Christine Lysnewycz Holbert is a first-generation American whose parents fled Ukraine after World War II.
"It's amazing being the child of refugees," says Lysnewycz Holbert, founder of the small literary publisher Lost Horse Press, which recently began publishing a series featuring Ukrainian poets.
Lysnewycz Holbert was raised as an only child in New York during the 1950s and '60s by her Ukrainian parents, Stefan Lysnewycz and Marta Kruk Lysnewycz. The two met while working in Nazi labor camps.
Her parents escaped the country when they fooled officials into believing Marta was a deaf-mute from Stefan's village in western Ukraine. That meant if they had questions about her, they'd have to refer to him for the answer. Her true identity as an eastern Ukrainian was masked, and they made their way to freedom.
Once again, Ukraine is facing the terrors of war.
"At first, I was so stunned that I was immobile, frozen, devastated, but not knowing what to do," Lysnewycz Holbert says about the Russian war on Ukraine.
Stefan and Marta are no longer living, but Lysnewycz Holbert has extended family in Lviv in western Ukraine. She's in contact with them every day and says they've been taking in refugees from the east since Russia's invasion. Her family members are safe, but she worries about what's yet to come.
Meanwhile, Lysnewycz Holbert is doing everything she can to provide relief for Ukraine, including collecting donations to send overseas. The local community has been so generous that the warehouse she's volunteering at here is too full to accept more donations.
"Something that does give me hope is the way the world has come together to support Ukrainians," Lysnewycz Holbert says.
Lysnewycz Holbert started Lost Horse Press, a nonprofit, independent press, in 1998 after being the first person to graduate with a publishing degree from Eastern Washington University. (She also co-founded EWU's Get Lit! literary festival.) The press began in her home in Spokane, but moved with her to Sandpoint in 1999. After more than 20 years and some persuading from her son, Lysnewycz Holbert picked up the press and moved back to the area, landing in Liberty Lake.
"I just traded a big lake for a small lake," she says, laughing.
Lost Horse Press publishes work by emerging and experienced poets alike. Lysnewycz Holbert is passionate about recognizing the potential in those just beginning in the field and giving them their first published piece so they can move on to bigger opportunities.
"My press is so small that I don't have any illusions that we're gonna keep [a] poet. I want to be the first step for them," Lysnewycz Holbert says.
For years, Lysnewycz Holbert wished she had a deeper connection to the Ukrainian community and culture. She was unsure how to go about this dream, but a chance finally came after she was introduced by a mutual friend to Grace Mahoney, a doctoral student in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. Mahoney had some Ukrainian manuscripts in need of a press willing to translate them. After Lost Horse Press published those manuscripts, Mahoney and Lysnewycz Holbert began working on its new contemporary Ukrainian poetry series.
"This is my dream starting to come true," Lysnewycz Holbert says.
Not many Ukrainian poets have had their work translated to English. Lysnewycz Holbert knew the series would be the perfect opportunity to strengthen her ties to her family's native culture and teach the Western world about Ukraine.
"They want the world to know about their culture," she says. "They want the world to know who they are."
Lost Horse Press has published eight collections in the series so far. In 2020, the Ukrainian Book Institute, which provides resources like translators and connections to poets, awarded Lost Horse a grant to continue translating and publishing Ukrainian poetry. With that help, the press was able to publish Mountain and Flower by Mykola Vorobiov and Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk.
"I'm hoping that the series will help English-speaking readers understand what is happening and get an idea of what the Ukrainian mind is about," Lysnewycz Holbert says. ♦
Purchase titles in the Lost Horse Ukrainian Contemporary Poetry Series at losthorsepress.org.
