Verbnitsa

The 2022 Mikhas Strattsov Literary Prize was awarded to Antonina Khatenka for faithfulness to classical literary traditions, the thematic and figurative richness of the language, popularization of folk customs and rituals through poetic means, by the decision of the jury consisting of Alena Stratsova, Uladzimir Nyaklyaev, Barys Petrovich, Mikhas Skobla and Oksana Sprinchan. In the space of the book “Verbnica” bright, emotionally sharp poems of the author, created at the end of the 20th century, and deep, contemplative works of recent times came together in harmony. Poetry, prose, and essays fully reveal the aesthetics and spiritual values of the generation that had the chance to live and create at the crossroads of eras. The distinctiveness of the artistic style, the figurative, metaphorical understanding of such philosophical categories as life and death, the fluidity of earthly existence and eternity, light and darkness, good and evil, create a unique sample of the author’s assumptions, discoveries, insights on the way to knowing oneself in the world and the world in oneself . Lyrically subtly, almost touchingly, the poet combines the old fashionedness, preserved in the people’s memory, and the pulsation of everyday life with her thoughts, words, intuition, and sound recording. The melody and rhythm of the works, the richness of semantic nuances and an almost metaphysical perception of the world, the feeling of one’s land, one’s culture, one’s beginning imperceptibly unfold immeasurable horizons and seem to demystify the selling codes of our presence here and now, in the day and night of the past and the future.