad, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1967, Rytkheu joined the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. Rytkheu travelled extensively around the world on creative trip
Creative trip
A creative trip is a trip whose purpose is to bring an inspiration or information for a creative work.-Soviet Union:In the Soviet Union, creative trips were a kind of business trips for creative workers with expenses paid by Soviet creative unions....
s and with cultural and goodwill visits. As Rytkheu spoke fluent English, he was invited to give lectures at American universities. He also worked with UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
for a time.
Rytkheu died in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
May 14, 2008, after a long battle with myeloma. He is buried in Komorovskoe Cemetery near the grave of his wife.
Works
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, his works were no longer published in the new post-Soviet states. Finding himself in a difficult position, he even said that he would emigrate to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. However, through Chinghiz Aitmatov
Chinghiz Aitmatov
Chyngyz Aitmatov was a Soviet and Kyrgyz author who wrote in both Russian and Kyrgyz. He was the best known figure in Kyrgyzstan's literature.- Life :...
, he met with Swiss publisher Lucien Leitess who signed a contract to publish Rytkheu’s works in German, and who would go on to become his literary agent. Rytkheu’s works were introduced to readers in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and other countries. Тhe German editions of his books have sold more than 250,000 copies and Swiss publisher Unionsverlag has published them in other European languages, as well. The situation in Russia, however, was quite the opposite since the time his book Путешествие в молодости was published in 1991. Since the turn of the millennium, the Governor of Chukotka Roman Abramovich
Roman Abramovich
Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich is a Russian businessman and the main owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC.In 2003, Abramovich was named Person of the Year by Expert, a Russian business magazine. He shared this title with Mikhail Khodorkovsky...
has sponsored the distribution of a small run of Rytkeu’s works in Russia, approximately one a year, all of which are issued only in Chukotka. The first of these books was a new work called In the Mirror of Forgetfulness (В зеркале забвения).
Rytkheu’s works have been translated into numerous languages, including several national languages of the former USSR. In addition, the composer Eduard Artemyev
Eduard Artemyev
Eduard Nikolaevich Artemyev is a Russian composer of electronic music and film scores. Outside of Russia he is mostly known for his film scores from films such as Solaris, Siberiade, Stalker or Burnt by the Sun.-Biography:...
set Rytkheu’s poems to music in the 1985 vocal-instrumental suite The Warmth of the Earth (Тепло Земли).
Only a few of his works have been translated into English, including his A Dream in Polar Fog , originally published in 1970, which was published by Archipelago Books in 2005.
Colin Thubron
Colin Thubron
Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, CBE is a British travel writer and novelist.In 2008, The Times ranked him 45th on their list of the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. His books...
summarized his career as follows:
For his earlier books, there are those who never forgave him. His slavish pursuit of the Party line and open repudiation of his people’s traditions are embarrassingly manifest in works that celebrate the (nonexistent) transformation of his native Chukotka into a Soviet paradigm. ... But by the late 1970s, as the slow literary thaw continued, he started to write differently. Perhaps influenced by the derevenshchiki, the “village writers” who turned for their values to the unspoiled countryside, he began to extol precisely the Chukchi oral culture that he had once repudiated.
Into English
-
- Reborn to a Full Life, (Moscow : Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1977).
- From Nomad Tent to University, (Moscow : Novosti Press Agency, 1980).
- Old Memyl Laughs Last: Short Stories, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, no date).
- A Dream in Polar Fog, trans. by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse (Archipelago Books, 2006). ISBN 978-0977857616
- The Chukchi Bible, trans. by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse (Archipelago Books, 2009).
Into German
In German, the author's name is transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
as Juri Rytchëu.
-
- Der Mondhund ISBN 3-293-00351-6
- Unna ISBN 3-293-20341-8
- Der letzte Schamane ISBN 3-293-20295-0
- Die Reise der Anna Odinzova ISBN 3-293-20230-6
- Traum im Polarnebel (1993) ISBN 3-293-20034-6 (A Dream in Polar Fog)
- Die Suche nach der letzten Zahl ISBN 3-293-20095-8
- Wenn die Wale fortziehen ISBN 3-293-20049-4
- Unter dem Sternbild der Trauer ISBN 3-293-20085-0
- Im Spiegel des Vergessens ISBN 3-293-20215-2 (In the Mirror of Forgetfulness)
Honours
- Maxim Gorky RSFSR State Prize (1977), for the novel, "The end of the Permafrost" (Конец вечной мерзлоты).
- Orders: Order of the Red Banner of LabourOrder of the Red Banner of LabourThe Order of the Red Banner of Labour was an order of the Soviet Union for accomplishments in labour and civil service. It is the labour counterpart of the military Order of the Red Banner. A few institutions and factories, being the pride of Soviet Union, also received the order.-History:The Red...
, Order of Friendship of PeoplesOrder of Friendship of PeoplesThe Order of Friendship of Peoples was an order of the Soviet Union, and was awarded to persons , organizations, enterprises, military units, as well as administrative subdivisions of the USSR for accomplishments in strengthening of inter-ethnic and international friendship and cooperation, for...
, Order of the Badge of HonorOrder of the Badge of HonorThe Order of the Badge of Honour was a civilian award of the Soviet Union.It was instituted on 25 November 1935 and conferred on citizens of the USSR for outstanding achievements in production, scientific research and social, cultural and other forms of social activity, for promotion of economic,...