The translation was carried out within the framework of the literary and translation project of the Department of Germanic Philology and translation of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. The initiator of the project was Natalya Lubenska, the head of the project was Maria Ivanytska, the literary editor was Volodymyr Kamyanets.

The book was published in 2024 by the VNTL-Klasyka publishing house in Lviv with the support of the Austrian Cooperation Bureau in Lviv.

Compilers of the edition: Maria Ivanytska and Volodymyr Kamianets.

About the author
Hugo Laurenz Hoffmann von Hofmannsthal is one of the most prominent representatives of Austrian and European symbolism, writer, poet, playwright, founder of the Salzburg Music Festival. Born in 1874 in Vienna, he came from a wealthy noble family and was the only child of Anna and Doctor of Jurisprudence Hugo von Hofmannsthal, a bank director. In 1884, he entered the Vienna Academic Gymnasium, where he proved himself to be an extremely capable young man. The first works of the 16-year-old poet were marked by a mature style, which largely explains his rapid entry into the literary world of Austria. After graduating from high school, he entered the law faculty of the University of Vienna, but after studying for two years, he joined the military service in the dragoon regiment. In 1895, he re-entered the university, studied philology, and defended his thesis in 1898. Hofmannstal was friends with such famous writers as Hermann Bar and Arthur Shnitzler, with the Ukrainian poet and playwright Ivan Krushelnytskyi, and the composer Richard Strauss. After marriage, he lived almost permanently in Rodaun, near Vienna, leading the life of a free writer. During the First World War, he served in the army press center and the diplomatic mission in Scandinavia and Switzerland. He died in Rodaun of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1929.

Hofmannsthal’s work falls on the period of upheavals and upheavals in politics and culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the last years of the Habsburg Monarchy, the First World War and the First Austrian Republic. He is the author of more than 10 well-known dramatic works, several books of impressionist poems, essays on literature and national culture, large and short prose (of which the best-known novel-mystification “Letter of Lord Chandos”), librettos for operas. Being a decadent symbolist, he himself liked to call himself a neo-romantic. The character of his works, their lyricism and drama have practically not changed over the years, and the poetic style was distinguished by the musicality of the rhymes.

Moderator of the event:
Megela Ivan Petrovych, literary critic, translator, critic, laureate of the Maksym Rylsky Prize (2022), doctor of philological sciences, professor, scientific director of the Austrian Library in the National Library of Ukraine named after V. I. Vernadskyi.

About translators
Maria Ivanytska, doctor of philological sciences, professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, research associate of Eberghard and Karl University of Tübingen, scholarship holder of the MSCA4Ukraine Program of the European Commission. Scientific interests: translation studies (literary translation, manipulative strategies in translation, the personality of the translator), German-Ukrainian literary relations, intercultural German studies. In 2016, she defended her doctoral dissertation on the topic “Personal dimension in the history of Ukrainian-German artistic translation (from the middle of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century)”. Among the main publications: the monograph “The personality of the translator in Ukrainian-German literary relations” (Chernivtsi: Knigi -XXI, 2015. 604 p.), publications in Scopus and WoS, articles in professional publications of Ukraine, Germany, and Slovenia. Participant of numerous international conferences, symposiums and internships in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland. Mariya Ivanytska is the author of literary translations, including the works of Austrian authors Peter Turini and Franz Werfel.

Volodymyr Kamianets, Ukrainian translator, associate professor of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, scientific consultant of the Austrian Library in Lviv, participant in various translation projects, author of more than 60 translations of works of fiction and non-fiction on history, philosophy, theater studies, musicology, etc. from the German language into Ukrainian and from Ukrainian into German.